Culture, Ethnocentrism and Schindler’s List Essay

Culture is made up of values, behaviors, objects, and different characteristics customary to the individuals who ar a part of a certain group or society. It is how we limit and mold ourselves to our societys sh bed principles, enabling us to direct to our society. But until we experience some other socialisation different from our profess, we are not withal aware of what characteristics make up ours. In most cases, we do not acknowledge our elaboration until some other individual breaches nonpareil or our traditions, or we dis go steady some unmatchable elses.If a person takes into tip overation other goals standards and behaviors and understands that there is no right or equip manpowert casualty between the two kitchen-gardenings, then that person has reached ethnical relativism. However, this is difficult to do as it is common for all batch everywhere to place their own farming patterns at the center of things, no matter which agriculture he or she is a part of. When peck do this, cultural conflicts are initiated, as seen in the movie Schindlers List, which portrays a nearly school text example of extreme ethnocentrism.One of the features of any culture, ethnocentrism is the practice of judging another culture based on the standards of ones own culture (Macionis & Plummer, 2010). When a person evaluates another culture, that cultures traditions, customs, language, and other racial practices are compared to his or her own, and finds those mess to be inferior or deject to themselves. This send a management lead to vanity, false pride, and a superiority complex, in regard to ones own ethnicity, resulting in condescending and sometimes tearing behavior towards the other culture.If the people of one culture refuse or placenot understand or adjust to the other peoples culture, fateful consequences arise, that include war and genocide. This is the basis of the Nazi and Judaic cultures seen in Schindlers List. A movie by Steven Spielberg , Schindlers List is the true history of Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi party, a womanizer, a war profiteer, and the saviour of more than 1,100 Jews during the Holocaust of WWII (Spielberg, 1993). The movie opens in Krakow, Germany during WWII, with the initial persecution of the Judaic people living there.Any line of reasoninges and jobs the Judaic people had were taken away by the German military, and they now are being forced into the Ghetto to be crammed together without their possessions and very micro clothing and food. As the movie progresses, the Jewish people face ever-increasing cruelty at the hands of German soldiers. In the meat of all of this is Oskar Schindler who is looking for a way to make a awesome profit from the war. He starts a factory making pots and pans, exploitation the Jewish people living in the Ghetto as laborers.The story is about Schindlers cultural attitude (very German Nazi) that intensifys as he sees the horrible and savage torture and murder of the Jews that work for him. After questioning his Nazi values, he realizes how very wrong the Nazi opinions are of the Jewish culture, and ends up using his own money buying 1,100 Jews from a Nazi commander, in clubhouse to save them from the Auschwitz death battalion. His list contains the names of his workers, whom he buys to start another factory in the Chez Republic.After watching the movie, there was very teensy-weensy that this writer did not find culturally offending. The attitudes of the Germans towards the Jewish people were ones of disgust, hatred, and complete in remainder to any pain, suffering, or fear the Jewish people were experiencing. The movie was filmed absolutely in black and neat (except for the little girls red come out), leaving the viewer to concentre and absorb the Nazis attitudes of cultural superiority over anyone not like them, without the distractions of the colors sur numbering these two conflicting cultures.The red coat is extrem ely important as it symbolizes Schindlers awakening first, as the little girl runs through the Ghetto looking for a place to hide as her people are massacred by German soldiers (witnessed by Oskar) and second, when Schindler witnesses the burning of 10,000 abruptly Jewish bodies heaped on giant burning heap, he sees the dead form of the little girl still wearing the red coat. One cultural difference between the the Statesn culture and the Nazi culture is the forcing of an entire race into one central location, stripping away rights, property, and employment.American culture would not do this, but the Nazi culture considered it their duty to round up and exterminate the vermin living in their country. The Jewish people did not rebel or protest against their treatment from the German soldiers, even when one Jewish man was dragged out of a line by a soldier and shot in the head in forepart of family and friends, for no reason or cause. In another scene of hit-or-miss shooting, a G erman commander used the working Jews inside his camp as target practice.Although the people were working hard and were nearly starved, this Nazi viewed them as nothing more than rats and killed them. A person doing this in America would be arrested, put in jail, and most likely be assumption a death sentence after his trial. Another cultural difference (and one difficult to watch) was the burning of dead bodies in huge piles out in a field. Because the Nazi culture did not consider Jewish people to be human, it was perfectly acceptable to burn the refuse, as it was the quickest and easiest method of eliminating waste.There is no comparison for this to American culture, and the only other justified instance of these vast quantities of burning bodies occurrence in history was during the plagues that hit Europe. It was a major culture shock to this writer to see half burned bodies being pulled out of modify piles, then carted to another burning pile, all done by the Jewish people imprisoned in the camp. Ethnocentrism promotes inequality because the culture who believes it is superior can be the larger or dominant culture compared to other cultures, grownup it the power to create laws that discriminate against anyone that is different.Having supreme power, this culture can change the social and financial status of individuals or ethnic groups, without any concerns or remorse for stripping the very humanity from another culture. The dominant culture increases inequality by segregating any person (or group) judged to be inferior to its own, or force the inferior cultures to give up their values, beliefs, and practices and adopt the dominant cultures beliefs.In extreme ethnocentrism, genocide occurs because the dominant culture believes that other inferior cultures need to be wiped from the face of the Earth, thus ridding the planet of bitchiness and ignorance. Business is not conducted the same way between cultures, so conflicts can happen when the two differ ent cultures are locked to ethnocentrism. One factor is the parley process in which each culture assumes that business will be conducted in its own native language, say English and Japanese.Correct comment is crucial to success if neither culture is willing to do business in a different language other than its own. Certain accents may also reinforce ethnocentrism, creating a negative stereo-type and possibly reinforcing prejudices (Cross-cultural, 2011). A cultures social organization can also cede ethnocentrism conflicts. For example, one culture believes in gender equality while another believes women are inferior to men, and so they have different or no rights compared to the men of that culture.Another conflict between two businesses from different cultures is the use of barbarian labor. Western cultures find these practices horrible and exploitive, but those cultures that allow children to work do not put the value of educating their children above the familys survival. A working child can bring the family the much needed finances to issue survival necessities, such as food, clothing, and shelter for the entire family. As we have seen, culture is very complex and can influence every facial expression of our lives.Ethnocentrism is a universal human reaction that is seen in all cognise societies or groups, and in nearly every individual. Ethnocentrism may seem to embolden solidarity of a group and strengthen loyalty, but it also hinders any discernment of a different group or culture. Because one culture believes their way is the best way, there is no incentive to interact with another culture decided inferior. Positively, this sort of conflict often leads to social change, but negatively, it discourages changes and promotes discrimination, wars, or the genocide of another culture.