Thursday, September 18, 2014

How Culture Shapes Our Perspective

How Culture Shapes Our Perspective?

     Depending on your culture you have different perspective on some situations. You are brought up in a specific culture and taught things as you grow up that shapes you. Its almost like raising a dog. If you abuse that dog and mistreat the dog it will turn out aggressive and not pleasant but if you raised the dog with proper discipline, love, and kindness then it will become a mans best friend. The reason why the dogs act that way is because of their perspective of what humans are. Because they grew up in a home where they are treated a certain way by humans they then assume all humans are that same way from their perspective.
     As americans we grow up learning that our people and our country is good and that they are the right country, but it is simply all through perspective. I mean some people in america and america in general can be very ethnocentric. They assume that we are right and that in other countries who decide to go about their ordeals another way are terrorists or less fortunate or bad. But if you would just look at the perspective of other countries you would see that they think we are the terrorists and that we are less fortunate. They are taught by their culture to think these things.
     A personal example I have is the different cultures on the mainland to Hawaii. I was taught as I was growing up to call your older male figures or people in your life uncle and the female ones aunty. I was having my friend who had recently moved to Hawaii from the mainland over for a sleepover. She was calling my dad and mom Mr. and Mrs. Awana. That was so weird for me... I told her that she could and should call them uncle Jeff and aunty Renee, but she said that it was sort of disrespectful. We both thought that each other was crazy and that we were right and the other person is wrong.
     I think that as you grow up you go through socialization and learn your culture and really become apart of it. I also think that because of that you have different perspectives, opinions, and ideas than people from other cultures, Now I know that there is definitely not always super definite cultures. Many go through what is called acculturation and adopt parts of other cultures so its hard to pick one one definite culture for each person. Each person is like a puzzle of different cultures that creates this picture of who they are. Each picture is different. Sometimes completely opposite and sometimes almost exactly the same just like our perspectives. The last thing I would like to say is that it would be so much easier to comprehend each persons puzzle or perspective if we could all be ethno-relative and open our eyes and understand that we are not the only culture out there. So many opinions, perspectives, and cultures that make it hard for us to understand one another. 
     When you look at a situation we need to think "What other perspectives do people have on this?" and "How does this affect other people and their cultures?". Culture is truly amazing to me. You can see how diverse we all are and without it we would not be anyone we would not be different and opinionated. Our culture makes you who you are. It makes you think the way you think and it makes you act the way you act.

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