Ethnocentric

In general, I believe that I am fairly open to other ways of different societies. There have been a couple of times that I have been ethnocentric and one of the times was when I went on vacation to Mexico and almost all of the little kids on the beach were clothes less. I thought that this was totally unacceptable and almost barbaric. I later realized that I thought this solely because I was being ethnocentric and that there was nothing wrong with little kids splashing around in the water without clothes for two reasons. First of all they are kids (they are not trying to be unrespectable or embarrassing) and secondly that not everyone can afford a bathing suit so its just nice that they can still enjoy themselves. The reason I thought this was so weird was because all my life I have been told that nudity is bad and that I should always be wearing clothes in public and so I assumed that these rules applied everywhere, but they don't. This could even go back to the Adam and Eve discussion that they had no problem having no clothes on until they became shameful. If I had been raised in Mexico, I wouldn't have thought anything of the nude children, so therefore it is solely me be ethnocentric.

Overboard

This week we played a game (or scenario) where there are people on a boat and we must get rid of people. What has our society come to where people have no problem killing people for their own survival? Are we more selfish? Are we more conserned about the effects on the society? In the game there were a couple of people that tried to take control but in the end it was voting that made the decisions. If people were really being killed would these people still try to take control? Power is a great thing but it ussually ends up in abuse or rebellion. People in the game were unhappy when classmates tried to dictate decisions, but this would probably be different in a real life scenario, as many people could not bring the burden of the responsibility of someone's death upon themselves.