European cultural hegemony rests on the idea of European superiority

Evidence

Orientalism is never far from what Denys Hay has called the idea of Europe, a collective notion identifying “us” Europeans as against all “those” non-Europeans, and indeed it can be argued that the major component in European culture is precisely what made that culture hegemonic both in and outside Europe: the idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the non-European peoples and cultures. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 62

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘us vs. them’ collective identity construction connects directly to later Islamophobia readings on othering and imagined communities. — connects to: Europe achieved hegemony only through mercantile imperialism and capitalism, not inherent superiority — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 103
• DEFINE: Introduces Denys Hay’s ‘idea of Europe’ as a collective identity defined against non-Europeans.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 62