Historicism = Histrionics

Submitted by Pied Piper (United States), Jul 23, 2015 at 11:56

"...Vico, Hegel, Marx, and others." may have been Eurocentric in their outlook and conception of civilization (writ large), but they were far from being unique in this regard. Almost every civilization/culture of any significance has thought of itself as the center of the universe, let alone as the center of mankind.

China, for example, has long seen itself as the Jung Gwo-the Middle Kingdom- the center of civilization, whose Emperor held a "Mandate from Heaven" and that non-Chinese were simply worthless barbarians.

The ancient Greeks were so enamored of themselves that they contributed their Hellenic term βάρβαρος (barbaros) to countless lexicons throughout Europe and beyond to describe uncivilized foreigners.

The Arabs too, have had their dose of narcissism as exemplified by the Koranic Surat Aal Imraan (3:110) which brazenly declares: "You (the Arabs) are the Greatest of people and were put on this Earth as an exemplary model for the rest of Mankind." (my translation)

Proof again that Edward Said never saw the forest for the trees. Further, any book, such as Imperialism Past and Present whose thesis is based on Said's ghoulish misinterpretations, has to be deeply flawed.

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