Enlightenment thought ranked all societies on one universal civilizational scale.

Evidence

The “noble-ignoble” and the “rude-refined” oppositions belonged to the same discursive formation. This “West and the Rest” discourse greatly influenced Enlightenment thinking. It provided the framework of images in which Enlightenment social philosophy matured. Enlightenment thinkers believed that there was one path to civilization and social development, and that all societies could be ranked or placed early or late, lower or higher, on the same scale. The emerging “science of society” was the study of the forces which had propelled all societies, by stages, along this single path of development, leaving some, regrettably, at its “lowest” stage—represented by the American savage—while others advanced to the summit of civilized development, represented by the West. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 661

Categorization

• XREF: This single-linear-scale ranking is the master mechanism the reader will carry into Islamophobia readings on civilizational hierarchy and the construction of the Muslim Other.
• DEEPTHINKING: The insight that a whole social-science paradigm was built on ranking societies along one axis of progress — with the West as both summit and the criterion itself — is foundational for understanding how racial exclusion was normal-ized as ‘science’.