Be a Better Person With Etic and Emic Perspectives (Awaluddin Syamsu)

For this time, I would like to write about the cultural judgment. The judgment is known as the etic and emic perspectives. This essay would present the definition of etic and emic perspective. Then, it would present how these two perspectives lead a better person. And finally, it would bring the concept into personal issue.

The terms are related to outsiders’ perspectives about other people culture while the other one is from insiders’ perspectives about other people culture. The outsiders’ perspective about other people cultures is called as an etic perspective whereas the perspective from insiders is called an emic perspective (Xia, 2010, p.T1).The terms of emic and ethic were coined by Kenneth Pike, an anthropologist (ibid, p.76). Example for the etic perspective is that American people judge the Japanese culture from their perspective as American whereas if Japanese judge their own culture by using their perspective as Japanese called emic perspective.

People should not choose either emic or etic perspectives. Both of them have to be combined. It is because; emic perspective, is a comprehensive way to understand the culture because people from that culture know more about their culture than people from outside. However, etic perspective is also needed in order to know how other people picture the culture from their background. This is to enrich information about the culture.

These ways of looking at one particular culture from two different perspectives can be brought to personal life in order to create a better person. For example, if you want to do something, take time a little while to think about other people. What will other people respond or how they think of my actions? In short, put yourself into other people shoes. This is important to behave properly. However, it is not always the case, sometimes we need to do something without thinking too much about other people because what we think may be not what they think. Or it could be also they do something wrong then we try to do things correctly and many more other possibilities.

To sum up, both in cultural and personal life, we need to consider to kinds of perspectives, the etic and emic perspective. This is to lead people to be a better person. Xia, J. (2010). An anthropological emic-etic perspective on open access practices.

Journal of Documentation, 67(1), p. 75-94.