Spoke to a family member today. Talked about how I’m gonna write a student thesis on Wu Zetian, the only female emperor of China. Was promptly met with “but why not write about women like Margaret Thatcher? So many more references and much more recent!”
Cue me asking why I should study a known European figure rather than somebody more unknown (and more interesting imo) overseas? Family member goes on to tell me how “easy it was for medieval women overseas to gain power, they just had to marry their emperor husband!”, and how European history is so much more interesting and tragic and worth analysing because everything is so complex in Europe compared to those “primitive cultures.” Family member then jumps to how Europeans have invented EVERYTHING and how everybody else copies us (clothes, music, science) and Europe is the sole inventor of everything apparently. I get up and leave.
Apologies for the rant. Do y’all have any supporting words or advice on how to speak to these individuals? I thought I could post this here because I appreciate y’all’s anti-colonialist attitude, but do feel free to remove if it’s appropriate.
I would either be combative in that discussion and draw them out into untenable positions, e.g. asking them if they think that the advent of paper money or the invention of gunpowder or the printing press etc. were important to human civilisation before getting stuck into them about their ignorance or I’d just kill them with kindness and railroad the conversation into an opportunity to gush over Chinese history and overwhelm them with my passion and knowledge about the subject that it would leave their case for studying Margaret Thatcher instead looking rightfully threadbare by comparison. It would depend on my mood, how offensive they were being, and how important my relationship to them happens to be.
The alternative approach is to adopt the position that you do not need to justify yourself to anyone and replying with something like “Because I am interested in this” or “It’s okay to let people enjoy what they enjoy” or even simply a “No thanks”.
This is my method too. It kind of depends if the person just has “western exceptionalism” brainworms (because we are literally raised and schooled that way, even more so if they are older) or if they are outright racists because the former, if they give you a chance to speak and really listen, can be exposed and change their views. I’ve seen it happen. From my experience, many people in the Midwest live in this (90-95% white) bubble where they are untouched by anything outside their personal experience and wherever they get their information. And this person’s high school probably never taught world history, and if they even went to college they didn’t have a need or desire to take it. They don’t know what’s out there except through the lense of however their media decides to portray it. They don’t have the ability or desire to expand their worldview.