Body Ritual Among The Nacirema

In Body Ritual Among the Nacirema, the writer writes about the extreme rituals that people hold in America. It brings out the idea that what they are doing is only to improve the looks which are actually unnecessary. Although the writer does not use the word America at all, we can tell from the content and the examples that it is reflecting the Americans. Actually, if the word “Nacirema” in the title reverses, it is America. He uses some events that may be trivial and happen in our every day lives to describe them as rituals. For example, he talks about the ritual that we spend so much time to get ready in the morning. I agree that he makes a good argument to the American about always do things to pretend and only care about the looks. However, I disagree with one of his examples. He talks about how the American people have a large cabinet full of medication. He says they actually will never use most of them. Although this is the fact, I doubt if they are doing this for their looks. I believe it would be more sense to say that they are doing this for their own health. This is also understandable. All people afraid of sick and that’s why we will have a lot medicines for contingent use. My favorite quote is “Still other rites are used to make women’s breasts large if they are small, and smaller if they are large.” This is one of the hit topics in the society, which people nowadays like to do plastic surgery or boobs job. This is just a totally great example to reflect people care so much of their looks. This reading has linked me to think about the social psychology course I took last quarter. It is because we talk about how people behave under the different influence of culture all the time. Although what the writer describes happen in every country, the U.S. is one of the most critical countries as we have a democratic culture.