Somebody Else’s Century

What is odd about the West's perception of Asia?

“We in the West have an odd way of looking eastward. It is odd because it is at the very latest a late-19th century way of seeing."

How so?

"The Asia in our minds resembles a disassembled machine — nuts and bolts. It is long on data (the lowest form of knowledge) and short, very short, on understanding (the highest, the best we can ever do).”

What concept illustrates the danger of this kind of thinking?

“The intellectual folly this kind of thinking produces is called