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In a message dated 8/8/02 1:31:52 PM, rsale515@... writes:

<< > To overlay American
> sensibilties on their motives is just ethnocentricism.

Sandra,

I don't get this, and can't for the life me understand why some are
congratulating you for it. Please enlighten me.
>>

I can't say why they're congratulating me, but to talk of mid-20th century
Germans as though they were Americans from 2002 doesn't make sense. It makes
rhetorical sense (in the rhetoric-as-sneaky-tricks sense) but not
historical, geographical, sociological, anthropological or logical sense.

It's a little like saying the Catholic church in 1550 was violating the civil
rights of heretics by not reading them their Miranda rights and that they
should have respected their freedom of religion in the first place.

To look at all the world through American eyes and judge them ignorant or
backward or mean or anything by our current standards and under our current
laws is to think and act as though we (current Americans, or in Ned's case
current American Libertarians) are the holders of pure truth and right, and
that others are slackers who should get with the (our) program. That is
ethnocentrism. It's a macro-political version of the descriptions of
toddlers' awareness of themselves and the world. If a toddler is a boy he
might think not being a boy is wrong. If he has short hair he might think
not having short hair is wrong. If he sleeps in his own bed, another toddler
sleeping somewhere else is wrong. They generalize from a small set of
specific knowledge.

If you want other descriptions and examples, here are some good ones I found
with google.com

http://www.iupui.edu/~anthkb/ethnocen.htm

http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Speech/rccs/theory36.htm

http://www.me-ontarget.com/Ethnocentrism.htm


Sandra