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I enjoyed Orientalism. My problem with so many of these works, however, is that they seem to take such an intentional stance. Like the assertion that the langua

I enjoyed Orientalism. My problem with so many of these works, however, is that they seem to take such an intentional stance. Like the assertion that the language of Orientalism serves to create an other in order to. . . Like, wait right there. One of the most valuable insights from scholarship like this is that we are all trapped in power structures. The "othering" that happens isn't the result of some demonic intention, it's just what people do. While Said takes great pains to make this point, most readers of the book that I've interacted with do not seem to grasp it. When I finished Orientalism I kind of chuckled because in many ways he engaged in the process that he was describing, "Occidentalizing" western area studies, as it were. I know it's not, but at some level I kind of hoped the book was a big meta-joke to illustrate the inescapability of the dynamic.

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iguy 7y ago
> Like the assertion that the language of Orientalism serves to create an other in order to. . . > Like, wait right there. Then you got further than I did! Someone should have dragged that guy to math class -- before you can prove two things are the same, you have to first define both of them, then make your case.
- claudiawerner 7y ago
  That's not what critical theorists think; for them, often the process of describing a phenomenon involves looking at how "it" behaves. The idea that everything must be defined analytically before it is used or analyzed shuts one off from a lot of possible insight. For example, the debate as to whether porn is art continues to this day, but we have analyzed both porn, art and porn as art before we were ever clear on the matter rigourously speaking. Furthermore, to impose a definition is to trap a concept (usually a historically contingent one) in a moment, which isn't always useful. There are some works on the matter of definitionalism that make this point better but I can't find them right now. I'm short, critical theory and philosophy are different sciences (another thorny word to define, but we use it regardless of the intellectual poverty of some of its widely accepted definitions) to mathematics.
  - iguy 7y ago
    Sure, I completely agree that a book discussing porn vs art can't literally start with definitions they way a math book can, that's too narrow. But if it wishes to use an existing word like "art" in a new sense, for instance to claim that all portrayal of humans is inherently pornographic, then IMHO it needs to be very careful to distinguish this from pre-existing meanings. The fact that some building on campus has "art" chiseled into the marble cannot be assumed to already imply agreement with some new meaning you invented 5 pages ago, a meaning which would have been very surprising to the guys who sponsored the building. Even if you ultimately make a convincing case that the sense you describe is somehow more correct/useful/interesting than other ones, or encompasses them, you've got to act as if you haven't yet shown that. That's what I meant he should have learned in math class. And really the more honest course is to introduce new words for new concepts, not to try to muddle older ones, as Said successfully did. But, to be fair, I didn't finish the book.
house_atr 7y ago
Sounds like you took the enlightened centrist "all sides" path and completely missed the point.
abhiyerra 7y ago
The West defined the East, but the East also defined the West. How each side views the other is also a part of that power dynamic. Power structures are bidirectional graphs. Examples, of this are college departments like Chinese Studies, South Asian Studies, European Studies, etc. These are methods of creating the history of the other and creating power over the other. I'm sure the Chinese, Europeans, Africans, etc. also have such histories.

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iguy 7y ago

> Like the assertion that the language of Orientalism serves to create an other in order to. . . > Like, wait right there. Then you got further than I did! Someone should have dragged that guy to math class -- before you can prove two things are the same, you have to first define both of them, then make your case.

claudiawerner 7y ago
That's not what critical theorists think; for them, often the process of describing a phenomenon involves looking at how "it" behaves. The idea that everything must be defined analytically before it is used or analyzed shuts one off from a lot of possible insight. For example, the debate as to whether porn is art continues to this day, but we have analyzed both porn, art and porn as art before we were ever clear on the matter rigourously speaking. Furthermore, to impose a definition is to trap a concept (usually a historically contingent one) in a moment, which isn't always useful. There are some works on the matter of definitionalism that make this point better but I can't find them right now. I'm short, critical theory and philosophy are different sciences (another thorny word to define, but we use it regardless of the intellectual poverty of some of its widely accepted definitions) to mathematics.
- iguy 7y ago
  Sure, I completely agree that a book discussing porn vs art can't literally start with definitions they way a math book can, that's too narrow. But if it wishes to use an existing word like "art" in a new sense, for instance to claim that all portrayal of humans is inherently pornographic, then IMHO it needs to be very careful to distinguish this from pre-existing meanings. The fact that some building on campus has "art" chiseled into the marble cannot be assumed to already imply agreement with some new meaning you invented 5 pages ago, a meaning which would have been very surprising to the guys who sponsored the building. Even if you ultimately make a convincing case that the sense you describe is somehow more correct/useful/interesting than other ones, or encompasses them, you've got to act as if you haven't yet shown that. That's what I meant he should have learned in math class. And really the more honest course is to introduce new words for new concepts, not to try to muddle older ones, as Said successfully did. But, to be fair, I didn't finish the book.

house_atr 7y ago

Sounds like you took the enlightened centrist "all sides" path and completely missed the point.

abhiyerra 7y ago

The West defined the East, but the East also defined the West. How each side views the other is also a part of that power dynamic. Power structures are bidirectional graphs. Examples, of this are college departments like Chinese Studies, South Asian Studies, European Studies, etc. These are methods of creating the history of the other and creating power over the other. I'm sure the Chinese, Europeans, Africans, etc. also have such histories.