m
noun
1. Sociology. the belief in the inherent superiority of one's own ethnic group or culture.
2. a tendency to view alien groups or cultures from the perspective of one's own.
I try very hard to be aware of the tendency toward ethnocentrism that we, as humans, all have, however slight. Crossing the street in Ireland has made me very aware of an idea that once was dominant, if not in our country, then in the Christian faith.
In the U.S. and in many other countries, drivers keep to the right side of the road. People stay to the right when going up stairs. The majority of people know to keep to the RIGHT RIGHT RIGHT. In Ireland, however, people keep to the left. This has caused me my fair share of problems whether it be looking the wrong way while crossing the street or going through an awkward little dance while trying to pass someone on the street.
After looking the wrong way while crossing the street for the proverbial millionth time, I began to think about the reasons that people in the U.S. might keep to the right. Obviously, they might do it just to be different from the British. They might do it because for some reason it was easier to keep to the right. But then a story came to mind about my godmother and her left hand...
When my Auntie Kathy was a little girl, she was left-handed. Her teachers would make her write with her right hand. Have you ever tried to write with the hand that is lacking dexterity?! It's nearly impossible! The reason the did not want her to be left-handed: the left hand was associated with the devil.
Could this be the reason that so many people drive on the right side of the road? As I looked into it, I realized that there are actually practical reasons for driving on the left/right side of the road that stayed or fell out of favor with specific countries over time. Originally, most people drove and walked on the left side of the road. As most people are right-handed, they would keep their weapons on the right, so if they walked on the left side of the road, it would be easier to pull out their weapon on an enemy. This changed with Napoleon, who was left-handed, and therefore needed to walk on the right side to pull his weapon out on an opponent. After that, any land that was colonized by France began to use right-sided traffic.
But even after this little mystery was solved, the story of my godmother remained in my head. Why was the devil associated with the left hand? I found a site with many myths and traditions about left-handedness. Some of the most interesting are:
- Getting out of bed with the left foot first means you will have a bad day and be bad-tempered.
- Wedding rings worn on the third finger of the left hand originated with the Greeks and Romans, who wore them to fend off evil associated with the left hand.
- The right hand often symbolizes "male" and the left hand "female." Who thought this up?
- A left handed toast supposedly curses a victim.
- In Christianity it is the right hand that gives the blessing and makes the sign of the cross.
My only idea is that the right-handed people of the world decided this. This happens in all aspects of the world. There are more right-handed people so their voices will be heard. Money speaks so the people who have a lot of it will be listened to as opposed to the people who actually need help. I could go on and on and on about this, but I just wanted to point it out. We are so used to accepting whatever is common or whatever is tradition as what is "right" or "correct." See, even the word "right" is defined as "in accordance with whatever is good, proper, or just." Clearly, if a child naturally does things with left-handed dexterity, he or she should be allowed to do so as that will give him or her the ability to work best. It is simply because most people were right-handed that these negative ideas of the left hand sprouted up. Human beings are always afraid of something that is different, something that they don't understand, so they try to curse it, to make it a bad thing. Things that are different can be good, and they can be bad... but we should not put a negative or even a positive label on them simply because they are not what we are familiar with, simply because they are different.
In Hebrew culture the right hand was viewed as masculine and the left feminine because the right was, as you note, more commonly dominant and as the dominant hand usually stronger. The left hand usually "follows" and assists what the right is doing and is the more passive of the two (like a good ancient Hebrew woman). This in fact does not really have much to do with the left hand being evil, though it did/does have that association in Semitic cultures for other reasons. Also, in the yin/yang dichotomy, yin (male) is associated with the left. So different peoples be thinking different things about dese stuffs. But it's funny, we were just talking about left-handedness in my lit class today. Good post!
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