Xenocentrism

Xenocentrism is a political neologism, coined as the antonym of ethnocentrism. Xenocentrism is the preference for the products, styles, or ideas of someone else's culture rather than of one's own. The 18th century primitivism movement in European art and philosophy, and its concept of the noble savage is an example of xenocentrism.

Origins of the term

Xenocentrism has recently been used in social philosophy to describe a particular ethical disposition. Ethnocentrism, as coined by Professor William Graham Sumner of Yale University, describes the natural tendencies of an individual to place disproportionate worth upon the values and beliefs of one's own culture relative to others. Expanding upon this idea, John D. Fullmer of Brigham Young University offered that xenocentrism results from an attempt on the part on an individual to correct his or her own ethnocentrism. He argued that as an individual reacts to his own perceived ethnocentrism, he or she will often overcompensate and instead begin to place undue consideration upon the ideas and needs of social groups that are far removed. Xenocentrism is a belief in which one's culture is inferior to the other culture. One culture has the desire that their culture is not better or the feeling of being inferior to the other culture.

See also

• Allophilia
• Cultural assimilation
• Cultural appropriation
• Cultural cringe
• Multiculturalism
• Noble savage
• Self-hating Jew
• White guilt
• Wigger
• Xenophobia