The Positives and Negatives of Ethnocentricity

Our human nature has always driven us to have ethnocentric attitudes.  Since the first epochs, civilizations and individuals have believed that they have been the best.  Whether it was the Egyptians who ruled a sizable portion of the ancient world, Alexander the Great who conquered territory outside of Greece, or the Roman Empire that covered land through the Mediterranean world, dominating civilizations have tried to impose their customs and beliefs on weaker societies. Today, we are very similar.

Ethnocentric attitudes have a lot of negative consequences. Ethnocentricity can lead people to make poor decisions because they believe that the people they are victimizing have inferior ideas or are simply less important than them.  For example, the Christians of Europe waged Crusades against Islamic civilizations.  Centuries later the Europeans expanded into the Americas and enslaved or killed many of the natives.  More recently, Hitler led a massacre of Jews all over Europe because he believed that Arian (his “race”) was the “master race” and the Jews were less than human.  In this case, ethnocentricity motivated a powerful leader to conduct a killing-spree on a religion he despised.

Though being ethnocentric clearly can lead to terrible consequences, I believe ethnocentricity can have positive affects on society as well as negative ones. Ethnocentricity can be very positive because cultures can learn from each other.  If one civilization believes it is “better” than another, chances are, it will try to either conquer the other civilization, or spread its ideas to it.  This can be a positive thing because when cultures share ideas such as agricultural growing methods and governmental strategies.  Less developed civilizations can improve on their own lives based on these influences.  For instance, Alexander the Great when on a conquest not only to capture neighboring civilizations, but also to spread his culture’s ideas about religion and government.  This conquest would later influence a great number of different civilizations to live life similar to the Greeks, which in my opinion, turned out positively because it inspired modern democracy.

Ethnocentricity can have a positive impact on society because it can influence cultures to learn from each other, but at the same time it can be destructive because it can motivate cultures to destroy each other.