EDWARD SAID AFROM ORIENTALISM@
Said gives us an understanding of the precise mechanisms by which Europe discursively constructed its racial and cultural Others, made to circulate as factual the 'knowledges' produced thereof, and . As he makes clear, the Orient, as much as the Occident, Ais not an inert fact of nature" (132). It is, rather, an "idea that has a history and a tradition of thought, imagery and vocabulary that has given it reality and presence for the West" (132). (All this is not to say that the Orient as Aessentially an idea, or creation with no corresponding reality@ [132]. However, what Said is interested in is the Orient as a Aregular constellation of ideas@ [133].) Acknowledging that Aideas, cultures and histories cannot seriously be understood without . . . their configurations of power being studied@ (133), Said underscores that this imaginary re-presentation of the East is possible because the relationship between Occident and Orient is an asymmetrical one, a "relationship of power, of domination, of varying degrees of a complex hegemony" (133). The Adiscourse about the Orient@ (133) (for example, how Flaubert Aspoke for and represented@ [133] his Egyptian courtesan and, in the process, Aproduced a widely influential model of the Oriental woman@ [133]) was enabled because of a Apattern of relative strength between East and West@ (133).
Said has in mind in this regard the Foucauldian notion of >discourse= as opposed to the Marxist notion of ideology (which is itself predicated upon a belief in the possibility of scientific knowledge). Orientalism should not be thought of as a Astructure of lies or of myths which, were the truth about them to be told, would simply blow away@ (133). Said=s point is that Orientalism is not merely some Aairy European fantasy about the Orient@ (133). It is, rather, a Asystem of knowledge about the Orient@ (133), a
created body of theory and practice in which . . . there has been a considerable material investment. Continued investment made Orientalism . . . an accepted grid for filtering through the Orient into Western consciousness, just as that same investment multiplied . . . the statements proliferating out from Orientalism into the general culture. (133)
Orientalism is, in brief, a Awilled imaginative and geographic distinction made between East and West@ (140). It is a Aconsensus@ (141) which takes for granted Acertain things, certain types of statement, certain types of work@ (141). It is a "system of truths . . . in Nietzsche=s sense of the word" (142). It is the deliberate "distillation of essential ideas about the Orient--its sensuality, its tendency to despotism, its aberrant mentality, its habits of inaccuracy, its backwardness--into a separate and unchallenged coherence" (144) enshrouded, however, in an appearance of objectivity. Significantly, these 'truths' were developed (rather than simply found) "according to a detailed logic governed not simply by empirical reality but by a battery of desires, repressions, investments and projections" (134). Orientalism is a Aschool of interpretation whose material happens to be the Orient, its civilizations, peoples and localities@ (142) whose seemingly Aobjective discoveries . . . are and always have been conditioned by the fact that its truths, like any truths delivered by language, are embodied in language@ (142). (Said is evidently gesturing towards Saussure=s critique of mimesis.) It is a Abody of ideas, beliefs, clichés or learning about the East@ (143). Orientalism, as a discursive practice, is a Acumulative and corporate@ (141) enterprise closely linked to Atraditional learning (the classics, the Bible, philology), public institutions (governments, trading companies, geographical societies, universities) and generically determined writing (travel books, books of exploration, fantasy, exotic description)@ (141). AAs a cultural apparatus Orientalism is all aggression, activity, judgment, will-to-truth and knowledge@ (143). It is a Asystem of representations framed by a whole set of forces that brought the Orient into Western learning, Western consciousness, and later, Western Empire@ (142), a Aproduct of certain political forces and activities@ (142).
Underscoring its Aclose ties to the enabling socio-economic and political institutions@ (133), Said is at pains to point out that discourse on the Orient must be understood in relation to the Aperiod of extraordinary European ascendancy from the late Renaissance to the present@ (134): the
scientist, the scholar, the missionary, the trader or the soldier was in, or thought about the Orient because he could be there, or could think about it, with very little resistance on the Orient=s part. Under the general heading of knowledge of the Orient, and within the umbrella of Western hegemony over the Orient during the period from the end of the eighteenth century, there emerged a complex Orient suitable for study in the academy, for display in the museum, for reconstruction in the colonial office, for theoretical illustration in anthropological, biological, linguistic, racial and historical theses about mankind and the universe, for instances of economic and sociological theories of development, revolution, cultural personality, national or religious character. (134)
Indeed, Said goes so far as to argue that no >knowledge= is purely objective, disinterested, apolitical, value-free:
no one has ever devised a method for detaching a scholar from the circumstances of his life, from the fact of his involvement (conscious or unconscious) with a class, a set of beliefs, a social position, or from the mere activity of being a member of society. (136)
The fact of imperialism, that is, the economic, political and military involvement of Europeans and, later, Americans in the Orient necessarily shaped how seemingly apolitical institutions and individuals viewed the Orient. In short, like any discursive practice (a term that emphasises the uses to which discourse is put), the Orientalism must be understood in relation to the imbalance of power, in this case, that which has existed between Europe and the rest of the world for the last few centuries.
Hence, Said makes a distinction between what he terms Amanifest Orientalism@ (144) (the Avarious stated views about Oriental society, languages, literatures, history, sociology, and so forth@ [144] that were/are subject to change) and the more enduring and stable Alatent Orientalism@ (144)--an "unconscious (and untouchable) positivity" (144) about the Orient which served as a homogenising problematic or epistemological framework unifying various Orientalist writers. Despite Amanifest differences . . . in form and personal style@ (144), there was rarely any differences in their Abasic content@ (144): every one of these "kept intact the separateness of the Orient, its eccentricity, its backwardness, its silent indifference, its feminine penetrability, its supine malleability" (144).
The discursive
construction of the Oriental serves a vital purpose: it subtends the
exclusionary process upon which European identity is predicated, that is, the
"idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the
non-European peoples and cultures" (133).
The result is an "idea of Europe, a collective notion identifying
'us' Europeans as against all those non-Europeans" (134). The >Oriental
world,= in short, >emerged= out of the
"unchallenged centrality" (134) of a "sovereign Western
consciousness" (134). The
treatment of Orientals in this way is analogous to that meted out to other Aelements in Western society
(delinquents, the insane, women, the poor) having in common an identity best
described as lamentably alien" (145).
Said=s notion of Orientalism has
in mind both the Ageneral
group of ideas overriding the mass of material . . . shot through with
doctrines of European superiority, various kinds of racism, imperialism and the
like@ (135) and the
particular works of Aalmost
uncountable individual writers@
(135). For Said, authors, neither
literary nor non-literary, operate in a vacuum. Indeed, the same is true of both authors and critics (both are
really interpreters). Said=s basic premise is that Afields of learning, as much
as the works of even the most eccentric artist, are constrained and acted upon
by society, by cultural traditions, by worldly circumstance, and by . . .
schools, libraries, and governments@
(141). He refuted the Amythology of creation@ (141) which asserts that Aartistic genius, an original talent,
or a powerful intellect can leap beyond the confines of its own time and place
in order to put before the world a new work@ (141). The Awork of predecessors, the institutional life of a scholarly field, the
collective nature of any learned enterprise: these, to say nothing of economic
and social circumstance, tend to diminish the effects of the individual scholar=s production@ (141). Arguing that the Apolitical societies@ (137) of the imperial powers inevitably imparted to their Acivil societies@ (137) a Adirect political infusion . . .
where and whenever matters pertaining to their imperial interests abroad are
concerned@ (137), Said contends that the British coloniser in the nineteenth
century, for example, took an interest in British colonies Athat was never far from their status
in his mind as British colonies@ (137).[1]
For Said, thus, the issue at hand is
determining the nature of the relationship between the Abig dominating fact, as I have
described it@ (137) and the Adetails of everyday life that govern the minute discipline of a novel or
a scholarly text as each is being written@ (137). The crucial question for Said is the Ameaning of originality, of
continuity, of individuality@ (140) in the context which he has described above. Arguing that most scholars would not deny
that Atexts exist in contexts@ (138) and acknowledge the fact of Aintertextuality, . . . the pressures
of conventions, predecessors and rhetorical styles@ (138), Said contends that most are
unwilling to admit, however, that Apolitical, institutional and ideological
constraints act in the same manner on the individual author@ (138). In the same way that there is an Aexplicit connection @ (138) in classic philosophers such
as Locke Abetween their >philosophic= doctrines and racial theory, justifications of slavery, or arguments
for colonial exploitation@ (138), nearly every nineteenth century (if not before) literary writer,
he contends, Awas extraordinarily well aware of the fact of empire@ (139). However, Said is at pains to argue that such political influences
Awere productive,
not unilaterally inhibiting@ (139) or restrictive.
Said acknowledges that much materialist
criticism has been >vulgar= (or Acrudely iconoclastic@ [139]) and has often failed to keep up with the Aenormous technical advances in
detailed textual analysis@ (139). Gesturing towards the
Marxist Base/superstructure model, he opines, too, that there has been little
serious effort to bridge the Agap between the superstructural and the base levels in textual,
historical scholarship@ (139). In the case of
Orientalism, however, Apolitical imperialism governs an entire field of study, imagination and
scholarly institutions--in such a way as to make its avoidance an intellectual
and historical impossibility@ (139). However, he rejects the
notion that A>big= facts like imperial domination can be applies mechanically and deterministically
to such complex matters as culture and ideas@ (137). Undoubtedly all discourse on the Orient was politically-motivated
but, he contends, Ait was the culture that created that interest, that acted dynamically
along with brute political, economic and military rationales@ (137). Orientalism is not a
mere political subject matter or field that is
reflected passively by culture, scholarship or institutions; nor is it a large
and diffuse collection of texts about the Orient; nor is it representative and
expressive of some nefarious >Western= imperialist plot to hold down the >Oriental= world. It is rather a distribution of geopolitical awareness into
aesthetic, scholarly, economic, sociological, historical and philological
texts; it is an elaboration not only of a basic geographic distinction
(the world is made up of two unequal halves, Orient and Occident) but also of a
whole series of >interests= which, by such means as scholarly discovery, philological
reconstruction, psychological analysis, landscape and sociological description,
it not only creates but also maintains; it is, rather than expresses a
certain will or intention to understand, in some cases to
control, manipulate, even to incorporate, what is a manifestly different (or
alternative and novel) world; it is, above all, a discourse that is by no means
in direct corresponding relationship with political power in the raw, but
rather is produced and exists in uneven exchange with various kinds of power,
shaped to a degree by the exchange with power political (as with a colonial or
imperial establishment), power intellectual (as with reigning sciences like
comparative linguistics or anatomy, or any of the modern policy sciences),
power cultural (as with orthodoxies and canons of taste, texts, values), power
moral (as with ideas about what >we= do and what >they= cannot do or understand as >we= do). (137-8)
It
is in this light that Said views Orientalism as a Adynamic exchange between individual
authors and the large political concerns shaped by the three great
empires--British, French, American@ (139).
From this point of view, the following question is the crucial one which
continually presents itself to the Post-colonial critic in his or her study of
colonial discourse: AHow did philology, lexicography, history, biology, political and
economic theory, novel-writing and lyric poetry come to the service of
Orientalism=s broadly imperialist view of the world?@ (140). In short, what sorts of Aintellectual, aesthetic, scholarly and cultural
energies went into the making of an imperialist tradition like the Orientalist
one?@ (140).
[1]Said draws on Gramsci=s distinction between civil and political society in which the latter consists in state institutions (the army, police, the central bureaucracy, etc.) and the former in voluntary affiliations like schools, families and unions. Culture, Said writes, is to be found operating within civil society Awhere the influence of ideas, of institutions, and of other persons works not through domination but by what Gramsci calls consent@ (134). In any society, certain Acultural forms@ (134) and Aideas@ (134) predominate over others: the Aform of this cultural leadership is what Gramsci has identified as hegemony@ (134).