Chapter 1 of Edward Said's Oreintalism describes
how the science of orientalism developed as a system of knowledge in modern
times. According to Said, the Western
Orinetals structured the world as made of two opposing elements, ours and theirs. These were not
just geographical divisions but more importantly epistemological ones. The West
and East were to be cultural distinctions, differences in civilization or lack
of it. In Western eyes orients were incapable of taking care of themselves,
they were lazy, lustful, irrational and violent but also exotic and mysterious.
The self-proclaimed superiority of the West over the East also led Western
scholars to think that they are more apt to understands the orients than the
orients themselves, thus "orientalizing" them and subjecting them to
Western standards which did not favor them.
According
to Edward Said researchers and men of administration took a very Eurocentric and
therefore biased and selective approach to understanding the Orient and the orients.
All accounts of the Orient according to Said were prone to generalizations,
attributing collective significance to acts of individuals. The West also used
its own terminology to define and analyze the Orient, applying terms were
unknown to their subjects. This is how concepts of the Orient were developed by
Western eyes and for Western eyes.
Orientalism for Said was fundamentally a system of self
projection. The Orient served as a mirror for the West who wanted to see
himself as superior. By describing the oriental as uncivilized the West attempt
to proclaim its own civilization. Said also employs the Freudian mechanism of
projection, arguing that Europe projected everything it didn't want to
acknowledge about itself onto the Orient (including sexual fantasies). The
point of Said's chapter 1 of Orientalism is that Western Knowledge of the East
was never neutral since it was always involved with a political and cultural
agenda.
Previous summary: Introduction to Orientalism
Next summary: Chapter 2: Orientalist Structures and Restructures
see also:
Previous summary: Introduction to Orientalism
Next summary: Chapter 2: Orientalist Structures and Restructures
see also:
