Inflationary rhetoric turned exile into a synonym for voluntary migration
Evidence
The fact that some of these intellectuals actually were political exiles has been taken advantage of, in an incredibly inflationary rhetoric, to deploy the word ‘exile’, first as a metaphor and then as a fully appropriated descriptive label for the existential condition of the immigrant as such; the upper-class Indian who chooses to live in the metropolitan country is then called the diasporic ‘Indian’, and ‘exile’ itself becomes a condition of the soul, unrelated to facts of material life. Exile, immigration and professional preference become synonymous and, indeed, mutually indistinguishable. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 136
Categorization
- XREF: Echoes the critique of the romance of exile in Rushdie and later diasporic writing; connects to Eva Hoffman and Rushdie’s ‘imaginary homelands’ framing. — connects to: Chosen self-exile and vagrancy, unlike principled exile, enable celebratory uprootedness — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 627; Said conflates voluntary emigration with forced exile to authorize Guha’s project. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 877; Actual political exile has been inflated to describe every immigrant’s condition — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 338 (+1 more)
Related
- Rhetorical inflation made exile a soul-condition detached from material life (similarity 0.93)
- Actual political exile has been inflated to describe every immigrant’s condition (similarity 0.92)
- Said conflates voluntary emigration with forced exile to authorize Guha’s project. (similarity 0.87)
- Exile and diaspora describe displacement, not wealthy migrants anywhere abroad (similarity 0.79)
- Exile means state coercion and fear, not professional convenience (similarity 0.78)