The anthropologist Horace Miner once wrote about the Nacirema, a strange North American people he said all perform the exact same set of rituals in communal “shrine rooms,” but pretend to be doing it in almost total secret.
He of course was making fun of Americans in public bathrooms, and the common practices that go on inside that are actually pretty weird when you think about them. Why, for example, is talking generally frowned upon? Why do those two-roll dispensers in stalls always run out at the same time? Why do guys spit in urinals?
He of course was making fun of Americans in public bathrooms, and the common practices that go on inside that are actually pretty weird when you think about them. Why, for example, is talking generally frowned upon? Why do those two-roll dispensers in stalls always run out at the same time? Why do guys spit in urinals?
0 comments:
Post a Comment