Edward Said’s own critique essentialized the West

Evidence

Said does not stop here, however. His notion of representation and his (un)limited historical imagination become so sweeping and overwhelming that every “advanced culture” in world history has acted in a fashion similar to Europe’s colonialism and its Orientalism. When condemning “every European” as “a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric,” Said attempts to mitigate his outrageous categorical reproof by saying this: “Some of the immediate sting will be taken out of these labels if we recall additionally that human societies, at least the more advanced cultures, have rarely offered the individual anything but imperialism, racism, and ethnocentrism for dealing with ‘other’ cultures” (204). Several questions arise from this wildly categorical statement: If what Said describes is true, then are we to conclude that racism and its “scientific” theories did not originate in modern Europe but rather were universal phenomena? And if the nature of human societies is as Said says, then why single out Orientalism and the West for critique? Unless Islam, India, and China do not qualify as “more advanced societies,” they must, by Said’s logic, qualify as imperialist, racist, and ethnocentric? And if he had to study Orientalism (because it stood to him in close proximity as a literary scholar and because it engaged his interest as a Palestinian with intimate familiarity with oppressive prejudice and outright discrimination), then why not at least point out cognates elsewhere in the modern world, in the world in which he lived (such as China in Tibet, the Soviets in their spheres of interest during the Cold War, or Israel in Palestine, this latter being, as we will see, an equally flagrant case of academia’s entrenchment not only in politics but in the heart of colonialism and its atrocious violence)? If the phenomenon is so widespread and so transhistorical, then why not at least point out the equal presence of such racism and ethnocentrism in other academic disciplines? Said’s wanderings into “other civilizations” are emblematic not only of his extraordinarily confused “scope” of Orientalism, but also, and this is my point, of greater confusion regarding the qualitative meaning of Orientalism, its organic location in modern Western culture, and its inner dynamics and outer academic connectivity. His was a typical, though remarkably sophisticated, position of a liberal who could not see the world outside of liberal values, however critical of them he and other liberals are. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 141 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Said’s critique essentializes the West as much as it claims Orientalists essentialize the East — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 335; Said’s own critique essentialized the West by tracing Orientalism back to Homer — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 872; Said’s later work privileges Western-based writers while raging against non-Western societies — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 848 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Said’s critique mirrored Orientalism by fixating on Western metropolitan culture #complicates (1.00) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 104
• Said’s own tastes and scholarly practice embodied the Western canon he criticized #complicates (1.00) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 279
• Said’s critique of Orientalism relies on the same modernist assumptions that produced it #complicates (1.00) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 476
• Said’s critique of Orientalism implicitly reinforced the very modernism it attacked #complicates (1.00)
• Said’s universalizing of racism undermines his specific critique of Western Orientalism #complicates (1.00) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 141
• Said’s oppositional stance left Western humanist assumptions and nationalist movements unexamined #complicates (1.00)