¿Etnocentrismo inevitable?

Abstract

Contestar la pregunta sobre la eventual inevitabilidad del etnocentrismo supone discernir las diversas figuras que éste ha adoptado históricamente: el que hace al otro menos que humano; el que suponiéndolo humano lo considera defectivo; el que lo desfigura porque proyecta sobre él su fantasía o su ideal y aquél que resulta, paradójicamente, de un particularismo exacerbado que concluye en un múltiple narcisismo cultural indiferente a la diversidad cultural. Todas deben ser evitadas pues nos impiden descubrir nuestra manera de ser en modos de pensamiento y sensibilidades que quizá nunca serán las nuestras.

The fat of answering the question about the possible unavoidablity of athnocentrism implies to distinguish the diverse figures historically adopted by it. That is to say, to take the other as less than human, to suppose him/her human but imperfect; to misrepresent him/her because one projects the one’s own phantasy or ideal; finally the ethnocentrism which is paradoxically the result of an exacerbated particularism which leads to a multiple cultural narcissism unconcerned about cultural diversity. All of those modes of ethnocentrism must be avoided given that they prevent us from discovering our own mode of being in modes of thinking and point of view which perhaps will never be ours.