An Empiricentric World View

In Edward Said's Orientalism, he says that one of the most important things to realize is that the Europeans defined themselves by defining the Orientals. In the same way, the Western culture defines its values as good by defining the Eastern culture as bad. An empiricentric lens captures the same ideas that Said defined.

An empiricentric world view recognizes only the directly empirical aspects of reality and misunderstands all other aspects of reality. It is a very subtle form of "common-sense realism" that assumes that because we experience the world, then it must be an absolute reality and it has been relied upon as the foundation for inquiries into the nature of reality. The empiricentric approach attempts to comprehend reality only through the lens of an empirical world view. When discussing issues within the empirical world, one can rely on Western assumptions about the world, but when discussing issues within the wider reality one must go further than Western minds are generally used to. Western culture has typically dominated the Eastern culture, and has the ability to continue its reign, even though the differences can be minuscule.

For example, in most Western cultures, maintaining eye contact while talking to someone is a sign of respect. In Eastern countries, however, eye contact can be seen as inappropriate. When we hear that eye contact is inappropriate and disrespectful in other cultures, our first reaction is to question it and immediately label it as wrong. Because the Western World has the ability to broadcast their beliefs, the Eastern culture can easily be devalued.

There are many differences between the Eastern and Western cultures of our world. Edward Said draws out these contrasting beliefs in his theory of Orientalism. Today, the consequences of having an Orientalist mindset can cause us to be closed off and not understanding of a different way of life. In order to move past this mindset, we must learn to be open and to not initially right of another's differing opinion as ¨wrong¨.