Nineteenth-century Europe replaced universalism with an imperialist superiority complex [causal]

    Nineteenth-century Europe replaced universalism with an imperialist superiority complex [causal]
  

By the nineteenth century, however, this Enlightenment universalism was rapidly being replaced by an emphasis on differences between people and civilizations. Europe developed what Etienne Balibar calls an “imperialist superiority complex.”

XREF: Connects to postcolonial theory and the shift from Enlightenment universalism to racial/civilizational hierarchy discourse common in later thinkers like Said.
Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 119