Ethnicity

SOURCE: Congress.org

There are many to chose from; here are some that come to mind at this time. I must add however, in my own personal view that unless ethnocentric behavior on the part of those who foster it, brings forth or results in something significant, then it is what it is & harms no one else.* ( see my footnote below) I'll define my term of ethnocentrism to those nations believing they have a superior culture or a superior race over those they dominate.

So I begin with 1. The cartography of long ago that placed certain nations at the center of the earth. China under the rule of old dynasties is one such example. This may have resulted in the various nobilities in Chinese dynasties to not be concerned with interference from other nations as clearly China was a kingdom unto itself and if anything, then it needed walls to keep away ambitious but inferior peoples out. Absolute power concentrated within a small group of educated nobles would help that belief. This resulted in suspicion of foreigners and impeded economic & political changes that may have benefited China. 2. Continuous but not initialcolonization ( I call it quiet conquest ) of whole nations of peoples. Normally, this cannot happen in mega nationslike India, unless a sizable number of members of the already ruling classes can benefit by it in some manner. Major powers in Europe, beginning with the Spanish conquistadors, were eager to increase their wealth & power by stealing the resources of a nations that could not defend themselves because of their advanced military capabilities. Therefore, competing European countries such as England, France & Spain sought to dominate Europe by augmenting their wealth from the nations they invaded. These European powers did not have to answer to anyone as they all were monarchies. As time passed, some of them such as Great Britain, became what I'll term "constitutional monarchies" and well into the 20th century, even "democratic" countries. The last colonies that ended were Hong Kong & Macau, released in 1999, or so. Getting back to the early era of colonies, we do find excuses for becoming global super powers. One was that they were bringing "civilization" to backward peoples. In other situations, they were bringing Christianity to the heathen & pagan peoples. At this point I'll give a sharp jab to the British Empire, lest I forget. The Empire is very proud of the fact that early in the 19th century, their parliament, was among the first to abolish the practice of slavery. By some twisted reasoning the definition of owning a colony such as India, did not fall into a slavery situation. 3. The institution of slavery in the early British American colonies until the end of the US Civil War. This situation helped bring about the worst blood shedding saga of United States history. President Lincoln well understood that the entire country was responsible for placing the USA in a Civil War that cost the country so many lives. The ethnocentric belief that black Africans were inferior to their white "owners" is well documented. To "get rid of slavery" cost the US so very dearly, it cannot be expressed in this amount of space.

* footnote: There are so many examples of and definitions of ethnocentric behavior, one can pick & chose. Serious examples are found in so many places of world history. I do want to point out that "maps" in the Western world never brought the horrors of bloodshed that "wars" brought. Are they examples of ethnocentricity? Yes, but wars are not dependent on a map.

The previous answer was a bit long-winded, so I thought I would add my three to hopefully make it clearer and hopefully to stay right on topic:

1. The Nazi extermination of the Jews during WW2 has to be up there and obvious. Actually the Nazi culture in general was so "into itself" that there are countless examples of ethnocentrism here, but the extermination of Jews is the most horrific and unacceptable side of it. Perhaps this is the most useful lesson to be learned.

2. The ancient Egyptians, as depicted on their tombs and temple walls throughout hundreds of years of painting to represent events of the past, show themselves as unique compared to other races, for example clean-shaven and fair skinned and beautiful, as opposed to the Assyrians, Semites and the sea peoples, who are represented by key features such as beards, long curved noses, ear rings and helmets of various types and shapes. They saw Egypt as the centre of the world.

3. For many years, archaeologists plundered treasures and artefacts from foreign countries to take them into the great museums of London, Paris and Berlin, for example. Surely it was ethnocentric to believe that the countries of Europe had the right to "own" such artefacts, which actually belong to their countries of origin.

In order to give examples it is important to define one's terms. The Nazi death camps that exterminated appoximately 6 million Jews along with other peoples the Nazi's deemed unfit to live is an example of pure hatred of Jews. The Nazi's believed that Germans who are basically an Aryan ethnic group, also believed that Slavic peoples, were also inferior to the Aryans, yet they were not specifically sent to the death camps. So in general terms, the hatred & extermination camps were part of the Nazi philosophy that Jews were the cause of Germany's pre war problems and the belief that they part of the "Communist" conspiracy to undermine Germany's political & economic system.

In contrast, the colonization of millions of people in so many under developed nations was not due to the hatred of say as example Indians.

Stealing ancient artifacts does not infere ethnic superiority, in fact stealing them was based on wanting what Europeans considered valuable artifacts.

Ancient Egyptian belief that they were superior to other civilizations was not the cause of their enslavic of conquered peoples or of waging war with other civilizations.

ask him yourself and find out the info dummy

eth·no·cen·trism (ĕth'nō-sĕn'trĭz'əm)

n.

1. Belief in the superiority of one's own ethnic group.
2. Overriding concern with race.

Ethnocentrism is the tendency to look at the world primarily from the perspective of one's own culture. It is defined as the viewpoint that "one's own group is the center of everything," against which all other groups are judged. Ethnocentrism often entails the belief that one's own race or ethnic group is the most important and/or that some or all aspects of its culture are superior to those of other groups.