Body Ritual Among the Nacirema - Have you read this yet???

[Fate Flyer]

In my Capstone class this quarter (which is very similar to an English class - yay!), our teacher had us read this paper:

CLICK HERE!

If you have not heard of this or read it - you should! There is a huge twist to it, and if you already know what it is, please don't give it away. I will include it here in this post in a Spoiler. So, after you've finished reading through this, click on the Spoiler to find out what the incredible surprise is. Let me say that it won't mean a thing if you read the Spoiler first. I can't stop you if you get overly excited, but you'll only be ruining the entire thing for yourself, so it's up to you.

Once most people have read this (and understand the hidden meaning), I would really love to discuss this with you fine people, along with possible other written works similar to this.



Don't ruin it for yourself! Don't click the Spoiler unless you've read the article!

Spoiler:

[Kalon Ordona II]

That is totally awesome.

I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I won't discuss any of it yet...
But seriously, everyone, it's completely worth the few minutes,
especially if you save the spoiler for the end.

[Guest]

In 1972 Neil B. Thompson revisited the Nacirema after the fall of their civilization. Thompson's paper, unlike Miner's, primarily offered a social commentary focused on environmental issues. Thompson paid special attention to the Elibomotua Cult and their efforts to modify the environment.

The high esteem of the cult is demonstrated by the fact that near every population center, when not disturbed by the accumulation of debris, archeologists have found large and orderly collections of the Elibomotua Cult symbol. The vast number of these collections has given us the opportunity to reconstruct with considerable confidence the principal ideas of the cult. The newest symbols seem to have nearly approached the ultimate of the Nacirema's cultural ideal. Their colors, material, and size suggest an enclosed mobile device that corresponds to no color or shape found in nature, although some authorities suggest that, at some early time in the development, the egg may have been the model. The device was provided with its own climate control system as well as a system that screened out many of the shorter rays of the light spectrum.

_{Above commentary and quote taken from wikipedia.org.}

Gee I wonder what on earth he was talking about there?

[Fate Flyer]

Glad that you enjoyed reading it, Kalon!

Lol, nice find, Agenda! I knew there were more of these (since my teacher had mentioned them), but I wasn't sure where to find the rest.

[Guest]

I thought it was hilarious when I found that second article. Oh and are we done trying to lie low with this or can I offer my point of view?

[Fate Flyer]

Oh, definitely! That's where I plan on this thread going.

[Guest]

Well then if its okay, my personal opinion of the article at first was that it dragged on....extremely....

But after pulling up your Spoiler I laughed my perverbial ass off at the fact that it was centered around our own (for Americans that is) culture.

The oddities of this ancient civilization would seem profound and quite disturbing whenever we imagine these people being half-naked and dancing around fires with war paint chanting "huh yah-yah-yah huh!" This is normally the stereotype we place upon Native American civilations long-past.

However, if you read the spoiler and then place these characteristics on, let's say, men and women in business suits and ties; is the culture any different really? No.

In fact, if all of the logically possible combinations of behavior have not been found somewhere in the world, he is apt to suspect that they must be present in some yet undescribed tribe.

Hmm. Wanna hear a joke?

What do you call someone who speaks three languages? Trilingual.

What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bilingual.

Now, what do you call someone who speaks only one language?

Spoiler:

[Dio the Awesome]

I got the Nacirema thing as soon as they told me where the civilization was located, so that kinda ruined the read for me.

[Kaito]

I lol'd.

This article only shows me yet again how good you can obscure something with words. Say something in a way everyone who isn't in the light will simply misunderstand. I love words.

[Fate Flyer]

Yeah, some of the people in our class got it too when they read the location of 'Nacirema.' (It was spoiled for me, since the kid in my group had already read this and told us that it was America.)


For those needing them, here are the explanations of the things mentioned:

The box or chest/charbox built into the wall of the shrine is a medicine cabinet. The charms inside it are drugs and prescription medicine.

The small font is the sink.

The holy-mouth-men are dentists. The mouth-rite is brushing your teeth.

The daily body ritual performed by men that consists of "scraping and lacerating the surface of the face with a sharp instrument" is shaving. The daily body ritual for women that happens four times each month and consists of "baking their heads in small ovens for about an hour" was drying their hair in one of those blow-driers you see at salons. (This article was written in the '50s, and thus such a thing was more common back then.)

The latipso is a hospital.

The listener is a psychiatrist.

[vitamin_kitten]

Yeah, I read this article back in my high school anthropology class and I remember discovering the truth of the Nacirema. It was so fascinating to me, and I still LOL about it. XD It's interesting to be able to observe your own culture as an outsider (which was the point of the exercise when we were first given the article). I think it would be interesting if someone wrote another article about the modern Nacirema.

[Fate Flyer]

Oh, that's neat that you got to read it in high school, vitamin_kittne. Yeah, I agree. That was basically the point too for us reading it in my class. We were talking about perspectives and viewing things from alternative perspectives.

[Kalon Ordona II]

"The fundamental belief underlying the whole system appears to be that the human body is ugly and that its natural tendency is to debility and disease."

This is so very true. In fact it is the food industry and the medical system that causes most of the problems. The human body doesn't need all that much improving, and it is normal to be healthy. The natural tendency is to be well maintained. It is only under the horrible conditions of modern society that conditions develop and, being "cured" by ingesting poison, result in even worse conditions.

Consider what the overall message of the medical system is: The more bits of yourself you cut off, and the more poison you ingest, the healthier you will be.

Like, "If something doesn't feel perfect, something MUST be wrong, and OH LOOK! there it is; eat some of these chemicals and see if that helps. After a while, if that doesn't work, or it gets worse, come back and we'll cut the problem out for you. DON'T eat foods that haven't been sprayed with poison--BUGS AND GERMS might be on it. Poison is way better for you than those icky guys, after all. I mean, just look at your water: all those chemicals make absolutely CERTAIN that there can be nothing bad in the water you drink. Isn't that nice? Now, remember, whenever you feel like something isn't right, come over here for some MORE poison, because, of course, there's no way your body can be healthy by itself."

Basically, the way I see it... If you're wounded or injured, go straight to a hospital. For most everything else, stay the blip away. Don't eat stuff man has tampered with, don't be a couch potato, and don't stress yourself out, and you'll pretty much be just fine. Humans aren't naturally ugly, and they aren't naturally prone to disease. If they're ugly, it's probably because of something humans did to themselves--like eat bad food, or put kids in public schools where you're only worth something if you're the prettiest. And if they've got a disease, it's because the body was tampered with, not because the body got weak for lack of poison.

[Adrius Frostglare]

*snicker*

General dissatisfaction with breast shape is symbolized in the fact that the ideal form is virtually outside the range of human variation. A few women afflicted with almost inhuman hyper-mamrnary development are so idolized that they make a handsome living by simply going from village to village and permitting the natives to stare at them for a fee.

When I first read that, I thought,"Huh, well, we do that at home, too."

Home sweet home indeed. *cackles*

[medusaspath]

I didn't get the Nacirema part but I pretty much knew what the spoiler was throughout the whole article. The seed was planted in my head when I read "attitudes about the body" above, then the location made me more positive, and then actually reading it just made it 100%.

It was still a good read though. I especially liked the part about brushing your teeth lol. Small bundle of hog hairs.

Don't most people throughout history prefer excreting in solitude? Or am I wrong about that. o_o;; At the very least, in the present day, that's not a specifically American value.. I don't think..lol

[Gadreille]

An anthropological classic

[Kalaam]

Well, considering I have read this article many a time, I simply wondered at some the behavior I considered odd. Like shaving, although I know do this because I have a scraggly beard and it itches. I still don't understand the fixation with hair in our culture though.

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