“we are the world” aim: how do we view world history? from what lens? how does this effect our...

“We are the World”

EUROCENTRISM

AIM: How do we view world history? From what lens? How does this effect our Point of View?DO NOW: DEFINE THE TERM EUROCENTRISM

Mr. Ott @ BETA 2012-13 – AP World

EUROCENTRIC APPROACHTO WORLD STUDIES

EUROCENTRIC APPROACHTO WORLD STUDIES

NorthAmerica

SouthAmerica Africa

Australia

AsiaEUROPE

MULTICULTURAL APPROACHTO WORLD STUDIES

MULTICULTURAL APPROACHTO WORLD STUDIES

Conceptor Event

NorthAmerica

SouthAmerica

Africa

Australia

Asia

Europe

SAMUEL HUNTINGTON: THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS. 1999

SAMUEL HUNTINGTON “A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS?”

A drastic examples of an actual eurocentric worldview.

Citation: “Western concepts differ fundamentally from those prevalent in other civilizations. Western ideas of individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of church and state, often have little resonance in Islamic, Confucian, Japanese, Hindu, Buddhist or Orthodox cultures.” (Huntington 1993, 40)

Huntington, Samuel. The Clash of Civilizations?. In: Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993: 22-49.

MAKES THE TERM “WESTERN” VALUES ANY SENSE?

individualism, liberalism, constitutionalism, human

rights, equality, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, free markets, the separation of

church and state Whatever these values may be,

they obviously are not stable. And they are full of

contradictions.

“WESTERN” VALUES …

have developed considerably over time, and have kept

changing

E.g. three generations of Human Rights

Declaration 1948

Social Pact 1966

Resolution on the right of development 1986

HISTORY TEACHES US THAT …

“Western thinking” at an earlier stage was basically driven by religious and mystical narrow-mindedness, by superstition in its Christian or non-Christian versions, by all the things that

the West today believes are specific for Muslim or Hindu

societies.

STABLE EUROPEAN FAMILY STRUCTURES?

1ST DEFINITION OF EUROCENTRISM

is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing emphasis on European

(and, generally, Western) concerns, culture and values at the expense of

those of other cultures. Eurocentrism is an instance of

ethnocentrism, perhaps especially relevant because of its alignment with

current and past real power structures in the world. Eurocentrism often involved claiming cultures that were not white or European as being

such, or denying their existence at all.

2ND DEFINITION OF EUROCENTRISM

A set of scientifically proved criterias and categories for dealing with the others, constituting their particular inferiority

e.g. Friedrich Willhelm Hegel‘s Hirarchy for the comparision of world regions

• America is inferior to Africa due to the comparative short sature of the american flora and fauna

• Asia is inferior to Europe, because it is old aged and exhausted

• Africa is inferior to Europe due to its lack of civilization

Gerbi, Antonello. Dispute of the New World: The History of a Polemic, 1750-1900. 1955. Trans. Jeremy Moyle. Pittsburgh: U of Pittsburgh P, 1973.

AGAINST EUROCENTRIC HISTORY

Andre Gunder FRANK:

ReOrient. Global Economy in the

Asian Age. University of

California Press 1998. obligatory reading: Chapter

1, p. 1-51.