Eurocentrism

Thus Johann Heinrich Zedler, in 1741, wrote that "even though Europe is the smallest of the world's four continents, it has for various reasons a position that places it before all others.... Its inhabitants have excellent customs, they are courteous and erudite in both sciences and crafts".

Portrayal of European colonialism in such literature has been analysed in terms of Eurocentrism in retrospect, such as presenting idealised and often exaggeratedly masculine Western heroes, who conquered "savage" peoples in the remaining "dark spaces" of the globe.

[21] The European miracle, a term coined by Eric Jones in 1981,[22] refers to the surprising rise of Europe during the Early Modern period.

Hegel's China replaced the real historical development with a fixed, stable scenario, which made it the outsider of world history.

Both India and China were waiting and anticipating a combination of certain factors from outside until they could acquire real progress in human civilization.

Even in the 19th century, anticolonial movements had developed claims about national traditions and values that were set against those of Europe in Africa and India.

In some cases, as China, where local ideology was even more exclusionist than the Eurocentric one, Westernization did not overwhelm longstanding Chinese attitudes to its own cultural centrality.

Indeed, according to postcolonial Eurocentrism, European capacity to homogenise the world according to its own standards of unification is considered to be a malevolent process (i.e. the destruction of diversity) rather than a benevolent one (i.e. a show of positive leadership).

[35] Brohman (1995) argued that Eurocentrism "perpetuated intellectual dependence on a restricted group of prestigious Western academic institutions that determine the subject matter and methods of research".

[6] He criticised some Western scholars for their ideas that non-Western areas lack outstanding contributions in history, economy, ideology, politics and culture compared with the West.

[42] Toynbee concluded that Eurocentrism is characteristic of three misconceptions manifested by self-centerment, the fixed development of Oriental countries and linear progress.

James M. Blaut (2000) argued that Eurocentrism indeed went beyond other ethnocentrisms, as the scale of European colonial expansion was historically unprecedented and resulted in the formation of a "colonizer's model of the world".

[46] Afrocentrist scholars, such as Molefi Kete Asante, have argued that there is a prevalence of Eurocentric thought in the processing of much of academia on African affairs.

[47][48][49] Similarly, the Asiacentric scholar, Yoshitaka Miike, has critiqued theoretical, methodological, and comparative Eurocentrism in knowledge production about Asian societies and cultures.

[50][51][52] In contrast, in an article, 'Eurocentrism and Academic Imperialism' by Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi, from the University of Tehran, states that Eurocentric thought exists in almost all aspects of academia in many parts of the world, especially in the humanities.

[53] Edgar Alfred Bowring states that in the West, self-regard, self-congratulation and denigration of the 'Other' run more deeply and those tendencies have infected more aspects of their thinking, laws and policy than anywhere else.

[54][55] Luke Clossey and Nicholas Guyatt have measured the degree of Eurocentrism in the research programs of top history departments.

Egypt will be considered in reference to the passage of the human mind from its Eastern to its Western phase, but it does not belong to the African Spirit.

[64] Some colonisers took interest in the other viewpoint and attempted to produce a more detailed history of Africa using oral sources and archaeology, however they received little recognition at the time.

[70] Along with this, eurocentrism extends to trivialise and marginalise the philosophies, scientific contributions, cultures, and other additional facets of the Islamic world.

This effect began to take place during the nineteenth century when the Orientalist ideals were distilled and shifted from topics of sensuality and deviating mentalities to what is described by Edward Said as "unchallenged coherence".

[73] The eurocentric influence is shown in the latter, as the nature of manifest Orientalism is to be altered with new findings, which leaves it vulnerable to the warping of its refiner's ideals and principles.

This reasoning came as the belief at the time was that other studies like anthropology and sociology were deemed irrelevant as they did not believe it misleading to this portion of mankind.

The authors cite the dominance of the Bollywood film industry in India, which tends to minimize the impact of Western ideals.

[78] In the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark conducted experiments called "the doll tests" to examine the psychological effects of segregation on African-American children.

[85] One study observed that, among the female population of Senegal in West Africa, 26% of women were using skin lightening creams at the time.

[93] Edmonds said the main ways to define whiteness in people in Brazil is by looking at their hair, nose, then mouth before considering skin colour.

[93] Donna Goldstein's book Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence, and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown also addresses how whiteness influences beauty in Brazil.

Goldstein notes that in Brazil, there is a hierarchy for beauty that places being mixed race at the top and pure, un-admixed black characteristics at the bottom, calling them ugly.

[97] One white woman in Brazil complained that she is not noticed by "gringos" and that they prefer black and Mestiza women for sexual liaisons.