Today in an earlier class we were discussing a group of people named the shamans and their shamanistic beliefs and customs. As we read this article we were all shocked at the things they would do and to us it seemed unthinkable. I thought back and I had been in a similar situation back in my 8th grade geography class. My teacher had given us a very similar article and the same types of reactions were shared between all of us. Im pretty sure most of you probably have heard about this article before. It is about a group of people called the Nacirema’s, it explains there everyday life. I found this article and posted it in the link below. It is actually quiet interesting and I think everyone would enjoy it. Plus there’s a twist 
So I think you might have figured this out already but Nacirema is American backwards. What I think the purpose of this article is, is to show people that we all have customs and such that can look and seem silly to others, even our own. I think this article really makes you think, I think that it shows how much we judge others when in reality we all have our own traditions that can truly look insane when looking at them from the outside looking in.
We also kind of talked about this after watching the “In My language” video in class. The person talks about how they feel like when others look at them on the street, they would become suspicious, they would think that something was off or wrong. But this is how the person with autism feels about the so called “normal” way people act, the way one is supposed to act in public to be accepted by others. I think this article, and the video can kind of go hand in hand. Its hard for me to explain but it think that many people with autism may feel similar to this. They may feel like people are looking at what is just their normal life, their “language” if you will and are judging them and their lives and making it seem unacceptable.
Im not sure if I really expressed this the way I was trying to, I hope I got my point across, but anyway I just think it is something we all can think about.
September 21, 2009 at 1:11 am
This is really fun. I have to admit, I had not seen that article before, but it does a good job of showing how whenever we look at customs from the outside they seem strange and inexplicable. Which I agree is how autistic people often see our social behavior. As Temple Grandin said, she feels like an anthropologist trying to understand Martians when she deals with “normal” people.
We’ll see some of this in the next book we’re reading, too, Coroner’s Lunch. In part it deals with the clash between Lao culture (and the scientific medical training the main character got in France) and the shaman rituals of the Hmong people living in the mountains of Laos.