Culture Shocked by the Yanomamo

In the beginning of this article there was a very strong display of ethnocentrism by the author who gave a harshly critical description of the Yanomamo value system when he first arrived. I think that the Yanomamo provided a very good example of a culture that was very primitive which helped show extremely clear effects of culture shock and the value system of a culture that has barely even been touched by the ever evolving outside world’s influence. For me, I found that the author’s experience of culture shock was actually not that surprising. Normally one would think that being an anthropologist, you would be able to expect things and not be that affected if not at all affected by a culture shock. However the author was not immune from it and I don’t think that anyone who has lived in a non-primitive culture like the Yanomamo will ever be immune from it either.

            Another thing that I was fascinated by was how the Yanomamo’s culture was much more based on respect, NOT violence, although at times I could see how one may see it as violence. I was fascinated by this because it made me think of how our culture was once based on respect, or at least more so based on respect than it is now. As time moves on, our culture has moved away from respect (not necessarily respect through violence) towards one that is based on the trust with others and our honesty we have with others on the hierarchy of social values.

            In class we watched a film on Peter and Santino, two boys who moved from Africa to the United States where they tried to start up a new life. Peter and Santino experienced the culture shock that I was previously talking about that comes from the respect that we have inherently gotten and give to each other. With their culture, they were used to respecting their elders, neighbors, and all people as family while when they came to the United States they experienced a great culture shock because we do not treat strangers or even some of our closer neighbors as family. Instead we treat out neighbors and others with a respect that we have inherently gotten.  The connection between culture shock and ethnocentrism are very close and it is clear that the more ethnocentric you are, then the more of a culture shock you will experience.

I thought that this picture was a funny example of different people experiencing culture shock.

-Tommy Harvey

I apologize for this blog and my next blog being so late, I have been having trouble with how to write this and the next blog because I wanted to do as good as I possibly could on both. I will turn in two "Castelli Coupons" when I turn these blogs in tomorrow.