Writing Assignment 1 Essay

Submitted By Jingyao-Zhang
Words: 1103
Pages: 5

When I was this article, I was first attracted to the tribe of strange name: "Nacirema", it seems to be hard to find any information about this ethnic group even on the Internet. Later, when I read through the full text, and then come back to savor this name is suddenly realized, originally "NACIREMA" is to "AMERICAN" upside down. Maybe the so-called primitive peoples Nacirema is no different with us, even the people in the United States. The so-called "primitive", in fact they are just "upside down" by our civilization "Civilized".
In my view as a "Civilized", the "ritual" and “magical potions " of course not cure patents. But, you must also find the shadow of "civil society" in the description. Actually the “medicine men” is our "doctor", the "holy-mouth-men” is our "dentist", the “mouth-rite" is the habit of brushing our teeth, and the "Latipso" is "hospital” and the vestal maidens” is nurse". Thought here, I realized that the Nacirema is us!
At the end of the document said,”looking from far and above, from our high places of safety in the developed civilization, it is easy to see all the crudity and irrelevance of magic. But without its power and guidance early man could not have mastered his practical difficulties as he has done, nor could man have advanced to the higher stages of civilization.” The "ritual" seems to provide the basis for our modern civilization life and driving force. However, conversely, on the basis of the "ritual" of the modern civilized life, especially in medicine is really much better than the "primitive"? “Barbaric "and" superstition "may never far away from us. Here I am again thought of Rousseau’s point of view in the theory of “Discourse on the Sciences and Arts”, “The needs of the body constitute the foundation of society, those of the mind its ornamentation. While government and law provide for the security and well-being of people in their collective life, the sciences, letters, and arts—less despotic though perhaps more powerful—wrap garlands of flowers around the chains that weigh people down. They stifle the sense of freedom that people once had and for which they sensed that they were born, making them love their own servitude, and turning them into what is called a civilized people.” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1749). Discourse on the Sciences and Arts) Maybe science is the "ritual" in modern society. Rousseau said that science is the root of slavery, this sentence may be radical, but it seems is not devoid of sense to me.
Since I'm going to critique of science, so the first thing to do is to let everybody understand the science is not necessarily granted, it is in the premise of the society, is not a fountain. Science is influenced by society, For example, Physics. Why some aspects in the study of physics research tend to be many but some aspects of the research is very few? Or in science, there are such and such "objectives", but the "objective" in the world is a lot of, why only some of them become the science and technology and the other is not? Technology is like a giant: he has one very strong arm while the other arm is very thin, and to decide which arm he becomes strong is the power of the society. That is about science and technology is the development direction of the society. Since it is about social then will doped into the human factor, according to its origin and purpose we can say that there are "good" science and technology in the world and it is the technology of "evil", it is not serving the public blindly. Later, I want to further into "disenchantment" of science and technology. Some people say that life is "objective" to science and technology, and some people are thinking that science and technology and religion are extremely antagonistic. However, science and technology, is indeed, as a kind of "religion", at least, is a kind of "faith". For example, the students of physics knowledge learned from textbooks are they believe as the foundation, there are few scientific