KEY AREAS OF NARRATIVES
Metanarrative – Values hidden from the theory. Down in the subconscious.
Poststructuralism – Deconstruct a theory or a book or an argument to find the underlying
metanarrative.
Nationalism – Values in a nation. Poststructuralists – nationalism is a construct.
False sense of homogeneity even if it is a construct
Standard of civilisation
1) First world liberal and civilised
2) Second world – totalitarian. Make sure no one questions the state, so you must crush
society. It is very backward.
3) Third world – no hope.
In the 18th - 19th century , if you were uncivilised (black, yellow, red brown skin) your state
was not deserving of sovereignty. Only western civilised state was deserving of sovereignty.
No sovereignty – no legal prevention from intervention abroad (colonialism).
Consequences?
Eurocentrism isn’t inevitably imperialist but a lot of it is.
If you say the non-western world is so backward that it cannot develop
How then can we enable the development of the eastern world?
Through western imperialism.
Liberal power is mandatory and not oppressive. The white European must go abroad
and deliver the rational institutions of the west, so they can develop into modernity.
Paternalist civilising mission.
Imperials civilise so they can modern ^
Scientific racism – to not mix with white blood is to create white suicide.
Marxism - Karl Marx
· Good example of eurocentrism in practice.
· History moves through 4 modes of production – primitive communalism, ancient
mode of production and then feudalism and then capitalism, socialism then
communism.
· That developmental journey only occurs in Europe because only the Europeans
have the gift of development.
· Asiatic mode of production (critique of this – does not include Australia or Africa) –
the same idea as oriental despotism – you have a totalitarian state that crushes civil
society. Marx said in Asia we have these two tyrannical states in society and
therefore are no classes
· Classes cannot emerge in this schematic.
· If classes cannot emerge there is no class struggle, then there is no development
into capitalism.
· All you have are backward rotting countries in society, stagnating in the teeth of
time.
· The solution: TO operationalise the white mans burden. Preferably the British white
mans burden. India and china must be colonialised by the British through which they
were to be given how they can develop into capitalism. The specific process was the
primitive accumulation of capital
Metanarrative – Values hidden from the theory. Down in the subconscious.
Poststructuralism – Deconstruct a theory or a book or an argument to find the underlying
metanarrative.
Nationalism – Values in a nation. Poststructuralists – nationalism is a construct.
False sense of homogeneity even if it is a construct
Standard of civilisation
1) First world liberal and civilised
2) Second world – totalitarian. Make sure no one questions the state, so you must crush
society. It is very backward.
3) Third world – no hope.
In the 18th - 19th century , if you were uncivilised (black, yellow, red brown skin) your state
was not deserving of sovereignty. Only western civilised state was deserving of sovereignty.
No sovereignty – no legal prevention from intervention abroad (colonialism).
Consequences?
Eurocentrism isn’t inevitably imperialist but a lot of it is.
If you say the non-western world is so backward that it cannot develop
How then can we enable the development of the eastern world?
Through western imperialism.
Liberal power is mandatory and not oppressive. The white European must go abroad
and deliver the rational institutions of the west, so they can develop into modernity.
Paternalist civilising mission.
Imperials civilise so they can modern ^
Scientific racism – to not mix with white blood is to create white suicide.
Marxism - Karl Marx
· Good example of eurocentrism in practice.
· History moves through 4 modes of production – primitive communalism, ancient
mode of production and then feudalism and then capitalism, socialism then
communism.
· That developmental journey only occurs in Europe because only the Europeans
have the gift of development.
· Asiatic mode of production (critique of this – does not include Australia or Africa) –
the same idea as oriental despotism – you have a totalitarian state that crushes civil
society. Marx said in Asia we have these two tyrannical states in society and
therefore are no classes
· Classes cannot emerge in this schematic.
· If classes cannot emerge there is no class struggle, then there is no development
into capitalism.
· All you have are backward rotting countries in society, stagnating in the teeth of
time.
· The solution: TO operationalise the white mans burden. Preferably the British white
mans burden. India and china must be colonialised by the British through which they
were to be given how they can develop into capitalism. The specific process was the
primitive accumulation of capital
