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.

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

    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 days ago

      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 days ago

        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.