Talk:Eurocentrism

judeocentrism

Why is judeocentrism linked from here? Is there a relationship between the two? If so, can someone describe it, please? If not, I'll remove the link. Martin

I remember clearly that there used to be a page called Americocentrism. If I am not mistaken, it was then turned into a redirect. Now it seems to have gone completely. Should this fact be seen as Americocentrism here at Wikipedia? 131.130.181.71 13:56, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

self-contradictory paragraph

Deleted text: (was 2nd paragraph)

Being subject to eurocentrist practices may lead to the perception that Western concepts are deemed universal, or superior, or at least fundamentally different from those in other cultures or civilizations.

How can a concept be considered universal if while at the same time fundamentally different? This doesn't make sense.

Is this a veiled reference to the concept which justifies or predicts the dominance of Western Civilivation as a consequence of the "uniquely Western" quest to improve itself as a whole? Toynbee (?) or other historians exalt the ancient Greeks as seeking "the good" in general terms. That is, they looked not only inward (to themeselves) but outward (to other cultures) for aspects with which they might better themselves.

Is this the aspect the sentence above deems fundamentally different: the West's anti-ethnocentric tendency to pick and choose the best elements of other civilizations?

Or is the sentence echoing the historian's exaltation of the "superiority" of Western culture as a consequence of its relentless drive to become better? -- Uncle Ed (talk) 16:36, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

More Bias

Interestingly enough, Afrocentricism, although nowhere near as damaging to the world's society as Eurocentricism has been, has been posted with more criticism than this article. I post valid critical response into the article and ALL of it is deleted. So it seems that criticism of Afrocentricism is permitted where it interferes with sound objective educational development, but criticism of Eurocentricism is avoided even though it has interfered with life libertiy and self determination, caused slavery, oligarchies, and racial division.

Another more offensive tradition in Eurocentric discourse and scholarship is for Eurocentric minded scholars to take a "European by default" approach to discussing the history of any mixed culture or ancient civilization that could possibly have had contact with European oriented peoples. By assuming that contact was made in antiquity, the Eurocentric scholar will assert that the culture or civilization was by default "European" or "Caucasoid" in antiquity, and that these characteristics were the foundations that caused civilizations like Egypt, Ethiopia, Israel, and many East Indian civilizations to flourish in history. Usually the tradition will assert a condition in stating that de-empathizes or minimizes the non-European influence by using words like "although" and "however" after facts had shown that subject matter in question is not European in nature. This conditioning is done to harmonize the psychological need of the Eurocentric minded to lay claim to everything meaningful in history. Most notably is the need to lay claim to the Biblical and ancient Egyptian histories that are in fact not Eurocentric histories.

poor stuff

For such an important concept, this is a very poor quality article which barely addresses the important issues. It also contains a lot of very garbled stuff (some of it added by the indignant anonymous contributor above). It's difficult to know what to make of paragraph like this:

For example, the very definition of a continent was expanded to separate the Eurasian continent into two parts, Europe and Asia as to place Europe itself into more prominence. In addition cartesian maps have been designed throughout history to center the northwestern part of Europe (most notably Great Britain) in the map.

What is a "cartesian map": one designed by Descartes? When was the "definition of a continent" expanded to divide up Eurasia to promote Europe? The Europe/Asia distinction dates back to the ancient world, before the extent of these landmasses were known and before "Eurocentrism" was a meaningful concept or "Eurasia" known to exist. So this is wholly false, historically. Anyway, the argument makes no sense. In itself, dividing the landmass no more promotes Europe than Asia. As for world maps, they were first created by Europeans, so naturally expanded to the left and right from Europe, as more of the world became known. As a historical process this is pretty much inevitable, and conforms to the way known non-European maps developed with the map-making country in the centre. But it so happens it's virtually impossible to divide up the world any other way without chopping through a large landmass. Try it with a globe. Paul B 14:52, 28 May 2005 (UTC).

The entire paragraph "Eurocentric Activities in Public Scholarship" is extremely POV and needs to be reworked or, better, deleted.

NWA

Eurocentrics, especially when they have the power to do so, will take it upon themselves to dominate discourse, or unilaterally modify the rules of an institution or service that provides information to the public. This is done usually done in order to reassert their point of view into the discourse in such a way as to ultimately veto opposing view points. This is also done by taking a surreptitious method of inserting their view in discourse, they will insert comments that contain facts, but are placed in such a way to hopefully alter the perceptions of the reader, irregardless of the overall "bigger picture" that the message conveys. Usually this method is designed to maintain a status quo viewpoint in regards to racial and historical issues. For example, when discussing the origins of Black people, a Eurocentric scholar may insist early on that Black people are not significant, or important, or numerous in some areas of the world, as to disrupt the reader from having a high view of Black history in respect to the world's overall history.

Blatant POV.

Get rid of it someone.

Your wish is my command. I've moved the comment to bottom of page - for new comments. Paul B 11:12 20 Aug 2005 (UTC)

A source that might be worth thinking...

[1]

interesting. the data needs to be verified though. For instance, many mathematical ideas stated (algebra, negative #s etc) came from india to middle east. I would like to remove the especially in especially Islamic mathematics from the main page. Any objections, please let me know. The scientific discoveries parah are equally applicable to India, china etc - to make this page better, I'd suggest we don't make generic statements but possibly make a short list of (verified) claims to backup the statement. --Pranathi 00:38, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The islamic world was more advanced than europe before renaissance. But the foll parah is stretching it, IMO. I will be removing shortly. Any objections, let me know: Also, it can be said that modern science can find its routes from the Islamic world, for example, almost every major breakthrough made during the rennaisance in Europe, was already advanced in the Islamic world, (examples?) usually long time before. Many of the mathematical, medical and other scientific advances that should be credited for the Islamic world, are usally claimed to be invented by Europeans.

To stay it needs to be backed up with examples. And cannot use verbiage like 'almost every'.--Pranathi 02:49, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

Removed "European Jesus" thing

It's not an example of Eurocentrism so much as an example of artistic license, and the way that historical/legendary/mythical subjects are portrayed in the arts based on when and where the painting is painted, the statue made, etc. East Asian Buddhists have Asian-looking Buddhists (He was Indian). Roman soldiers in paintings of Christ on the cross made during the Renaissance often wear Renaissance-period armour. Etc. --Edward Wakelin 01:27, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

How does this ignore

Erasing and ignoring of history. Isn't the trade mark of eurocentrism is to basically deny anyone and everyones history. If it couldn't be denied then it was destroyed or claimed white. You can any native american or black and they will say that at least.