Orientalism and Multiculturalism - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... Certain groups whose aims are equitable with greed and power develop means to create an inferior group and attempts to uplift their in their own context an "acceptable behavior". As efforts to conquer other nations and discover communities beyond one's own reached its peak, colonialism reached its height that further extended the gap between people of different cultures. The East-West contrast soon evolved that transformed relativistic emphasis as a means to identify cultural similarities and differences with regard to local region and culture.
Technological advancement has pushed critical viewpoints that greatly sensationalized views of dominion and submission; of the perpetrator and victimization creating political issues concurrently escalating in present day conflicts. Societal mechanisms that involved racism has been used and probably politically and culturally abused to blame the West for the existence of discrimination and to integrate cultures to fight for their supreme right. These changes brought about by globalization in the 19th century has identified exotic stereotyping of cultural behavior that has often associated the West with their classical views that Said (1980) exposed in a critique as an affront against other minority cultures.
The Eastern side has also criticized Western values that are often associated with materialism where Said criticized its failure to give meaning to individual's lives. Discipline, being an important aspect of western emphasis has been equated with civilized behavior and labeling of human's knowledge that segregated underdeveloped cultures according to Foucault (1979). Further, Foucault added that such eugenics has theorized discipline that pervades the Victorian sentiments pervading in the western society. The apparent stereotyping from both sides and critical claims has created events that affected the interrelationship between each side.

Religion
With the spread of Christianity, western dominions over eastern religious beliefs that glorify Arab culture were seen as substandard and ignorant. The Roman Catholic Church's hierarchical insistence of power over religious beliefs has further delegated eastern religion as not harmonious because of the many facets embraced by the number of multicultural beliefs in the eastern bloc.Attempts to consider varied beliefs have seen Zizek's insistence against the multiculturalists' true position of universality in religious practice. The chasm is further widened as open and critical western viewpoints allowed the Islamic faith to stand and rally against factions that has questioned their religious affiliation. More recently, open disrespect by Europe to Prophet Muhammad has raised hardened Muslim hearts to declare antagonism against their critics. Such western attitude among others toward Middle-east's age-old culture and practice has brought about the continuing wars and conflicts that are better left to their respective factions to find a settlement amongst them in contrast to Zizek's constant defense of the revolutionary act as the pure and only alternative against war and cruelty.

Arts, Literature and Academe
In the field of arts, music, literature and science a plethora of great authors and poets are the pride of the Western culture that magnifies Shakespeare's works and influenced modern ...Download file to see next pagesRead More