I think the concept of Eurocentrism is both enlightening and useful. There's no doubt that the idea of "Europe" sprung up in opposition to the colonized Other, just as reason came into being with madness and nature with civilization. But there seems to be a danger in stopping there, and just getting fixated on the Europe/colonized opposition. It runs the risk of effacing all the class, ethnic, and geographical divisions within Europe - Eastern and Southern Europe stand in a quasi-colonial relation with Western and Northern Europe - and the class divisions within national and subnational regions of Europe. It runs the risk of overlooking all the non-Europeans who populate the global hegemon, the U.S. It runs the risk of overlooking the fact that Asians (a concept that's undoubtedly a product of European thought) have become formidable capitalists, with Japan among the first rank of imperial powers and Taiwanese capitalists running sweatshops in Guatemala. And it also runs the risk of effacing all the class differences within colonized realms, and the considerable complicity of comprador classes. Those compradors often use anti-Eurocentric/nationalist rhetoric to justify their rule and to hide their complicity. Doug
