Mental Geography of the Western Civilization and the Problem of "Orientalism"
The article deals with the problem of the formation of mass cultural stereotypes in relation to cultural and geographical areas, that is, the mechanism of action of "mental geography". Deconstruction of the system of representations is carried out, on the basis of which the formation of a sustainable understanding of any reality phenomenon takes place. In fact, the system of representations affects all sorts of phenomena of social life, ideas about social groups, institutions, symbols, and so on. However, in the article, as examples, we will consider the problem of the emergence of images of the «Orient» and «Eastern Europe» as fundamentally important phenomena of the mentality of Western European society. The mechanism of the formation of the image of the «Other» in any culture is associated with its own knowledge and, above all, the need to explain the nature of a different culture and to oppose oneself to develop one’s own identity. For Western European society, the process of the formation of «Western civilization», thus, was directly related to the design of the image of the «Other» in the face of «Orient», as well as the buffer zone of «Eastern Europe». It is important to note that in the case of Western European society, which has become the leader since the «long XVI century», the concept of representation, or rather «Orientalism», becomes the basis for colonial expansion and the formation of the idea of its exclusiveness.