‘Body
Ritual Among the Nacirema’ by Horace Miner is
probably the most distinct essay that I have ever read. The standard of judging
the quality of essays has been how well the words are able to convey the
author’s message or intention to the readers in the most direct and explicit
way. Also, the skills that I thought was necessary to write a high quality
essay were strictly limited to those regarding the abundance and consistency of
the context. However, Horace Miner has changed this train of thought by
introducing a perfect counter example. It was astonishing how Miner shocked
every single one of my classmates who have read the essay, including myself
without even clarifying what his ultimate intentions were. He is basically
being sarcastic about certain ways Americans live which deserve some criticism,
and maximizing the effectiveness of his delivery by referring them to the
rituals of an imaginary tribe called Nacirema.
Although
Nacirema is merely a word that spells ‘American’ backwards, the overwhelming
majority fail to notice it. Miner utilized hard vocabularies and sophisticated rhetoric
in order to make the essay look like an official article related to anthropology.
He replaces simple nouns with fancy words that usually denote religious or
tribal matters, as seen in the examples of the bathroom, and the dentist which
are translated into ‘religious shrines’ and the ‘holy-mouth-men’ respectively. This
whole combination of methods implemented by the author made me feel like a fool
and thus gave me a strong impression of the author’s intention once I realized
what the essay was really about.
Before I
realized that this essay was talking about Americans, I firmly believed that
there was indeed a tribe called Nacirema. It makes me feel even stupid how I
really thought there was a community based on market economy that I have never
heard of between Canada and Mexico, where it has to be the US territory. I even
contemplated the possibility that Nacirema could be something similar to Navajo.
When I wrote a reflective essay under these conditions, I remember vaguely writing
about the importance of respecting cultural diversity as long as they are
compatible with human dignity. My new reflection of my previous response is
that it was clever of the author to take advantage of how people always try to
differentiate themselves from other cultures when they come across such exotic
information, or in this case, familiar information elaborated exotically. I
concede that I am also a victim of the instinct mentioned above. As a student
who loves to study history, I have learned about diverse civilizations and
origins of modern cultures. Unfortunately, opulent information was not always
helpful. I naturally felt the necessity to categorize them with ‘superiority’
and ‘inferiority’, although I always argued its immorality with my mouth. In
this case, the general image that Nacirema’s customs are barbaric and
irrelevant to my life dominated the way I interpreted the essay.
The moment
when Mr. Menard, our English teacher announced the shocking truth of ‘Body Ritual Among the Nacirema’, everyone looked back at
the essay and gave a dubious look. Then we all made a uniform sound, just like
the one you make when a sensational idea strikes your head, and realized how meaningless
our incomplete reflection essays were. For me, everything started to make
sense. The magical potions were cosmetics, ‘latipso’ was ‘hospital’ spelled
backwards without the ‘h’, and the entire essay was being sarcastic about the ‘lookism’
of Americans by repeating the words ‘religious’, ‘ritual’, and ‘magical’.
However, the fact that Miner published this essay in the year 1956 raises
another question: was ‘lookism’ so different from now? My conjecture is that it
is worse now. People these days have wider access to aesthetic enhancers such
as plastic surgeries, cosmetics, and beauty cares due to the development of
technology and colossal demand of the public that satisfy the suppliers. I
believe that is also a factor that contributes to the awe of knowing the truth
of this essay because the subjects of criticisms are portrayed so realistically
as if the author is living in the same decade as us.
Finally, I dare to speak the changes to how I view
the various cultures around the world and interact with them. If I were to
summarize my impression of realizing the truth of Nacirema into one word, I
would say ‘ashamed’. After all this disdain I kept to myself upon the customs
of Nacirema during the first scan, I was ashamed that they were practiced by
the citizens of the strongest country of the period, the United States,
and about present day Korea. I learned that there are no standards of cultural
superiority and inferiority among diverse cultures, and the practices of even
the most developed nations comprehend and follow the basic instincts of humans.
It is just the cover that is different. To a certain extent, the fancy cover
illegitimately provides a reason for differentiation and discrimination
although the essence is similar. Maybe that is why some people argue that
humans are selfish animals.
Even
though ‘Body Ritual Among the Nacirema’ was quite different from the
types of essays I have read so far, I proudly argue that it has brought me the
most significant changes. Not only the stereotype in my head regarding how
essays should be written has drastically changed, but also the lens I view
diverse civilizations with has changed. Miner succeeded in delivering both his
message to the society and a hint of humor, and this effectiveness is what I
consider as the fundamental value of this essay.
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