Western civilization discourse was built on a constructed binary of superiority and inferiority

Evidence

The fact that most people (including many a social theorist) instinctively choose the first, rather than the second, approach, is a testimony to the remarkable success of the etiological myth which, in one variant or another, Western civilization has deployed over the years to legitimize its spatial hegemony by projecting it as temporal superiority. Western civilization has articulated its struggle for domination in terms of the holy battle of humanity against barbarism, reason against ignorance, objectivity against prejudice, progress against degeneration, truth against superstition, science against magic, rationality against passion. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 281 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

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 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Having annexed science, he’s going to claim ethics too. … Just think of it! M. Caillois has never eaten anyone! M. Caillois has never dreamed of finishing off an invalid! It has never occurred to M. Caillois to shorten the days of his aged parents! Well, there you have it, the superiority of the West: “That discipline of life which tries to ensure that the human person is sufficiently respected so that it is not considered normal to eliminate the old and the infirm.” — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 222 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Western projects justify themselves by framing colonized peoples as incapable of self-improvement.; The West’s entitlement to own the nonwhite world rests on defining it as subhuman; Orientalist discourse frames Westerners and Orientals as absolute binary opposites. (+12 more)

Related

• Western civilization legitimizes dominance by narrating itself as temporal superiority (similarity 0.88)
• The West’s entitlement to own the nonwhite world rests on defining it as subhuman (similarity 0.87)
• Claims of Western ethical superiority rest on self-serving and false contrasts (similarity 0.86)
• Modernity’s logic defines those outside Western norms as less than human (similarity 0.86)
• Orientalist discourse frames Westerners and Orientals as absolute binary opposites. (similarity 0.85)
• Civilizational theory defined all non-Western peoples as inferior by default (similarity 0.84)
• The noble-savage ideal served as a Western vehicle for self-critique (similarity 0.83)
• Western imperial particularism was disguised as universal civilization (similarity 0.80)
• Twentieth-century discourse still treated the civilizing West as descended from eastern barbarians (similarity 0.79)
• Western modernity is a hegemonic particularism disguised as universalism (similarity 0.79)
• Modernization theory repackaged Orientalist racism in social-science guise (similarity 0.79)
• The West monopolizes the position of observer over the observed non-West (similarity 0.79)
• Cultures are hybrid and interdependent, making civilizational essences an ideological fiction. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Western civilization legitimizes dominance by narrating itself as temporal superiority #corroborates (0.95) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 281
• Civilizational theory defined all non-Western peoples as inferior by default #exemplifies (0.90) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 121
• Claims of Western ethical superiority rest on self-serving and false contrasts #corroborates (0.88) — Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, 222
• Modernity’s logic defines those outside Western norms as less than human #exemplifies (0.85)