Ethnocentrism

The three most famous examples of ethnocentrism from history are:

1.     European Imperialism: Starting in the 16^th century nations deemed themselves better than the rest of the world and tried to conquer because the European nations though they were the true masters of the world.

2.     The Mandate of Heaven:  A system of government that in ended in the 19^th century where the Chinese had received divine favor and deemed themselves better than the rest of the world and the Emperor was called the son of heaven and he could exert heavy very harsh control  over his people and anyone he deemed unworthy.

3.     Nazi Germany: The most infamous example is of Nazi Adolf Hitler who hated Jews and any person who was not in the image of Germans of blue hair and blue eyes and ordered for them to torture and massacred by the millions which was tragic and extreme example of ethnocentrism.

The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare portrays an intense disagreement between the Jew, Shylock, and the Christian, Antonio. Antonio constantly scorns Shylock for being a Jew, which ultimately culminates in one of the most famous speeches of all time where Shylock asks:

"If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? /If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

The "us" that Shylock is referring to are Jews.

    A country that depicts to be ethnocentric today is The United States of America because they believe themselves superior than other countries and therefore meddle in many countries even if not needed. Even their film industry always depict America as the strongest and best and advanced in all their movies and show other countries to be backwards like the movie transformers when they showed Qatar to just be a small village in the desert with just one telephone to use and really poor.