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    Who Is Normal, Anyway?: Chauvinism

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    1) People from most cultures view their own culture as normal and others as abnormal. English people see foreigners as abnormal, Americans think their country is the best, and other nationalities like Spaniards, French, Japanese, and Germans believe they possess certain superior traits. 2) If a culture sees itself as normal, they see all other cultures as abnormal in some way. For example, Finns see Italians as overly emotional. This cultural conditioning shapes perceptions of other groups. 3) To gain better understanding, people need to examine their own cultural lenses and realize how they influence views of other cultures.

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    Who Is Normal, Anyway?: Chauvinism

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    1) People from most cultures view their own culture as normal and others as abnormal. English people see foreigners as abnormal, Americans think their country is the best, and other nationalities like Spaniards, French, Japanese, and Germans believe they possess certain superior traits. 2) If a culture sees itself as normal, they see all other cultures as abnormal in some way. For example, Finns see Italians as overly emotional. This cultural conditioning shapes perceptions of other groups. 3) To gain better understanding, people need to examine their own cultural lenses and realize how they influence views of other cultures.

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    1) People from most cultures view their own culture as normal and others as abnormal. English people see foreigners as abnormal, Americans think their country is the best, and other nationalities like Spaniards, French, Japanese, and Germans believe they possess certain superior traits. 2) If a culture sees itself as normal, they see all other cultures as abnormal in some way. For example, Finns see Italians as overly emotional. This cultural conditioning shapes perceptions of other groups. 3) To gain better understanding, people need to examine their own cultural lenses and realize how they influence views of other cultures.

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    24 views1 page

    Who Is Normal, Anyway?: Chauvinism

    Uploaded by

    api-19977019
    1) People from most cultures view their own culture as normal and others as abnormal. English people see foreigners as abnormal, Americans think their country is the best, and other nationalities like Spaniards, French, Japanese, and Germans believe they possess certain superior traits. 2) If a culture sees itself as normal, they see all other cultures as abnormal in some way. For example, Finns see Italians as overly emotional. This cultural conditioning shapes perceptions of other groups. 3) To gain better understanding, people need to examine their own cultural lenses and realize how they influence views of other cultures.

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    31573 01 i-xxiv 1-176 r13rm 8/18/05 2:56 PM Page 21

    CULTURAL CONDITIONING 21

    Who Is Normal, Anyway?

    Most English people think they are normal and that all others (whom they call
    “foreigners”) are abnormal—that is to say, they might be all right, but they really
    cannot act and think like the English, because, after all, they are foreign. You
    only have to look at them, you’ll know what that means. . . .

    Chauvinism
    Americans think America is the biggest and the best, the newest and the richest,
    and all others are a bit slow, old-fashioned, rather poor and somewhat on the
    small side. They can’t call the British foreigners, so they call them limeys.
    Spaniards think they are the bravest because they kill bulls, the French think
    they are intellectually superior to everybody else, the Japanese are quite sure
    they are superior to others, including the French. The Germans admit that they
    are not as big as the Americans, as agile as the Japanese, as eloquent as the French
    or as smooth as the British, but what really counts in life? Efficiency, punctuality,
    Gründlichkeit (“thoroughness”), method, consistency and organization, and who
    can match Germans on these counts?
    There are few countries in the world where people do not believe, at the bot-
    tom of their hearts, that they are the best, or the most intelligent, or at least nor-
    mal. Perhaps in Europe the Italians and the Finns are the most innocent in this
    regard, often being willing to criticize themselves before others, yet both still
    consider themselves normal.

    Normal and Abnormal


    If people from each culture consider themselves normal, then the corollary is
    that they consider everybody else abnormal. By this token Finns consider Ital-
    ians overly emotional because they wave their arms while talking. The individu-
    alistic Spaniards consider the Swiss stuffy and excessively law-abiding. Lively
    Italians find Norwegians gloomy. French-influenced Vietnamese find Japanese
    impassive. Most South Americans find Argentineans conceited. Germans think
    Australians are undisciplined. Japanese see straight-talking Americans as rude.
    We can achieve a good understanding of our foreign counterparts only if we
    realize that our “cultural spectacles” are coloring our view of them. What is the
    route to better understanding? To begin with, we need to examine the special
    features of our own culture.

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