Western imperial particularism was disguised as universal civilization

Evidence

The problem is that this argument seems to provide an alibi for the surreptitious return by the back door of the old liberal universalism. However, as Laclau notes, “European imperialist expansion had to be presented in terms of a universalizing civilizing function, modernization and so forth. The resistances of other cultures were … presented not as struggles between particular identities and cultures, but as part of an all-embracing and epochal struggle between universality and particularisms” (Laclau 1996). In short Western particularism was rewritten as a global universalism. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 372

Categorization

• XREF: This is the precise mechanism at the heart of Orientalism as the reader knows it — the universalism/particularism dichotomy that downstream Islamophobia readings deploy directly. — connects to: Western modernity is a hegemonic particularism disguised as universalism — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 153; Nineteenth-century Europe traded Enlightenment universalism for imperialist superiority — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 119; So-called universal scholarship actually reflects imperial national biases — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 592 (+6 more)
• DEFINE: Defines how imperial ideology smuggled Western specificity into a universalizing frame — essential vocabulary.
• ADDENDUM: Connects to the civilizing-mission framing of colonialism that the reader will encounter when reading about how Muslim ‘backwardness’ is constructed.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 372

Broader Connections

• Western modernity is a hegemonic particularism disguised as universalism #expands (0.95) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 153
• Nineteenth-century Orientalism traded Enlightenment universalism for a hierarchy of civilizations. #corroborates (0.85) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 193
• Nineteenth-century Europe traded Enlightenment universalism for imperialist superiority #corroborates (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 119
• Western civilization discourse was built on a constructed binary of superiority and inferiority #expands (0.80)
• So-called universal scholarship actually reflects imperial national biases #epitomizes (0.75) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 592
• Civilizational theory defined all non-Western peoples as inferior by default #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 121