Said’s unidirectional account is itself a Foucauldian discursive strategy, not a scholarly lapse

Evidence

Misrepresenting the Orient, the major theme of Said’s work, is an effect of the forces working on Orientalism, by virtue of having this discipline “reinforced by the colonial encounter” (39–40). I shall discuss this matter at length later, but wish here to make the point that the suppression of a strong dialectic between colonialism and Orientalism, and, more importantly, between Orientalism and the “surrounding culture,” is not mere inattention to the analytics of power’s dynamics, a scholarly failure, so to speak. This is no scholarly failure at all, for, as I argue throughout, this type of discourse is the function of what Foucault called a “discursive strategy” whose ontological mode requires keeping the dialectic either suppressed, silent, or at bay. Changing this element in the discursive strategy would have entailed changing everything else, including the partial reservations about the otherwise totalizing and imperial liberalism, secularism, and ideological others. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 107 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The alternative direction, on the other hand, is a more sombre one, for if we accept the more extreme versions of the Foucauldian propositions (a) that whatever claims to be a fact is none other than a truth-effect produced by the ruse of discourse, and (b) that whatever claims to resist Power is already constituted as Power, then there really is nothing for Theory to do except to wander aimlessly through the effects – counting them, consuming them, producing them – and in the process submitting to the interminable whisperings of Discourse, both as Origin and as Fate. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 112 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Said’s Foucauldian ‘will to power’ discourse operates without imperialist agency or design. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 759; Said holds incompatible Foucauldian and humanist periodizations of Orientalism at once. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 663; Said’s one-directional account of Orientalism is a deliberate discursive strategy, not scholarly error. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 107 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Said’s one-directional account of Orientalism is a deliberate discursive strategy, not scholarly error. #corroborates (1.00) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 107
• Extreme Foucauldian premises reduce theory to passive consumption of discourse #complicates (0.74) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 112