Orientalism first targeted England’s own aristocracy and poor before external targets

Evidence

Saree Makdisi, a professor of comparative literature, argues that before Orientalism was directed at external targets, it was directed internally at the old ruling elite, the aristocracy, as well as the poor and working classes. The ascendant middle classes were as quick if not quicker to orientalize their own ruling classes and the poor as they were to orientalize the East. Makdisi, like other scholars, argues that racist ideologies were not simply the product of empire in its encounter with the overseas “others” but with internal “others” as well, people who would later be considered white. Makdisi shows that through the course of the nineteenth century, a clearly polarized notion of what constituted the “normative self” was constructed in opposition to the “degenerate other.” While the normative self was “productive, modern, sober, unadorned, disciplined, rational, frank, fair-minded, moderate, regulated, democratic, hardworking, honest, natural, scientific, virtuous, manly, masculine”—virtues I would argue that fit with an industrial capitalist ethic—the other was “vain, retrograde, obsessed with appearances, irrational, unproductive, undisciplined, lazy, unnatural, licentious, capricious, deceitful, emotional, fanatical, tyrannical, violent, indulgent, voluptuous, sensual, feminine, effeminate,” and thus either a relic of a previous noncapitalist era or part of impoverished groups unsuitable as subjects of domestic capitalism. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 148 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Like so many Orientalists who came after him, Anquetil-Duperron was fiercely anti-imperialist. In the introduction to another work, Le Despotisme considéré dans les trois états où il passe pour être, la Turquie, la Perse et l’Hindoustan, he expressed his fear that the concept of Oriental despotism had been summoned up by certain Western thinkers in order to justify the oppressive rule of Europeans over Asia. In many respects, Anquetil-Duperron antipated the main tenets of Said’s Orientalism, though Said, who discusses him, chooses not to mention this. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 223 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Orientalism was first applied internally to Europe’s own poor and aristocracy — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 136; Orientalist binaries were first turned internally on domestic class enemies before external targets — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 136; Orientalist binaries were first aimed at Europe’s own poor and aristocracy. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 148 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Orientalist binaries were first aimed at Europe’s own poor and aristocracy. #corroborates (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 148
• Orientalist othering was first deployed against internal British targets before empire. #corroborates (0.90)
• Early English orientalism served homegrown Anglican church-politics disputes #exemplifies (0.72) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 165
• The concept of Oriental despotism was devised to justify European empire #complicates (0.72) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 223