C hristian
09-24-2003, 10:00 PM
Someone brought up Nat Geo Mag in the Africa thread. For many in America, it was our first window into other cultures/peoples/countries.
What's your view on this magazine?
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I now look at it with distain. How influential it has been for affecting the American world view. How ethnocentric it's world view really is.
The bias at the top is that of affluent white men who like to safari in designer clothes and enjoy all the privledges of being a tourist. an outsider, where ignorance is bliss.
i know women writers on the staff who work there in the hopes of changing this dominant culture at teh magazine.
their first priority is to explore the countries they think america cares about ie the ones making the headlines ie the war -ravaged ones or the economic /political competitors. in the end, it may enlighted in some smaller aspects, but it serves to perpetuate our dominance and view of cultural superiority over those "exotic" peoples and lands.
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related thought to this......why is it that America can only "respect" other cultures once it feels dominant over them?
i think that's why we have our problems with the French. The French do not feel culturally inferior to us. Quite the opposite. And I might say (my bias here) with good reason. So, the French have a habit of letting us know exactly what we Americans do, and try to get away with, and how they feel about it. That ticks us off. But the French are only telling us what many other peoples around the world might tell us, if they felt it safe to do so. BUt since we have a history of hearing it from the French, we look at them as incurably rude and snobbish. In the end, we look down on them too for not being more in-line with how we relate people of other cultures.
What's your view on this magazine?
------------------
I now look at it with distain. How influential it has been for affecting the American world view. How ethnocentric it's world view really is.
The bias at the top is that of affluent white men who like to safari in designer clothes and enjoy all the privledges of being a tourist. an outsider, where ignorance is bliss.
i know women writers on the staff who work there in the hopes of changing this dominant culture at teh magazine.
their first priority is to explore the countries they think america cares about ie the ones making the headlines ie the war -ravaged ones or the economic /political competitors. in the end, it may enlighted in some smaller aspects, but it serves to perpetuate our dominance and view of cultural superiority over those "exotic" peoples and lands.
---------------
related thought to this......why is it that America can only "respect" other cultures once it feels dominant over them?
i think that's why we have our problems with the French. The French do not feel culturally inferior to us. Quite the opposite. And I might say (my bias here) with good reason. So, the French have a habit of letting us know exactly what we Americans do, and try to get away with, and how they feel about it. That ticks us off. But the French are only telling us what many other peoples around the world might tell us, if they felt it safe to do so. BUt since we have a history of hearing it from the French, we look at them as incurably rude and snobbish. In the end, we look down on them too for not being more in-line with how we relate people of other cultures.