Understanding the Self- Anthropology PDF

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A N T H R O P O L O G YACTIVITY IIIWrite your thoughts about these: When have you experienced cultural differences?Think about a setting in which you have worked/interacted with different people from a range of backgrounds. These differing backgrounds may have been about nationality but also about s...

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ANTHROPOLOGY ACTIVITY III Write your thoughts about these: When have you experienced cultural differences? Think about a setting in which you have worked/interacted with different people from a range of backgrounds. These differing backgrounds may have been about nationality but also about social class difference, religion difference, or about other features, such as ethnicity. How did cultural differences and differing ways of doing things according to culture become visible? List some of these. Answer: I have a friend that has different religious beliefs than me. He is an Iglesia ni Cristo and I am Roman Catholic. He always brag and believes that his religion is higher than my religion. Another example is when we, the Roman Catholics celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ, he always says that there is no specific date because it is not written in the Bible. He always thinks he has all the answers to the questions of life and has to insist that anyone who thinks differently is lacking in some capacity. But, for me nothing is different as I never think them differently. If anyone is good human being then it does not matter whether they belong from any other religion or not. It is not that every religious person has an identical type of experience at all times. Religion needs nothing but a man's wholeness, based on a holistic view. In the layers of speech, and not at one stroke, this wholeness shows itself. When he is a child, there is a clear degree of wholeness exposed, another degree when he is an adult, and so forth. So, whether it's connected to some religion, my relationship would never affect me. So there is No discrimination against anyone on basis of religion. This is the noblest thought we must apply in our practical life.

ASSESSMENT III Essay: Answer the following questions briefly. Differences are influenced by where people live, socioeconomic backgrounds, levels of education, religion, and individual lived experiences. These factors influence how people view and read their world (Gee, 1996; Vygotsky, 1986). Diversity exists within any cultural group. And it is common that people make generalizations based on unexamined assumptions and perceptions that can sustain stereotypes. Why is generalization dangerous and how do you avoid it? Answer: Negative thoughts are everywhere, no matter how hard we try to stop them, it always waiting to lead us off track and to distract us. Negative thinking can weigh us down and make it impossible for us to work or make the big decisions that really matter in day-to-day life. We have to learn how to overcome and replace our negative thoughts and feelings if we want to find our way back to happiness again. The basis for understanding other cultures and their sub-or cocultures is to be conscious of and understand the patterns of the cultures to which one belongs.

With this process, cultural generalizations can assist us. The categorization of members of the same group as having identical characteristics requires cultural generalizations. Our minds are so hungry for the impression of understanding other cultures and certainty about our surrounding reality that based on little real experience or little relevant experience, we often form large, sweeping conclusions. We depend on these conclusions to judge and belittle other culture. And guess what happens when we judged based on flawed ideas? We end up hurting other people, large and small, and instead of changing our lives, we mess up other’s lives. The most dangerous assumptions that we create by over-generalizing are possibly in the form of restricting beliefs. This approach either generates groups based on similar criteria patterns or describes patterns based on other criteria, such as national boundaries, that occur within a community. If the generalization rests on too small a sample, it may describe some unusual quality that is not represented widely in the group as a whole. This is why it is not a good idea to generalize from having met a few members of an existing group; they probably are not representative of the group. Basing a generalization purely on personal experience is likely to be inaccurate. The first thing we need to do to avoid generalization is having awareness about our culture. We have to be mindful of and deal with our own biases and prejudices against a specific community. Knowledge of our own cultural values helps us avoid imposing our views and values on members of another group. Second is cultural knowledge, we have prejudices, so we need to think about other people in a cultural way. We have to learn more about other cultures, especially their values, beliefs, and ways of life. One field where we need information is bio cultural ecology, so we can know what diseases are common to a specific community and what drugs might be contraindicated. Lastly, is to start paying conscious attention to your thinking and the ideas from which you work, because generalization is a thought process and it creates ideas about yourself, life and others. Even though these ideas may seem true to you, they are in fact the product of hasty, exaggerated generalizations and they misrepresent truth to a large degree. Different cultural groups may display different cultural backgrounds at the national level. It enables us, through these communities, to learn and understand different positions in our own community. If the cultural community is generalized, our history of knowledge, thoughts, and style of life will eventually generalize....