Symbolic Elements In Horace Miner's 'Nacirema'

In Nacirema, Horace Miner uses satire and wordplay to teach us how easy it is to judge cultures that we don’t know much about. Miner is sneakily describing American culture, their entire way of life including both material and symbolic elements, the whole time77. Miner is trying to teach us that ethnocentrism, using your own culture as a standard to evaluate another, leads to the belief that other cultures are inferior78. Instead, we should be using cultural relativism, understanding other cultures on their own terms78. He is trying to show us that the American way of life is not the “correct” way of living. I would explain Nacirema to a stranger as wordplay on American norms, rules regarding what kinds of behaviors are acceptable and appropriate
within a culture84. Miner used tricky wording to describe America as a tribe who is heavily reliant on beauty and bodily perfection. He describes how we use bundles of hog hairs (toothbrushes) to do mouth rituals (brushing our teeth) and how women limit intercourse to certain phases of the moon (take birth control.) Miner is trying to show Americans how silly our own culture may sound to outsiders. Technology, material artifacts and the knowledge required to use them, has begun to take over our generation90. Everyone has cell phones and other hi-tech digital devices and carries them everywhere they go. If I were to change the story to better fit American’s today, I would focus it on the fact that Americans are glued to their cell phones and avoid social interaction as a result.