It's a fairly popular approach in a number of disciplines, unfortunately. Personally I blame the late Edward Said who was largely responsible for introducing 'orientalism' into history departments in the 1970s.
He argued that any study of the Middle East not written by an Arabic scholar will automatically be prejudiced and reflect the innate ethnocentrism and colonialist attitudes of the authors, because they can never escape the memetic environment where they were brought up.
It became fairly popular with a number of scholars studying minorities - ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
It's a very tempting world-view. "If you are not one of us, you can never fully relate, you can never fully understand and you can never fully transcend the original sin of your ethnicity, gender, etc."
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Date: 2008-03-26 08:38 pm (UTC)He argued that any study of the Middle East not written by an Arabic scholar will automatically be prejudiced and reflect the innate ethnocentrism and colonialist attitudes of the authors, because they can never escape the memetic environment where they were brought up.
It became fairly popular with a number of scholars studying minorities - ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, etc.
It's a very tempting world-view. "If you are not one of us, you can never fully relate, you can never fully understand and you can never fully transcend the original sin of your ethnicity, gender, etc."