Cultural relativism explains why, for example, what constitutes breakfast

varies widely from place to place. What is considered a typical breakfast in

Turkey, as illustrated in the above image, is quite different from what is
considered a typical breakfast in the U.S. or Japan. While it might seem
strange to eat fish soup or stewed vegetables for breakfast in the U.S., in other
places, this is perfectly normal. Conversely, our tendency toward sugary
cereals and milk or preference for egg sandwiches loaded with bacon and
cheese would seem quite bizarre to other cultures.

Similarly, but perhaps of more consequence, rules that regulate nudity in

public vary widely around the world. In the U.S., we tend to frame nudity in
general as an inherently sexual thing, and so when people are nude in public,
people may interpret this as a sexual signal. But in many other places around
the world, being nude or partially nude in public is a normal part of life, be it
at swimming pools, beaches, in parks, or even throughout the course of daily
life (see many indigenous cultures around the world).

In these cases, being nude or partially nude is not framed as sexual but as the
appropriate bodily state for engaging in a given activity. In other cases, like
many cultures where Islam is the predominant faith, a more thorough
coverage of the body is expected than in other cultures. Due in large part to
ethnocentrism, this has become a highly politicized and volatile practice in
today's world.

For example, when we in Pakistan say that Hindu culture or Western culture is not good, we pass such a
judgement, keeping our own cultural and social standards in our minds. This is a historical fact that
everywhere man has displayed his own interests, value system, cultural patterns and normative order as
right, normal, and superior to otlwrs. Such beliefs and value system stratified the populations into many
different categories, where assimilation of different cultures becomes difficult resulting in different
treatment for various sections of population.

Another example of ethnocentrism, in Pakistan women mostly observe "pardah", thus we have been
conditioned with this pattern of culture and surely a free woman of Western society would not be
regarded as good and modest woman according to our measuring rod. Thus, we contempt the Western
culture, because through our socialization in Pakistani society we begin to regard it the best available
culture in the world. In the same way, people judge other religions from the point of view of their own
religious values. This type of attitude is called ethnocentrism.

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