Orientalism is the most typical term, which describes the way of western people seeing the rest of the world. It is a way of seeing the world that western people imagine, emphasise, exaggerate, and distorts the differences of the rest and its cultures as compared to that of Europe and the United States of America (the West), while the western people recognised themselves as overwhelming superiority. The West calls the people of the rest of the world Orient, and sees them different individuals from the West. In addition, Orientalism often involves seeing the Eastern culture as exotic, uncivilised, and at the same time it is going backwards. According to Edward Said, Orientalism is a western misinterpretation of the rest of the world, defined …show more content…
Indian caste system is evolved before British people identify. However, British people developed Official British characterisation of Indian caste system, which is a British guidebook to classify the Indian people into six different caste systems, namely Moosaheers, Sonareahs, Koneriahs, Gahsees, Boajors, and Dharees. British identify habits of each caste system, although these habits are similar to one another. They attempted to understand Indian people in middle ages but the British identification of the Indian caste system was totally a misinterpretation because of lack of mobility to see the real situation of Indian caste system. British influence the world easier than Indian do so that this misinterpretation is widespread and recognised by the world. British people believed the way they see the Indian caste system would be real. Hence, British misinterpretation had shaped the Indian caste system, and it has been recognised by the world through interaction with imperial …show more content…
In 1639 in Japan, for example, the world was not able to come in and Japanese were impossible to go abroad due to the closure of Japan, although Dutch and China were allowed to trade with Japan at that time. After 1854 when Matthew Calbraith Perry came to Japan and forced to open up the Japanese door to the world, Japan restarted trading with other countries. Japanese people invent their traditional cultures such as clothes and language by themselves no matter how increases the interaction with the western imperial power. Its culture is slightly influenced by Chinese but not by the West. Japan has its own distinctive traditional culture; nonetheless, without the interaction with the west, her culture could not be highlighted to be
Daily life was influenced in both Ancient India as well as in Ancient China by religion and philosophies. Their caste system, their beliefs, and their well being affected the religion and philosophies.
In the early 1800’s, Japan had blocked off all trade from other countries. Foreign whaling ships could not even reload or repair their ships in Japan territory. This offended many other countries. In 1852, Matthew Perry was sent to Japan to negotiate open trade. Japan felt threatened by the United States, and gave in to their demands. Japan was frightened by their stipulations, and immediately began to reform. They developed a new education system that was similar to America and Europe’s. They also developed a Western style judiciary system.
Orientalism was used back in the 19th century to imitate or depict others nations and their cultures. The Europeans would take impressive feats of architecture or objects from other nations to create their own “better” version. They used orientalism to show how other nations were barbaric and that they were vastly more intelligent. These tactics can be seen in many paintings and buildings where they tried to improve upon other nations works. In some of theses paintings you can see upperclassmen wearing lavish clothes or in other cases black people serving the europeans and being underneath them. Other orientalist artists will take ordinary objects and make them more european by adding expansive material and artwork. Additionally, artists will
This leading to the east to Occidentalism, the negative, positive and/ or stereotypical perspective of the west by Eastern societies. After World War II, the English language and subject manner were found in Asian culture, specifically Japan, which has incorporated such themes in multi-genre based cartoons called animes. However, a huge margin of people from countries such as Iraq finds the west overbearing and power hungry. (Said, Orientalism,1978)
Throughout the history of the world there have been many ways that a civilization has justified their social class. A social class as defined by the dictionary states that a social class is a division of a society based on social and economic status. Religion is one of the many factors that lies on the heart of a civilization when justifying a social class. One of the world’s elite and well followed religion is Hinduism. Hinduism is one of the oldest religion in the world. The oldest religions has one of the oldest social classes which is called the caste system. The caste system has affected the lives of millions of people around the world from the ancient times to the modern and changing world in India and other Hindu nations today. A Caste system is a social structure that is determined by
According to, Sociology: The Essentials, caste system is defined as a system of stratification (characterized by low social mobility) in which one’s place in the stratification system is determined by birth. This is also acknowledged as an ascribed status. “This system in found in the traditional Hindu population of India” (Haviland 256). Although it is found in other parts of the world,
The current manifestations of the caste system are now far more generalized across the Indian subcontinent than was the case in former times. Caste as we now recognize has been endangered, shaped and perpetuated by comparatively recent political and social developments. This is evident even i...
Caste System is a social system based on ascribed statuses, which are traits or characteristics of people at birth. The ascribed status includes race, gender, nationality, body type and age. The caste system ranks people so rigidly. A person cannot just change his caste any time he wants.
Orientalism as termed by Edward Said is meant to create awareness of a constellation of assumptions that are flawed and underlying Western attitudes towards the Muslim societies. Evidence from his 1978 book “Orientalism”, states that the culture has been of influence and marred with controversy in post colonial studies and other fields of study. Moreover, the scholarship is surrounded by somehow persistent and otherwise subtle prejudice of Eurocentric nature, which is against Islam religion and culture (Windschuttle, 1999). In his book, Said illustrates through arguments, that the long tradition in existence containing romanticized images of Islamic stronghold regions i.e. Middle East, and the Western culture have for a long time served as implicit justifications for the European and American Imperial ambitions. In light of this, Said denounced the practice of influential Arabs who contributed to the internalization of Arabic culture ideas by US and British orientalists. Thus, his hypothesis that Western scholarship on Muslim was historically flawed and essentially continues to misrepresent the reality of Muslim people. In lieu to this, Said quotes that, “So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Muslims and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Therefore, very few details such as human density, the passion of Arab-Muslim life has entered the awareness of even the people whose profession revolve around reporting of the Arab world. Due to this, we have instead a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression” (Said, 1980).
Divided into four major social categories, the caste system categorizes Hindus, who act accordingly to their caste, into Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Sudra. Another class, the “untouchables,” is considered outside of the system. These five different classes of society define each person greatly. Castes are unchangeable and rarely intermarry. This social division is yet another example of how religion disbands organizations of people.
Orientalism is a tradition of Western representations of the Orient, created in the context of Western political dominance over the Orient, which understand and master the inferior.
According to Said, one definition of Orientalism is that it is a "style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between 'the Orient' and the 'Occident'." This is connected to the idea that Western society, or Europe in this case, is superior in comparison to cultures that are non-European, or the Orient. This means that Orientalism is a kind of racism held toward anyone not European. Said wrote that Orientalism was "a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient." This Western idea of the Orient explains why so many European countries occupied lands they believed to be Oriental.
Second, in Said's own words "Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between "the Orient" and (most of the time) "the Occident"" (2). And now we come to Said's third definition of Orientalism:
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the first evidence of usage the word Orientalism is in 1769 (Merriam Webster). In general Orientalism is an imitation or depiction of the eastern culture made by the western people. One simple example is Fortune cookies, it is made by the western people but it imitates the eccentricity of Asian desert.
The term "orient" as a collective noun refers to the eastern world as a whole and orientalism as suggested by Edward Said's book Orientalism, is a specific way of looking to the east. It refers to the sum of western representation of the east. It is first and foremost a fabricated construct, a series of images that come to stand as the orient's reality for th...