This prejudice was also found in the orientalists (scientist studying the orientals) and all their scientific research and reports were under the influence of this.
What happened was that it created a certain image about the orientals in the European mind and in doing that infused a bias in the European attitude towards the orientals.
The main problem, however, arose when the Europeans started generalizing the attributes they associated with orientals, and started portraying these artificial characteristics associated with orientals in their western world through their scientific reports, literary work, and other media sources. They said that it was their duty towards the world to civilize the uncivilized world. The Europeans defined themselves as the superior race compared to the orientals and they justified their colonization by this concept. Some particular attributes were associated with the orientals, and whatever the orientals weren’t the occidents were. The Europeans used orientalism to define themselves. This was totally an artificial boundary and it was laid on the basis of the concept of them and us or theirs and ours. They found their civilization and culture very exotic, and established the science of orientalism, which was the study of the orientals or the people from these exotic civilization.Įdward Said argues that the Europeans divided the world into two parts the east and the west or the occident and the orient or the civilized and the uncivilized. He says that with the start of European colonization the Europeans came in contact with the lesser developed countries of the east. Orientalism by Edward Said is a cononical text of cultural studies in which he has challenged the concept of orientalism or the difference between east and west, as he puts it. An Introduction to Edward Said’s Orientalism
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