Western Supremacy (book)
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Western Supremacy (book)
''Western supremacy: triumph of an idea?'' is a book about development studies, international relations and sociology written by award-winning Tunisian-born French historian, journalist, researcher, and feminist author Sophie Bessis. According to Italian political philosophy professor Flavia Monceri, Sophie Bessis shows how notions of the West have been used to justify imperial economic interests and the emergence of a free trade ideology. Monceri contends that what is peculiar to the West is not the mere fact of a successful hegemony, but rather the fact that ‘the nations of the West … are the only ones to have produced a theoretical (philosophical, moral and scientific) apparatus to legitimate it’. A notion of supremacy actually underpins the last 500 years of Western history and that it still does – for example, in the assumptions underlying notions such as human rights and modernization. Furthermore, the West is not yet able to give up the belief in its own superior ...
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Sophie Bessis
Sophie Bessis ( , 1947) is a Tunisian-born French historian, journalist, researcher, and feminist author. She has written numerous works in French, Spanish, and English on development in the Maghreb and the Arab world, as well as the situation of women denouncing the identity imprisonment to which they are subjected. She is the recipient of the Paris Liège literary prize and was honored as Commandeur of the Order of the Republic. A history scholar and former editor-in-chief of the weekly magazine ''Jeune Afrique'', she is currently a research associate at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations (IRIS) in Paris and Deputy Secretary General of the International Federation of Rights Leagues (FIDH). She has taught the political economy of development at the Department of Political Science at the Sorbonne and in the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (INALCO). She is a consultant for UNESCO and UNICEF, has carried out numerous missions in Afr ...
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Universalism
Universalism is the philosophical and theological concept that some ideas have universal application or applicability. A belief in one fundamental truth is another important tenet in universalism. The living truth is seen as more far-reaching than the national, cultural, or religious boundaries or interpretations of that one truth. As the ''Rig Veda'' states, "Truth is one; sages call it by various names." A community that calls itself ''universalist'' may emphasize the universal principles of most religions, and accept others in an inclusive manner. In the modern context, Universalism can also mean the Western pursuit of unification of all human beings across geographic and other boundaries under Western values, or the application of really universal or universalist constructs, such as human rights or international law. Universalism has had an influence on modern-day Hinduism, in turn influencing modern Western spirituality. Christian universalism refers to the idea that every ...
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Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (born September 10, 1938) is an American historian, writer, and activist, known for her 2014 book ''An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States''. Early life and education Born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1938 to an Oklahoma family, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz grew up in Central Oklahoma, the daughter of a sharecropper of Scots-Irish ancestry and a mother that Dunbar believes to have been partially Native American, although her mother never claimed to be Native and Dunbar-Ortiz grew up without any Native heritage. Dunbar-Ortiz initially claimed to be Cheyenne but she subsequently acknowledged being white. She now claims that she is Cherokee, and that her mother denied her Native roots because she married Dunbar's father, a white tenant farmer. Dunbar's paternal grandfather was a settler, landed farmer, veterinarian, labor activist and a Socialist Party member in Oklahoma and also a member of the Industrial Workers of the World, "Wobblies". Her father was ...
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White Nationalism
White nationalism is a type of racial nationalism or pan-nationalism which espouses the belief that white people are a raceHeidi Beirich and Kevin Hicks. "Chapter 7: White nationalism in America". In Perry, Barbara. ''Hate Crimes''. Greenwood Publishing, 2009. pp.114–115 and seeks to develop and maintain a white racial and national identity."White Nationalism, Explained"
. 21 November 2016. "White nationalism, he said, is the belief that national identity should be built around white ethnicity, and that white people should therefore maintain both a demographic majority and dominance of the nation’s culture and public life.... w ...
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White Supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White supremacy has roots in the now-discredited doctrine of scientific racism and was a key justification for European colonialism. As a political ideology, it imposes and maintains cultural, social, political, historical, and/or institutional domination by white people and non-white supporters. In the past, this ideology had been put into effect through socioeconomic and legal structures such as the Atlantic slave trade, Jim Crow laws in the United States, the White Australia policies from the 1890s to the mid-1970s, and apartheid in South Africa. This ideology is also today present among neo-Confederates. White supremacy underlies a spectrum of contemporary movements including white nationalism, white separatism, neo-Nazism, and the Christ ...
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Orientalism
In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist painting, depicting more specifically the Middle East, was one of the many specialisms of 19th-century academic art, and the literature of Western countries took a similar interest in Oriental themes. Since the publication of Edward Said's ''Orientalism (book), Orientalism'' in 1978, much academic discourse has begun to use the term "Orientalism" to refer to a general patronizing Western attitude towards Middle Eastern, Asian, and North African societies. In Said's analysis, the West Essentialism, essentializes these societies as static and undeveloped—thereby fabricating a view of Oriental culture that can be studied, depicted, and reproduced in the service of Imperialism, imperial power. Implicit in this fabrication, writes Said, is the ...
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Multiculturalism
The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for "Pluralism (political theory), ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchangeably, and for cultural pluralism in which various ethnic groups collaborate and enter into a dialogue with one another without having to sacrifice their particular identities. It can describe a mixed ethnic community area where multiple cultural traditions exist (such as New York City or London) or a single country within which they do (such as Switzerland, Belgium or Russia). Groups associated with an Indigenous peoples, indigenous, aboriginal or wikt:autochthonous, autochthonous ethnic group and settler-descended ethnic groups are often the focus. In reference to sociology, multiculturalism is the end-state of either a natural or artificial process (for example: legally-controlled immigration) and occurs on ...
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Hellenocentrism
Hellenocentrism is a worldview centered on Greeks and Greek civilization. The worldview presupposes the idea that Greeks were somehow unique in world history and that Greek civilization essentially emerged from within itself. Nonetheless such premises have been frequently questioned. Meanings According to Hatoon al-Fassi, Hellenocentrism "is a vision of history that views the Greek world as the centre of the civilised universe." Werner Jaeger employs the term "hellenocentric" to describe the Greek influence on the advancement of modern European culture. He argues that European history should always begin with Greece, where, he believes, the West belongs, both "physically and intellectually". Greece should always be a source of inspiration for Europe because it is the "hellenocentric world" that possesses "the ideal", and because both the temporal and spiritual journey of Europe begins there. For Nasos Vayenas, hellenocentrism can be understood as "a conviction of the uniqueness o ...
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Cultural Hegemony
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of the ruling class becomes the accepted cultural norm. As the universal dominant ideology, the ruling-class worldview misrepresents the social, political, and economic '' status quo'' as natural, inevitable, and perpetual social conditions that benefit every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', Fifth Edition. (1994), p. 1215. In philosophy and in sociology, the denotations and the connotations of term ''cultural hegemony'' derive from the Ancient Greek word ''hegemonia'' (ἡγεμονία), which indicates the leadership and the régime of the hegemon. In political science, hegemony is the geopolitical dominance exercised by an empire, the ''hegemon'' (le ...
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Development Theory
Development theory is a collection of theories about how desirable change in society is best achieved. Such theories draw on a variety of social science disciplines and approaches. In this article, multiple theories are discussed, as are recent developments with regard to these theories. Depending on which theory that is being looked at, there are different explanations to the process of development and their inequalities. Modernization theory Modernization theory is used to analyze the processes in which modernization in societies take place. The theory looks at which aspects of countries are beneficial and which constitute obstacles for economic development. The idea is that development assistance targeted at those particular aspects can lead to modernization of 'traditional' or 'backward' societies. Scientists from various research disciplines have contributed to modernization theory. Sociological and anthropological modernization theory The earliest principles of modern ...
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Justice
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspectives, including the concepts of moral correctness based on ethics, rationality, law, religion, equity and fairness. The state will sometimes endeavor to increase justice by operating courts and enforcing their rulings. Early theories of justice were set out by the Ancient Greek philosophers Plato in his work The Republic, and Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics. Advocates of divine command theory have said that justice issues from God. In the 1600s, philosophers such as John Locke said that justice derives from natural law. Social contract theory said that justice is derived from the mutual agreement of everyone. In the 1800s, utilitarian philosophers such as John Stuart Mill said that justice is based on the best outcomes for the gre ...
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Democracy
Democracy (From grc, δημοκρατία, dēmokratía, ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which the people have the authority to deliberate and decide legislation (" direct democracy"), or to choose governing officials to do so ("representative democracy"). Who is considered part of "the people" and how authority is shared among or delegated by the people has changed over time and at different rates in different countries. Features of democracy often include freedom of assembly, association, property rights, freedom of religion and speech, inclusiveness and equality, citizenship, consent of the governed, voting rights, freedom from unwarranted governmental deprivation of the right to life and liberty, and minority rights. The notion of democracy has evolved over time considerably. Throughout history, one can find evidence of direct democracy, in which communities make decisions through popular assembly. Today, the dominant form of ...
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