Eurocentrism  

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A Scheme for abolishing all Words is one of the wittiest and smartest comments on semantics. (Illustration: extreme close-up from the movie "The Big Swallow" (1901), produced and directed by James Williamson (1855-1933)
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A Scheme for abolishing all Words is one of the wittiest and smartest comments on semantics. (Illustration: extreme close-up from the movie "The Big Swallow" (1901), produced and directed by James Williamson (1855-1933)

Eurocentrism is the practice, conscious or otherwise, of placing emphasis on European (and, generally, Western) concerns, culture and values at the expense of those of other cultures. Eurocentrism is an instance of ethnocentrism, perhaps especially relevant because of its alignment with current and past real power structures in the world. Eurocentrism often involved claiming cultures that were not white or European as being such, or denying their existence at all.

The source of a cultural tradition can be seen in the balance of emphasis given to various thinkers and ideas in discussing a subject. In the 1960s a reaction against the priority given to a canon of "Dead White European Males" provided a slogan which neatly sums up the charge of eurocentrism (alongside other important -centrisms).

In Britain, eurocentric and eurocentrist are occasionally used in political discourse to describe supporters of European integration and the European Union, in other words as an antonym of eurosceptic.



Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Eurocentrism" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on original research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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