Western Identity, Barbarians and the Inheritance of Greek Universalism1

ISSN： 1470-1316

Source： The European Legacy, Vol.10, Iss.7, 2005-12, pp. : 725-739

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Abstract

This paper argues that a particular philosophical and historical understanding of Ancient Greek thought is used to establish a superior Western identity of universal prevalence. Starting with the terminological differences between ethnocentrism and Eurocentrism, I then reconstruct the rise of Eurocentrism by examining the changing conceptualizations of Greeks and Barbarians in Ancient texts from Homer to Aristotle. The third section explores how Western historians of philosophy and culture have used this Greek self-understanding to legitimate the view of Western cultural superiority based on universalism. Finally, I discuss several possibilities to counter this form of Eurocentric Western identity-politics.