> Show me any other contemporary culture where the
> Other is treated with similar courtesy--where the Other is not
> either ignored or distrusted or hated.  You bring up India, where
> Hindus and Muslims continue to kill each other (and please don't
> blame this on the Brits!), and you might examine Japan, or China,

Did you actually examine China ? I doubt.

Simply because one has a belief does not mean others have to accept he has
an equal right nor can he force others to accept it. One has to behave
right, first of all.

This is why Buddhism was very welcome when it was introduced by Indians to
China around AD 0, and Muslims won many Chinese hearts around 1500's. At the
time of the opening of Ming Dynasty, 1/3 population in China were Muslims.
They battled for Ming for better living.

Both the Others were not only treated well, but became blood of the country.

Hongguang Bi


----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Pearlman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2003 10:11 AM
Subject: Re: self-loathing and imperial others (used to be "laureates...")


> Yours are all good points, but perhaps you are missing my own
> far more hastily presented idea (hardly MINE in terms of originating
> with me!), namely, that greedy Western imperialism necessarily
> involved confrontation with other cultures, and such confrontations
> eventually resulted in greater understanding of ourselves and the
> Other.  Show me any other contemporary culture where the
> Other is treated with similar courtesy--where the Other is not
> either ignored or distrusted or hated.  You bring up India, where
> Hindus and Muslims continue to kill each other (and please don't
> blame this on the Brits!), and you might examine Japan, or China,
> among the most ethnocentric nations on earth, or the whole of
> ethnically cleansing Middle-European barbarianism, etc.  Getting
> back to our own North American shores, where we have such
> wonderfully invigorating ethnic mixes in population and university
> programs of study, all this would be inconceivable if not for our
> long-standing national policies of openness to immigration.  This
> is not to deny concomitant evils, but the "liberal" emphasis is
> usually on the evils, whereas the positive contributions of Western--
> and specifically American--culture tend to be ignored.  I guess
> this liberal tendency to see evil in our history is itself the result
> of our freedom, which we take so for granted that it is invisible,
> transparent as the air we breathe, a clear lens through which
> our wrongdoings show up quite dramatically.   Let's bring some
> balance back into this picture!  I am able, for instance, to
> appreciate EP's poetic genius even though he was a rank amateur
> and total embarrassment in virtually every subject he ever
> incorporated into his Cantos.
> ==DP
> At 10:12 AM 2/13/03 -0600, you wrote:
> >Dan wrote, "Along with Western imperialism came cultural anthropology
> >(studies of the
> >Other), Comparative this-n-that, etc., leading to a self-critical look
> >at
> >our own Western ways, to the point of self-loathing--as is practised so
> >well in academia.  Anyway, all this is said as an "instigation."  To
> >provoke frontal-lobe activity."
> >==Dan
> >
> >Indeed.  And just preceding full-blown imperialism, there were
> >missionaries.  Everyone knows they were only doing the Lord's work.
> >(Just like the anthropologists were only furthering the progress of
> >disinterested note-taking and information gathering regarding the
> >habits of cultural others, and are therefore quite innocent of "Western
> >imperialism".)
> >
> >Some thinkers, I will grant, have taken it upon themselves to practice
> >self-loathing for all of us.  But this minority of thinkers does not by
> >itself explain the growth of comparativist projects, which largely
> >arose because of the increased numbers of "non-traditional" students in
> >the humanities, such as those who originate in formerly colonized
> >territory.  The "normal" (read white American) graduate students take
> >classes side by side with their South Asian counterparts, and realize
> >abruptly that some adjustments must be made to their own parochial (and
> >often quite innocent, I feel I must add) preconceptions about global
> >politics and migration and Caliban's structural role in  _The Tempest_.
> >  This process responds to more than an intellectual desire to
> >demonstrate adequate self-loathing, and very well might leave people
> >asking , honestly, what was so undisposably great about the Great Books
> >of the West.  In other words, some encounters with what they call
> >"others" will oblige people to rethink their assumptions and begin
> >thinking more critically, less constrained by this reified entity known
> >vaguely as "the West".
> >
> >Vice versa, South Asian graduate students have just as much adjustment
> >to perform.  Many of my Indian colleagues grew up on a steady diet of
> >British classics, and very few of them had read much by Indian authors
> >while living in India.  The colonial legacy lives on for them in this
> >way.  Many turn to post-colonial critiques of the West as one of the
> >only available tools for understanding the complex effects colonization
> >leaves in its wake.  They, clearly, are not practicing self-loathing,
> >any more than Toni Morrison was when she wrote that _Moby-Dick_ is
> >really about race, and the whiteness of the whale has a meaning that
> >even Ishmael never thought to gloss.  She is not trying to make white
> >people loathe themselves.  There is no lasting value in doing so.  But
> >to understand how the racial system in America left its marks in the
> >most unexpected places is to do what a good critic does: read, and pay
> >attention to the content that a book can't quite express in the open.
> >
> >For one final perspective on the self-loathing efficacy of academics,
> >please see this charming cartoon by Tom Tomorrow:
> >http://archive.salon.com/comics/tomo/2001/12/03/tomo/index.html
> >
> >Everyone keep your heads covered -- today's a scary day,
> >Jon
> >
> >On Thursday, February 13, 2003, at 08:34  AM, Daniel Pearlman wrote:
> >>