C Wright Mills Analysis

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According to C.Wright Mills, individuals who are sociologically imaginative in the society often ask themselves questions such as, ‘What does this specific society as a whole constitute of? Which position does this society take in the history of human? And, what diversity of women and men currently exist in the society this period of time?’ (Mills, 15). To be able to answer such questions, most sociologists have come up with various sociological concepts and theories that explain some of these complex questions. There is quite a huge number of groups of people, every individual with a distinctive view of how to stay alive and prosper. The traditions, rituals, beliefs and customs of a group as a whole make up a different culture, exclusive …show more content…
(Ferrante, 60). This means that they use their own culture as the standard for criticizing the value of unfamiliar ways; one way becomes the core of everything and all the other ways are rated and scaled with regard to it. Other peoples’ cultures are therefore seen as inferior and bizarre. Ethnocentrism, therefore, is the viewpoint that one’s own culture is superior to all the others and thus should be preferred over the others; one’s home culture is therefore used as the standard for judging the value of unfamiliar ways. This is the complete opposite of cultural relativism. There are three forms of ethnocentrism: positive, negative and cultural genocide. Positive form of ethnocentrism makes people feel that their way of life should be preferred to all the others and this gives them a form of identity with their own group and country. Negative form of ethnocentrism is one which entails one’s culture being the core of everything and all the others are rated and scaled with regard to it. Cultural genocide is an acute form of ethnocentrism whereby people of a specific society regard the culture of another society as unpleasant and unbearable, and therefore try to get rid of it. An example of cultural genocide is the incident between 1910 and 1945, where the Japanese tried to eradicate Korean culture; Koreans were given Japanese names, Korean history and literature was ditched and significant symbols of Korean heritage were
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