Final Paper: Imagining the Other

Xikun Wang
Mirjana Morosini
CORE-105-037: Imagining the Other
04/25/2020
Final Paper
There are clear and evident divisions in the constitution of the world and the scenario has been witnessed since time immemorial. While there are affluent and wealthy regions and individuals, some people in other parts of the world are continuously ravaged by impacts and side effects of poverty such as diseases and hunger being the order of the order. These scenarios are replicated on a global scale where some nations particularly in Europe and Asia are considered developed because they have established quality facilities and infrastructures while others especially from the African continent are associated with under-development. There are various factors that are believed to have led to these divisions including the industrial revolution. During that period, Europeans took full advantage and the center stage to grow and develop their countries. They fully embraced science and technology to build industries in different sectors of their economies. While Europeans were extensively involved in the industrial revolution, other regions particularly those in Asia and Africa remained adamant and ignorant. Industrialization also changed the European mindsets dramatically and in the sense that they started to see themselves as being highly superiors and that it was their obligation to force their ideas on other people they considered primitive and uncivilized. As such, European supremacy fostered the colonization of different countries around the globe. The perception of European domination also fostered the atrocities witnessed in Germany during the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. The paper seeks to highlight the complex problem of European supremacy that was fostered significantly by the industrial revolution and has over the years resulted in negative practices such as colonization of “weaker and backward” nations and regions and overall the complexity of the process of “imagining the other”.
Michael Adas in the article Machines as the Measure of Men offered vividly how Europeans took full advantage of science and technology to exert their Western dominance on other people. Adas shared that the era of enlightenment was a significant period around the world and particularly in Europe not only because of developments in mathematics, physics, chemistry and human anatomy among others but also that there was significant transformation in how society viewed nature. People questioned traditional learning and observed nature for themselves. Translations of classical texts exposed scholars to new ideas. Discoveries by explorers showed that accepted ideas could be wrong. Before the Scientific Revolution, most educated people who studied the world took guidance from the explanations given by authorities like ancient Greek writers and Catholic Church officials. After the Scientific Revolution, educated people and in this case Europeans placed more importance on what they observed and less on what they were told. They gained knowledge by observing the world around them and coming up with logical explanations for what they saw. Europeans took full advantage of the scientific revolution to create inventions and theories that were backed up by facts and figures. As such, the scientific revolution is one of the fundamental moments that saw Europeans make effort to impose themselves and ideas on other people around the globe.
The ideal situation is that cultures should be rated on the basis of the values that describe them. However, that cannot be any further from the truth because of Western cultural superiority. According to Augstein, “Western culture is objectively superior to others because its values, including life, logic, individualism, progress, and science, are superior values. Over the years and particularly since the scientific revolution, Western culture has brought forth the world's greatest technologies by which the quality of a culture are judged and determined. One notable development is the uptake and utilization of computer technology in society. Regions such as Europe that have taken fundamental steps in being tech-savvy and digitizing their economies are identified as developed while those that are yet to do so deemed backward and in cases uncivilized. The idea of a European civilized superiority has been implemented in several ways including through the colonial and imperial enterprise. It is exemplified through the imagination of the “other” that most often manifests itself in the categorizations and classifications of other human beings.
Through taking advantage of fundamental periods such as the era of enlightenment, Europeans have over the years secluded themselves from other races and perceived themselves as being highly superior. It is undoubted that Europeans are quite competitive and proud. It is common to find individuals proudly introducing themselves as Europeans instead of associating themselves with their native countries. For instance, ideally an individual from Britain should be identified as British and the one from Wales as Welsh. The logic behind the fact stated above is that Europeans have for centuries considered themselves as being superior while people from other regions are utterly inferior. These aspects pertaining race have been a contentious issue. It has been noted that contrary to popular opinion, race isn’t an artificial boundary. Similarly, Augstein shared that race doesn’t only relate to the differences in skin color and cultural beliefs and but also involves the distinctions in mental endowment and intelligence. Augstein was also of the opinion that it is essential to note that although people of a particular race, say Africans have fixed racial characteristics, the levels of intelligence between people of different races are very distinct. Europeans for example, are bright and from a historical perspective have often gone through the different stages of evolution faster. Europeans participated actively in the agricultural era and when it was time for the industrial revolution they were at the forefront of embracing the various science and technology ideologies. On the other hand, Asians and Africans have always taken a back seat on those particular matters.
Western domination of other races and communities around the world was also witnessed in the slavery of black people in America and Britain. While some Africans migrated into those regions in search of greener pastures and to make better lives for themselves, others were brought forcefully and made to labor in different capacities at the orders of their European masters. From Augstein’s perspective, Europeans believed that Africans were incapable of leading themselves let alone rule one another and that it was their obligation to lead them on the right path. Furthermore, since Africans had remained adamant to observing their cultural beliefs some of which made them live like savages, Europeans saw that as an opportunity to civilize the group even if it was by force. As such, with slavery, Africans were forbidden and prohibited from engaging in their “uncivilized” practices including religion and they were forced to pick up European lifestyles, beliefs and values.
Additionally, Adas shared that the need for Western domination over others that they perceived weak and inferior explains why and how the Europeans took the lead and left other regions significantly behind during the industrial revolution. Adas believed that the huge gap between Western and Eastern countries from industrialization was caused by backward way of thinking that characterizes individuals from Asia and Africa. European countries took full control of the scientific technologies in the industrial revolution not only to develop and grow industries but also to build their economies to first class levels. While Europe was extensively involved in the revolution, countries in Asia and particularly China remained adamant. For instance, although the ruler of the Qing people in China appreciated the developments of the industrial revo...