It is natural that people believe that the way they think and act, or their culture is the most appropriate. Some people reject other cultures. Others reject other point of views within their own culture, and see any evasion from the common norm as betrayal.

Thinking that one’s culture is the best way of seeing things can lead to a clash when two different cultures meet. Of course, usually dialogue is not imposed. People from different cultures only clash when one believes in the superiority of his point of view.

Minor and major conflicts can arise from cultural differences. Though scholars like Samuel Huntington and his team try to prove that some cultures are superior to others, Claude Levi-Strauss’s point of view may seem wiser, when he claims that even primitive cultures have a history, which is denied from modern cultures’ point of view.

One common feature in ethnocentric societies is paranoia. It is believed that people from other cultures won’t admit that their point of view is the best, though they know it is, they just won’t admit it. Ethnocentric cultures and paranoia can develop into delusional disorder, since they believe that other cultures are trying to take away what they have, persecuting them and trying to convert them to their own culture, if not, isolate them.

That can lead to the demonstration of violence, whether major or minor, by ethnic groups. Some will organize themselves to defend each other; others will get organized to attack. Of course those are usually minorities within that culture who believe they act in the name of the majority. Most people, including those from their ethnic group, disapprove of their actions.

The best remedy against ethnocentrism is intercultural marriage. Though disapproved within some ethnic groups (I once heard someone say that interethnic marriage is worse than marrying your own sister), it is still the best way to eliminate interethnic conflict in the long run, and can provide conditions where people will think of themselves as human beings first, living in a global village.

Holloway claims that “The same symbolism that enhances sentimental bonds between kinsmen, and symbolically defined groups outside of biological relationships (clan, tribe, state, nation, ideology), bring in their wake its antithesis: extra-group aggressional tendencies”. Ethnocentrism is therefore a cause of war, as it can have been observed during World War II or in ethnic wars that ravage parts of Africa and elsewhere.

Though miscegenation only takes place in a limited number of countries, increased inflows of immigration around the world should end that trend. In South Korea, 13% of marriages are interethnic when in the past very few marriages were of that sort. Mixing cultures can only be a way to promote peace between different groups, as all people would then consider one truth, which is that there is in fact in the end, there is only one human race.