30 Days to Better Thinking and Better Living Through Critical Thinking: A Guide for Improving Every Aspect of Your Life, Revised and Expanded

Day Twenty-Six. Be a Citizen of the World

In most countries, people are socialized to think in terms that advance the interests of their country—to be, in a word, “nationalists”: “We are the best. We are number one. We stand for justice, truth, and freedom. When countries disagree with us, they are wrong. If they actively oppose us, they are our enemies. We sometimes make mistakes, but we always mean well. Those who oppose us usually have irrational, or even evil, motives. They are jealous of us.” This pathological way of thinking, when centered in a culture, is called “ethnocentrism” or “sociocentrism.” It is universal and decidedly destructive. In his book Folkways,¹² W.G. Sumner puts the problem of ethnocentricity as follows:

12. Folkways ...