Orientalism was first applied internally to Europe’s own poor and aristocracy

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, 136

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Edward Said’s Orientalism and to how Victorian culture gendered noise/silence in the soundscape books — both show bourgeois self-definition against an internalized other. — connects to: Orientalist binaries were first aimed at Europe’s own poor and aristocracy. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 148; Orientalism first targeted England’s own aristocracy and poor before external targets; Orientalism became a managerial code through which Europe interpreted itself. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 652 (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Lays out the binary list of ‘normative self’ vs ‘degenerate other’ traits that defines the orientalizing discourse.

Broader Connections

• Orientalist binaries were first aimed at Europe’s own poor and aristocracy. #corroborates (1.00) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 148
• Orientalism first targeted England’s own aristocracy and poor before external targets #corroborates (1.00)
• Orientalism became a managerial code through which Europe interpreted itself. #expands (0.85) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 652
• Political antisemitism repurposed Orientalist scholarship as internal European racial colonialism #expands (0.75)