The West’s entitlement to own the nonwhite world rests on defining it as subhuman

Evidence

A widely accepted theory in the nineteenth century was that human society was divided into different and distinct civilizations which existed in isolation from each other, each driven by its own core set of values. This theory held that the West, as a unique civilization with roots in ancient Greece, had certain qualities that differentiated it from all other civilizations. These included “freedom, law, rationality, science, progress, intellectual curiosity, and the spirit of invention, adventure and enterprise.” Every other civilization was then defined in relation to this notion of a superior “West.” Predictably, the world of Islam was characterized as premodern, backward, primitive, despotic, static, undemocratic, and rigid. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 121 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modernity’s logic defines those outside Western norms as less than human; Colonial domination doctrine reduces humanity to fixed racial essences; Western civilization discourse was built on a constructed binary of superiority and inferiority (+5 more)

Related

• Modernity’s logic defines those outside Western norms as less than human (similarity 0.92)
• Civilizational theory defined all non-Western peoples as inferior by default (similarity 0.88)
• Western civilization discourse was built on a constructed binary of superiority and inferiority (similarity 0.87)
• Western civilization legitimizes dominance by narrating itself as temporal superiority (similarity 0.84)
• Nineteenth-century theory defined every civilization in relation to a singular Western ideal (similarity 0.82)
• The West required the Rest as a conceptual opposite to define itself. (similarity 0.81)
• Orientalist discourse frames Westerners and Orientals as absolute binary opposites. (similarity 0.81)
• The West concept classifies, represents, compares, and evaluates societies (similarity 0.81)
• The belief that Muslims had different needs enabled colonial indifference. (similarity 0.81)
• Modernization theory repackaged Orientalist racism in social-science guise (similarity 0.80)
• The Western image of Muslims dehumanizes them to enable colonial rule (similarity 0.80)
• Twentieth-century discourse still treated the civilizing West as descended from eastern barbarians (similarity 0.80)
• Western scholarship constructed the East as savage to justify imperial conquest. (similarity 0.80)
• Western imperial particularism was disguised as universal civilization (similarity 0.80)
• The noble-savage ideal served as a Western vehicle for self-critique (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Modernity’s logic defines those outside Western norms as less than human #expands (0.90)
• Colonial domination doctrine reduces humanity to fixed racial essences #expands (0.85)
• Civilizational theory defined all non-Western peoples as inferior by default #expands (0.82) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 121
• Western civilization discourse was built on a constructed binary of superiority and inferiority #expands (0.80)
• Claims of Western ethical superiority rest on self-serving and false contrasts #corroborates (0.80) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 222
• Orientalist Muslim dehumanization legitimizes colonial and imperial adventures #exemplifies (0.78) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 44
• White-imposed dehumanization drives the black subject to seek whiteness #responds-to (0.72)