To briefly summarize the article, the Nacirema people are those who live in the North America following a magical belief and living with unique behaviors. For instance, they believe that human beings are originally ugly and it is natural to get sick and be disable. Therefore, they use ritual and ceremonies. They have at least one shrines in their home and activities inside the shrine is private. Medicine men do not give proper potions but just decide what ingredients are needed, and herbalists give them charm. The charm-box is always full. A holy-mouth-man enlarges large hole in the mouth and put some magical materials to exterminate decay. However, they return to the man about once a year. The article says that masochistic people developed sadistic specialists. Their custom going to latipso for their health was also not a pleasant description. They thought a person out of normal body as a ideal goal of aesthetics.
The Nacirema people's rituals are somewhat very extraordinary and incomprehensible. Their ceremonies were based on unconditional beliefs rather than rational analysis of their action. I think that people in the modern society might sometimes do the same thing. People do not know why they are doing a certain action but just believe that it is advantageous or necessary. For instance, most people agree to increase the number of CCTV on the street because they think it will decrease the number of crimes. However, there is a possibility for central agencies to get real time information of any place and any person. For another example, not many people complain about the fact that internet users should give their resident registration number if they have to use online services. However, it is true that the purpose of gathering ID card numbers is not informed exactly, and we can see some articles mentioning Korean ID numbers are flowed into China.
The most impressive point of the article was the last two sentences-"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." This tells us that magic could be unrelated to a civilized society, but still in a civilized society magic could be a force of human advance. I think the pharaoh in Egypt can be an example of this idea. Egyptians believed their king as the god of sun, or son of the emperor of the gods. Thus, they totally obeyed the pharaoh's order. The belief was key to built cities in the desert and pyramid construction. As they had to build large structures, math(geometry) and science(astronomy, mechanics) were developed.
Even though blind beliefs could lead to advance, the activities based on those beliefs should be verified due to its uncertainty whether it is beneficial or not. I think that the magic in the modern society is advanced technology. This is considered to be the most rational, scientific, and accurate thing in the world. However, there is a possibility that this magic can occur "rituals and ceremonies" in the modern society.
After class, I knew that the article was a metaphor of american society. I was shocked about the Nacirema people's behavior but I shocked once more because they were modern American people. Anyway, I think I got the point that it shares some point with modern society.
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