As Howard Miner points out in Body Ritual among the Nacirema, this strange group of natives have extensive, complex, nonsense practices that seem to determine beauty, quality, and social standing. A much deeper analysis is required to understand the Nacirema, and as our group of anthropologists continues to delve into this tribe, new details become available. One specific group within this tribe has especially interesting practices: the youth of the Nacirema.
For close to seven hours a day, these Nacirema youth exit the confines of their shrines to group together in front of older Nacirema elders who lecture the Nacirema youth about various ideas, such as how to manipulate their own language and surprisingly, how to manipulate the language of other tribes, even though many of these Nacirema youth will never communicate with other tribes.
Even stranger, these Nacirema youth participate in scheduled tests in which the accuracy to which they can draw circles in a pattern determines a numerical score that determines their aptitude to become listeners, holy-mouth men, or potentially other lecturers. Tokens that may be exchanged for food or perhaps visits to the holy-mouth men are instead exchanged by elders so that the youth may attend classes where instructors improve the accuracy of the children's dot pictures.
Finally, the relations among these youth are strangest. Pictures are shared online and by tapping on the image, viewers are able to express approval, although not expressing approval is considered rude and a hidden sign of aggression. Those who frequent the holy-mouth men frequently receive higher recognition approval, even though their performance on the dot-coloring tests may not be the highest. In this sense, the Nacirema value the quality of their mouths higher than intelligence.
Overall, the Nacirema display strange fascinations with beauty, even though a large portion of their day is spend on acquiring knowledge, some of which is never used. Future studies are needed to better understand this strange tribe.
For close to seven hours a day, these Nacirema youth exit the confines of their shrines to group together in front of older Nacirema elders who lecture the Nacirema youth about various ideas, such as how to manipulate their own language and surprisingly, how to manipulate the language of other tribes, even though many of these Nacirema youth will never communicate with other tribes.
Even stranger, these Nacirema youth participate in scheduled tests in which the accuracy to which they can draw circles in a pattern determines a numerical score that determines their aptitude to become listeners, holy-mouth men, or potentially other lecturers. Tokens that may be exchanged for food or perhaps visits to the holy-mouth men are instead exchanged by elders so that the youth may attend classes where instructors improve the accuracy of the children's dot pictures.
Finally, the relations among these youth are strangest. Pictures are shared online and by tapping on the image, viewers are able to express approval, although not expressing approval is considered rude and a hidden sign of aggression. Those who frequent the holy-mouth men frequently receive higher recognition approval, even though their performance on the dot-coloring tests may not be the highest. In this sense, the Nacirema value the quality of their mouths higher than intelligence.
Overall, the Nacirema display strange fascinations with beauty, even though a large portion of their day is spend on acquiring knowledge, some of which is never used. Future studies are needed to better understand this strange tribe.
I really liked how you brought in the school aspect into Miner's piece and how you wrote that those who focus more on their appearances sacrafice test scores and grades.
ReplyDeleteI like how you point out that much of the knowledge we learn at school isn't practically useful which makes me wonder why are we even tryharding school so much, making fun of the disparity between those with "recognition approval" and those with high test scores was also funny.
ReplyDeleteI really like how you wrote in the style of Horace Miner to analyze more aspects of American society such as school, standardized testing and social media.
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