a construction of knowledge used to justify imperial expansion
That sounds the wrong way round. It assumes the default human belief is to not approve of imperial expansion and then people have to talk themselves into approving of it. I think it is more the other way round, and the dominant belief at that time was that foreigners were lesser than us and it was morally acceptable to treat them differently accordingly. So Orientalism would be a product of that belief system rather than a deliberate creation to prop it up.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-01-03 03:22 am (UTC)That sounds the wrong way round. It assumes the default human belief is to not approve of imperial expansion and then people have to talk themselves into approving of it. I think it is more the other way round, and the dominant belief at that time was that foreigners were lesser than us and it was morally acceptable to treat them differently accordingly. So Orientalism would be a product of that belief system rather than a deliberate creation to prop it up.