Observations and views on the article

Puppet Masters from the Nacirema Shrines

The article aroused contradictory emotions and thoughts in my mind . The healing practices common for the North American tribe of Nacirema seem to me a shrewd political and PR system of controls which the smaller group of people try to gain over the majority . This is common for any characterized by the prevalence of duties over rights exists just in civilized societies . It is curious to find the evidence of intricate political theory in the wilderness of Nacirema

People are extremely sensitive to the violation of

their body and soul integrity . Nobody wants to fall ill or being a loser . The natural way to keep oneself fit and able is to be careful in regard to the body . Normal people go in for sports and stick to a healthy style of life . Then human beings feel themselves protected and exercise the greater levels of control over their own lives . They are independent , active and free

In the case of Nacirema , the ability to act free is undermined by elite of the medicine men , the herbalists , the priests , and holy-mouth-men ' I was not surprised at despise and resentment towards the human body as reported in the article . To my mind , the habit of despising flesh is created artificially . I am more than sure that the healers to do not torture themselves as their fellow citizens . The material reward for their pseudo-labors is unimportant after all . The money or any other payment is not the key to accumulating social power under the conditions of a highly developed market economy . The way to become powerful in this Nacirema environment is paved with ideological control , repeated and enigmatic rituals , suspicion and secrecy

One may think about people of Nacirema as stupid and masochistic creatures . One may ask why they do not stop ing and using medicine Why do they go on with celebrating painful and torturing rituals ? I think that they do so because they are mesmerized by tradition . They think , If our mothers and fathers used to do so , why should we stop

Besides secrecy , fear and physical pain , suspicion splits the community up into the detached groups . For example , mothers are told to spoil children by the bad charms wives and husbands spend a substantial part of their lives hiding from each other in the shrines or other places of healing . It is easier for the medicine men to suppress the rest of the tribe . Besides , common people are taught to seek for pain in to be relieved from it in a while . Thus , exposing oneself to pain is treated as the essential element of social life . While women put their heads in the ovens and men are pierced with the needles , the elite of the healers enjoy the ecstasy of absolute control

To put it in a nut shell , I would rather take the case of Nacirema as the valuable evidence of political theory in exotic settings . This is not just the ethnographic anecdote...