Talk:Orientalism

Term with opposite meaning?

If "orientalism" is the notion that Asian countries and cultures are somehow inferior to the Western world, what's the term for the opposite -- the notion that Asian countries and cultures are somehow superior to the Western world? The latter seems to be a prejudice that comes up when discussing eastern religions or eastern medicine, particularly within the New Age crowd. --Tracer (talk) 15:13, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

RW has called it "Orientalist woo" before. 32℉uzzy, 0℃atPotato (talk/stalk) 15:19, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

The "Noble Savage" trope plays with that idea, but I can't recall seeing a distinct term for the valorization of Asia in the way you're talking about. But really, it would be no less Orientalist to talk about Asia/"the Orient" as some sort of inherently spiritually-superior/culturally-superior place. Said's argument is that the real dynamic of Orientalism isn't just in affirming some sort of superiority (though that's a huge part of it) as much as it is using discursive power to construct "the Orient" in a particular way and then engaging with the region/people/cultures based on that construction; an Orient discursively constructed as a primitive den of iniquity or an Orient constructed as a Shangri-La of enlightened yogis and Geishas initiated into mysterious arts of the erotic are equally Orientalist. Peace. AgingHippie (talk) 15:26, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm ... I just thought of something else. Although RationalWiki's audience is primarily western readers, there is such a thing as a sense within various Asian cultures that their culture is superior to the West. My understanding is that some of that prejudice was harnessed by Imperial Japan to encourage their populace to fight World War II against the Americans, in much the same way that American-made propaganda during World War II depicted the Japanese as subhuman savages. --Tracer (talk) 05:12, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Expand the article?

Like, talk about examples of it. There is so much more to talk about on this topic, as this is a rather heavily studied cultural subject and is one of the most prevalent forms of racism out there. (Probably surpassed only by anti-Black racism when it comes to America.) ^{— Unsigned, by: 174.61.196.94 / talk / contribs (signed by bot)} 04:57, 07 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh fuck! They are at it again

This article appears to elaborate a point of view first offered by Edward Said. And that's fine. But Orientalism is not limited to racism. In addition it is a bit supercilious, to say the least, to outright claim that western interests in practices such as acupuncture and martial arts are connected in some strange way with racism. Ariel31459 (talk) 02:39, 3 April 2021 (UTC)

Appropriation by tankies

This term is sometimes used by tankies (e.g. lemmy.ml moderators[1]) to dismiss all criticism of Russia and China, branding all views on those countries and their governments typical in Western media (including criticism of Russia's war in Ukraine) as Orientalism. --ApooftGnegiol (talk) 09:00, 5 July 2023 (UTC)