Feel free to add common myths about the East that you’d like cleared up. Or how you’ve already cleared it up. It might help me or another reader.

  • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    11·
    2 天前

    Yeah, its natural for art to develop themes, tropes, styles, and shorthand. But our shorthand for, say, Europe’s Middle age doesn’t actually replace anyone’s understanding of European history. Even if people don’t know all that much about it, they’ll understand that the art doesn’t actually communicate much about that cultural or historical reality.

    Yet as we start drifting outside that peninsula, that ability to distinguish artistic shorthand from real culture starts to drop off alarmingly.

    • Sinisterium [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      9·
      2 天前

      But our shorthand for, say, Europe’s Middle age doesn’t actually replace anyone’s understanding of European history

      That period is horrible misconstrued due to the victorian age propaganda. Half of the “medivial age” based media is a horrible mishmash of 17-19th century anglo-norman-centric cultural memory imposed on the 10th-13th century timeframe. Like there were regions of western europe that DIDNT have “feudalism” (which is an antiquated term nowdays) at all.

      Of course its nothing compared to non-western cultures and their treatment (or complete erasure).

    • Andrzej3K [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      10·
      2 天前

      But our shorthand for, say, Europe’s Middle age doesn’t actually replace anyone’s understanding of European history. Even if people don’t know all that much about it, they’ll understand that the art doesn’t actually communicate much about that cultural or historical reality.

      I don’t think this is true at all actually. It’s just different degrees of problematic

      • Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
        4·
        2 天前

        Maybe my understanding of orientalism is wrong. As I see it, Western culture developed a set of ideas and tropes about other cultures that have, at best, a tenuous and overly-broad connection to the lives of a lot of different peoples that have been lumped together. Then it compounds, with new works recursively referencing older orientalist works, rather attempting to form even a single genuine connection to any of the many, many cultures that are supposedly being referenced.

        • Sinisterium [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
          8·
          2 天前

          Orientalism only has the aesthetic of other cultures, but the ideas are just the things the “west” does not want to be. Its an long ingrained social weapon used cynically against the enemy du jour.