More about Eurocentrism

[jbor]

A belief that only when they have been afforded "opportunities to advance"
can Africans and African-Americans become the "intellectual equals" of
whites is another catchcry of the Eurocentric point of view.

best


on 15/7/02 7:17 AM, Paul Mackin at paul.mackin at verizon.net wrote:

> Had another thought on the subject of Eurocentricism (brought up by
> Greg). It has to do with what seems like the tendency to hold people of
> European origin to higher standards of behavior than others.(not that
> such expectations are often fulfilled) . For example the question of
> American Indians having slaves. That wasn't as bad as the American
> colonists having them because of the Enlightenment "rights of man" type
> stuff being promulgated . Well, maybe so. But it IS a form of
> Eurocentrism,  isn't it?
> 
> The idea of higher standards for Europeans comes up, perversely of
> course, in a marvelous set piece in Philip Roth's _The Counterlife_.
> just reread on MalignD's recommendation. In the "Aloft" section, the
> security guy  on the El Al plane is lecturing the young, confused,  by
> now only semiconscious, Jewish would-be-hijacker and Nathan Zuckerman
> his unfortunate seat mate on how Gentiles really feel about Jews. The
> dumb kid had thought Gentiles saw his people as their judges over the
> Holocaust and his attempted highjacking of the plane was to protest so
> much Holocaust emphasis as counterproductive with regard to
> Jewish/Gentile relations. But the security man who claims to be only an
> uneducated gas station attendent from Cleveland but who also happens to
> be a Freudian goes into a long disputation  about how this is all wrong.
> The Gentiles including the Arabs don't hate the Jews for thier Superego
> but for their Id. It's not their being unwelcome judges that's the
> problem but that they take too  much whereas  by now they should have
> learned better and of course since they are Europeans they should behave
> like it and not like the Arabs who naturally don't care about any such
> niceites.   Anyway the whole situation does mesh with old Eurocentric
> notion that more should be expected of Europeans.  I'm not telling  the
> story very well but  I'm convinced it's somehow relevant (in some
> perverse way perhaps) to whatever it is we've all been talking about.
> 
> 
> P.
> 
>