tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564536137041993314.post783055367008302561..comments2019-02-07T23:16:32.287-06:00Comments on Post Medieval: The West Knows Besttom blakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13413834098471441074noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2564536137041993314.post-77717666620475447722014-11-16T20:36:02.005-06:002014-11-16T20:36:02.005-06:00The concept of orientalism that we talked about in...The concept of orientalism that we talked about in class is similar to the mentality you described. Orientalism refers more to European art that depicted the "East" as uncivilized, exotic, and less developed compared to Europe. This western-centric way of thinking is found in many places today. For example, in middle and high school world history classes, most of the focus is on Europe, and other cultures and civilizations are studied briefly. I remember studying Roman and Greek culture, philosophy, and history fairly deeply, and European countries had chapters divided by time period. On the other hand, we only learned about a few major Asian and American civilizations, and I believe we skipped over most of Africa. Even among the few we studied, we usually did not learn about deeper subjects such as non-European philosophy, religion, and diplomatic relations. Another manifestation of western-centric thinking is in other cultures' food, as already mentioned. Americans may view cultures that eat food such as turtle as inferior, but in reality, many western foods are unusual to others, and in the case of turtle, it is eaten in various forms in parts of the American south, but many people are unaware of the custom.Grace Hanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16164840598799251947noreply@blogger.com