Henry Imler November 8th, 2006

This post is an attempt to flesh out Edward Said’s postcolonial theory of Orientalism:”(When set off in italics, the term “Orientalism” will refer to the book by Said, when merely capitalized; it will refer to Said’s theory.)”:. It has drawn from Said’s best-known work, Orientalism and incorporated several articles written in response to or are reviews of the work. These articles included “Orientalism Reconsidered” by Edward Said, and “Review of Books: Orientalism” by C. Earnest Dawn. These articles were utilized to help add clarity to a complex theory.

The four central claims of Orientalism are as follows. First, while Orientalism presents itself as an objective field of study, it was used to justify the political domination of the East by the West. Secondly, Orientalism was actually more about defining itself through the mirror of the East than it was about objectively studying it :”(The very terms “East” and “West” are rejected by Said as valid descriptions; however, they will be used as terms of convenience for the purposes of this paper.)”:. Third, points one and two are produced and reinforced by viewing the Orient as a homogenous group. This essentialist thinking was a false way of viewing people groups and their culture. Said also rejects the validity of the terms Orient and Occident, but employs them because this is how the argument has been framed by the Orientalists:”(Edward Said, “Orientalism Reconsidered,” Cultural Critique, No. 1, 1985, p. 90. )”:. Lastly, the Orientalist scholars are the product of the system they come from. Due to this, they cannot help but to misrepresent the “Other.” Therefore, what is needed is for the subaltern to speak for itself.

Orientalism and Domination

The theme that Said spent the most time developing and producing examples, was the idea that Orientalism was not the objective field of study it claimed to be. Rather, it created a space in which justifications of political and cultural domination of the Occidental could be imposed on the Orient. It was his primary goal to “show how Orientalism came into being as the doctrine and corporate institution for exercising Western domination of the Orient:”(C. Ernest Dawn, “Review of Books: Orientalism”, The Historical Review, Vol. 84, No. 5, Dec 1979, p. 1334)”: .” The way in which the Orientalists accomplished this was to brand what they termed as Orientals as essentially inferior in culture and personhood to their European counterparts. This thread was picked up by the political powers and was used to justify their colonial expansion. For Said, as it was for Foucault, knowledge was power. The knowledge of the Orient, as flawed as it was, provided the power base from which the colonizers set about their mission. Here a distinction between pure knowledge and political knowledge was made by Said :”(Edward Said, Orientalism, Vintage Books, New York, 1978, p.9)”:. An example of “pure knowledge” is basic math. It was and is hardly possible for 2+2=4 to enable the domination of another people group. Political knowledge, on the other hand, lent itself handily from specialist to policy. Said made a special point to demonstrate how policy makers seek out the specialist, in this case the Orientalists, to shape their policies. These policies often involved the domination of those that the specialist studied and thus demonstrated Said and Foucault’s conception of knowledge as power.

Said’s first example of this was Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1978. The occupation of Egypt by Napoleon “set in motion … [processes]… that still dominate our contemporary cultural and political perspectives:”(Ibid, p. 42.)”:.” Said went on to describe the process and ultimate goal of colonization:

“What the machine [the colonial power structure] branches feed into it in the East – human material, wealth, knowledge, what have you – is processed by the machine and then converted into more power:”(Ibid, p. 44.)”:.”

Said then explained the role of the Orientalism in the above process.

“The specialist does the immediate translation of mere Oriental matter into useful substance: the Oriental becomes, for example, a subject race, an example of “Oriental mentality, all for the enhancement of the “authority” at home. “Local interests” are Orientalist special interests, the “central authority” is the general interest of the imperial society as a whole:”(Ibid, p. 44.)”:.”

Through the enabling of the Orientalist, the colonial power was and is able to transform the subjugated peoples, the subalterns, into mere raw materials that the empire consumed. This was another example of knowledge as power. The political knowledge of the Orientalists gave traction to the power of the subjugators.

Orientalism and Essentialism

How did and does the Orientalist enable? The Orientalist enabled the transformation of people into materials by inscribing unto them essential qualities. These essential qualities were static and unchangeable. Another feature of these essential qualities was that each quality was often subordinated or seen as inferior to European qualities. Paul Valéry was quoted by Said as representative of this idea. Valéry said that while Europe owed its “heritage of the arts” and knowledge to the Orient, they were still “monsters” that had to be dealt with by “maintaining the power of choice:”(Ibid, p. 250-1.)”:.” This condition was timeless according to the Europeans. Said saw this as a grave error. This is stated the clearest in the afterword of Orientalism, “…human identity is not only not natural and stable, but constructed, and occasionally even invented outright:”(Ibid, p. 332.)”:.” Said noted that no one would dare form essential qualities of “the Negro mind” or “the Jewish personality,” however it was acceptable to form essential qualities of “the Islamic mind,” and “the Arab character:”(Ibid, p. 262.)”:.” Such an essentialist view of the Orientals, of the Arabs, of the Semites, of Islam, therefore, is tantamount to racism. Even though the colonizers often thought they were bringing enlightenment to the uncivilized peoples, this paternalistic attitude was still as racist as the other forms of dominative theoretical frameworks.

The West’s self-identification with the Mirror of the East

Said believed that the West’s conception and reaction to its idea of the Orient had more to do with the West than the Orient itself:”(Ibid, p. 12.)”:. One reason for this was that there was no Orient to begin with; it was and is a false category. The West developed the idea of an inferior, backward, and degraded Orient from which it developed:”(Dawn, p. 1334.)”:. The Occidental gave identity to by way of making distinctions between itself and the Orient. The Orient was the “…counterbalance to European civilization:”(Said, Orientalism, p. 279.)”:.” While Said’s study was limited in scope to the British, French, and American Orientalist studies, he maintained it as representational of the approach the colonizing powers had towards the rest of the world.

Functionalist Racism and Said’s Solution

The false essentialism:”(Ibid, p. 277.)”: of Orientalism was and is inescapable for any scholar from the West. Said asserted, “No scholar, not even a Massignon, can resist the pressures on him of his nation or of the scholarly tradition in which he works:”(Ibid, p. 271.)”:.” Said, in step with his rejection of essentialism, did go on to say in the immediate sentence that one must allow for the possibility of an individual genius transcending one’s situation. However, this was seen to be highly unlikely, as no scholar had been able to do this so far. This subtle racism, like the violence claimed by the revolting peasants in Monty Python’s Holy Grail, is inherent in the system. Since it was almost impossible for any scholar in the West to break free of these bonds, how can one learn of other people groups? Said’s reply to this conundrum and to Spivak is that the subaltern could indeed speak:”(Ibid, p. 335.)”:. It was Said’s hope that his work would help break the bonds that Orientalism has held and is holding over the subaltern world. These bonds were to be broken by new studies of each culture’s history and experience by the respective cultures:”(Ibid, p. 339.)”:.

Conclusion

In summation, Said outlined a theory where Orientalism arose out of a need for the West to define itself as the opposite of a counterbalancing entity. This counterbalancing entity was found by Europe in the crusades to be the Orient:”(Dawn, p. 1334.)”:. West found itself in positions of political and military power over what it saw as the Orient and subsequently used this power to subjugate it. Developing alongside this power, giving legitimacy and traction, was the scholar of the Orient, the Orientalists. Once a tradition of superior values of the West and a static view of the Orient developed, the tradition crystallized and it was and is nearly impossible to break free for any scholar inside the tradition. However, “[humans] make their own history:”(Said, Orientalism, p. 5.)”: ”; every society is in a constant state of flux and development. Thus, what is needed is for each people group to speak for itself and create discourses of its own history and share and dialogue with other people groups with the goal of true knowledge of the other and not merely political knowledge.

• Ethics , Science
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