Said14 (1978) argued that European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself of against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self, defining Orientalism as a Western style for
dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient. He presented the
important hypothesis in his book, Orientalism, that without examining Orientalism as a discourse one cannot possibly understand the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage--and even produce--the Orient (Said, 1978).
People who supported the Hegelian progressive view of history believed that history is not meaningless chance, but a rational process and transition from the ancient Oriental world through classical Greece and Rome and the Middle Ages to the modern German world. These people are supporters of a Westerncentered linear theory of history and culture based on a developmental dialectic. This theory led to the Western-centered view of non-Western cultures as inferior to Western cultures. This view was to be criticized by Edward Said in his work on Orientalism in the late 20th century. (Nakamura, 1998)
Saids Conviction
Said (1981) emphasizes the following point: Underlying every interpretation of other cultures is the choice facing the individual scholar or intellectual; whether to put intellect at the service of power or at the service of criticism, communities, and moral sense.16 To use Said's phrase, Benedict faces the conflict; whether to put her intellect at the service of the American power as an Orientalist or at the service of an understanding of Japanese cultural identity as a relativist. (Nakamura, 1998).
The present is our battle ground and knowledge is our main weapons.
(Edward Said:2003)
6
increasingly have to accommodate these non-Western modern civilizations whose power approaches that of the West but whose values and interests differ significantly from those of the West. This will require the West to maintain the economic and military power necessary to protect its interests in relation to these civilizations.
Concluding paragraph of Foreign Affairs Summer 1993 by Huntington
The Clash of Civilizations by Samuel P. Huntington It will also, however, require the West to develop a more profound understanding of the basic religious and philosophical assumptions underlying other civilizations and the ways in which people in those civilizations see their interests. It will require an effort to identify elements of commonality between Western and other civilizations. For the relevant future, there will be no universal civilization, but instead a world of different civilizations, each of which will have to learn to coexist with the others.
Concluding paragraph of Foreign Affairs Summer 1993 by Huntington
"Stereotype is a standardized concept or image of a specific group of people. Stereotypes force a simple pattern upon a complex mass and assign a limited number of characteristics to all members of a group."
Yellow Peril
Admiral Mahan of the United States Navy saw:
Western
world at bay, in danger of losing its momentum and facing the staggering task of assimilating millions of semi-civilized people.
(The Troubled Encounter: The United States and Japan, New York. Wiley, 1975, p.28)
Stereotype
Stereotype
Stereotypes of British
Stereotypes of German
These incisive Russian cartoons call attention to the role the United States played in helping to finance Japans war. In fact, the Japanese government depended on large private loans raised in both New York and London to meet its enormous military expenses.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904, 1905) Max Weber, a German economist and sociologist.
Stereotyped portrayals of Westerners appear in many works of Indian, Chinese and Japanese artist during this period. The Ideals of the East by Tenshin Okakura.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism In the book, Weber wrote that capitalism in northern Europe evolved when the Protestant (particularly Calvinist) ethic influenced large numbers of people to engage in work in the secular world, developing their own enterprises and engaging in trade and the accumulation of wealth for investment. In other words, the Protestant ethic was a force behind an unplanned and uncoordinated mass action that influenced the development of capitalism.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism Weber argues that Puritan ethics and ideas influenced the development of capitalism. Religious devotion, however, usually accompanied a rejection of worldly affairs, including the pursuit of wealth and possessions. Why was that not the case with Protestantism? Weber addresses this apparent paradox in the books. Wikipedia