This paper is an evaluation and critique Edward Said’s work, Orientalism[1] and will answer its principal concern of how Western Scholars should approach other cultures. Orientalism was first used to denote a section of scholarship that dealt with the examination of the geographic regions including the Middle East and India. Since its inception it was refined to the Middle East, or Arab studies, as more and more subfields were developed and broke off of from the field, dividing what was called the Orient[2] into smaller and smaller geo-cultural regions of study[3]. In 1973, the twenty-ninth International Congress of Orientalists decided to drop the name altogether[4]. Edward Said used the term to describe a relationship between the scholarship of the Orientalists and the colonial domination by the imperial powers. Said also rejects the validity of the terms Orient and Occident, but employs them because this is how the argument has been framed by the Orientalists[5].

I will examine the following claims of Orientalism. First, while Orientalism presents itself as an objective field of study, the knowledge it generated was used to justify the power behind the political domination of the East by the West[6]. Secondly, the Orientalists employed a essentialist way of viewing the Near East, this essentialist thinking was a false way of viewing people groups and their culture. Lastly, since the Orientalist scholars were the product of the system they came from they could not cannot help but to misrepresent the “Other.” Therefore, what was needed was for the subaltern to speak for itself. I will argue that while a significant portion of this theory is valuable and an useful way of viewing part of the Imperialist/Orientalist framework, it too was essentialist in nature and was more indicative of the nature of the Imperialists than the nature of the Orientalist scholars.

Orientalism and Domination

Said spent the most time developing and producing examples of the idea that Orientalism was not the objective field of study it claimed to be. Rather, it created a space in which justifications of political and cultural domination of the Occidental could be imposed on the Orient. It was his primary goal to “show how Orientalism came into being as the doctrine and corporate institution for exercising Western domination of the Orient[7].” The way in which the Orientalists accomplished this was to brand what they termed as Orientals as essentially inferior in culture and personhood to their European counterparts. This thread was picked up by the political powers and was used to justify their colonial expansion. Foundational to Said, as it was for Foucault, was the idea that knowledge was power. The knowledge of the Orient, as flawed as it was, provided the power base from which the colonizers set about their mission. Here a distinction between pure knowledge and political knowledge was made by Said[8]. An example of “pure knowledge” is basic math. It was and is hardly possible for 2+2=4 to enable the domination of another people group. Political knowledge, on the other hand, lent itself handily from specialist to policy. Said made a special point to demonstrate how policy makers sought out the specialist, in this case the Orientalists, to shape their policies. These policies often involved the domination of those that the specialist studied and thus demonstrated Said and Foucault’s conception of knowledge as power.

Said’s first example of this was Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in 1978. The occupation of Egypt by Napoleon “set in motion … [processes]… that still dominate our contemporary cultural and political perspectives[9].” Said went on to describe the process and ultimate goal of colonization:

“What the machine [the colonial power structure] branches feed into it in the East – human material, wealth, knowledge, what have you – is processed by the machine and then converted into more power[10].”

Said then explained the role of the Orientalism in the above process.

“The specialist does the immediate translation of mere Oriental matter into useful substance: the Oriental becomes, for example, a subject race, an example of “Oriental mentality, all for the enhancement of the “authority” at home. “Local interests” are Orientalist special interests, the “central authority” is the general interest of the imperial society as a whole[11].”

Through the enabling of the Orientalist, the colonial power was and is able to transform the subjugated peoples, the subalterns, into mere raw materials that the empire consumed. This was another example of knowledge as power. The political knowledge of the Orientalists gave traction to the power of the subjugators.

Objections

Since the notion of knowledge as power was central to Said’s thesis, it is a good starting point of this critique. Simply stated, knowledge cannot exist separate from the power structure that allows it to function and likewise the knowledge feeds the power structure, allowing for the growth of real power[12]. Was this the case in Oriental studies? The question will be divided up into three sub-questions. The first is, “Did the knowledge of the Orientalists serve to grow the power of the Imperialists?” The second asks, “Did the Orientalists seek to grow this power, was that their motive for studying of the Near East?” Finally, an answer is needed as to if all knowledge is power.

An affirmative answer to the first question is hard to place into doubt. Said’s book is rife with examples of this. It is the reason Said chose to focus on the Imperial powers. In effect, Imperialism and Orientalism are metaphors of each other, the way Said uses them.[13] Steven Seidman points this out in his review of Orientalism.

“…[I]mperialism is as much about narration and cultural meanings as it is about political economy. Culture shapes colonial desires and offers symbolic incitements and justifications for territorial expansion.[14]”

In light of this, and the conjunction of the growth of scholarship in Europe and its unprecedented political power over a percentage of the earth[15], the point is ceded that Imperial powers utilized the knowledge generated by the Orientalists to justify their expansion of power.

Did the Orientalists attempt to aid and complicit in the power feeding of the Imperialists? There are a number of people that do not think this was the case. One of these people is Bernard Lewis, Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, who is a heavy handed critic of Said’s theory. Lewis opened an essay entitled “The Question of Orientalism” imagining if only Greeks or sympathizers of Greek causes could be in the profession of Classical Studies[16]. He regarded the development of the Classicists as parallel to the that of Near East studies. Since it would be false to say that the Classicists used their knowledge to fuel power over Greece, it is likewise false to assert that the Orientalists did the same[17]. However, another scholar has noted that Europe saw itself as …the true inheritor of ancient Greece, its only legitimate child, and emphatically not the Byzantines and modern Greeks, near Orientals…[18]” Taking this into consideration, Lewis’ initial criticism of knowledge as power does not have the elasticity to cover his analogy. However, there was lack of how the Germans treated the Orientals in their studies. In Orientalism, Said said that they are outside the scope of his work, but since the German scholars were significant generators of studies of the Near East, they must be taken into account in order for an analysis of knowledge as power to be complete.

The last question, how knowledge as power relates to the correlation between the holders of power and the holders of knowledge. If knowledge is truly power, and the West held a power monopoly over the East, enabling it to recast the beings of the those in the Near East and subjugate them; then it would follow that the West held a corresponding monopoly of knowledge over the Near East. Lewis maintains that this was not so. Lewis maintained that scholarship and science are not “commodities which exist in finite quantities[19],” and thus could exist in multiple locations growing the whole while on each side without a corresponding decrease of the knowledge in other locations. Lewis accused Said of employing this “hitherto unknown theory of knowledge,” that knowledge only exists in finite quantities, when Said termed “accumulate, “wrench,” and “ransack” as descriptors of the West’s increase of knowledge[20]. As evidence of the lack of a knowledge monopoly in the West, Lewis cited the Review of the Arab Academy, al-Abahath, and Review of Maghribi History[21] as examples of major journals of Arab educational institutions that Said denies that exist[22].

How does all of this affect Said’s theory of knowledge as power? There is no denying that those in power took from the Orientalists the knowledge that they had generated from their studies and employed it in their domination of the Near East and in the rest Europe’s colonies. However, not all of this knowledge was translated into power. Knowledge is not a fixed commodity, but is generated. The West did not hold a monopoly on knowledge. Thus, while all of the Imperialists used knowledge for power, not all Orientalists gave their knowledge for power. Those in power utilized the knowledge of the Orientalists to aid in their domination of the cultures, but it was not a two way street. The Orientalists did study the near east not to discover ways to control it, but to understand it better. To put it in the most simple of terms, it was a case of all A is B, but not all B is A.

Orientalism and Essentialism

How did the Orientalist enable domination for Said? The Orientalist enabled the transformation of people into materials by inscribing unto them essential qualities. These essential qualities were static and unchangeable. Another feature of these essential qualities was that each quality was often subordinated or seen as inferior to European qualities. Paul Valéry was quoted by Said as representative of this idea. Valéry said that while Europe owed its “heritage of the arts” and knowledge to the Orient, they were still “monsters” that had to be dealt with by “maintaining the power of choice[23].” This condition was timeless according to the Europeans. Said saw this as a grave error. This was stated the clearest in the afterword of Orientalism, “…human identity is not only not natural and stable, but constructed, and occasionally even invented outright[24].” Said noted that no one would dare form essential qualities of “the Negro mind” or “the Jewish personality,” however it was acceptable to form essential qualities of “the Islamic mind,” and “the Arab character[25].” Such an essentialist view of the Orientals, of the Arabs, of the Semites, of Islam, therefore, is tantamount to racism. Even though the colonizers often thought they were bringing enlightenment to the uncivilized peoples, this paternalistic attitude was still as racist as the other forms of dominative theoretical frameworks.

Objections

Basim Musallam articulates the necessity of answering the charge of essentialism in his paper, “Power and Knowledge.”

“The Orientalist [for Said] played a very important role within nineteenth century European culture as the major custodian of the idea of human difference.[26]”

As the collectors of knowledge, the Orientalists were charged with the accurate portrayal of other cultures. It was their knowledge that informed their cultures, their peoples, on what the Near East was like. Said charged that the Orientalists failed miserably to progress past the “scientific presumptions of [the nineteenth century] regarding race and culture and human possibilities.[27]” Was this the case? Was the field of Orientalists, as a whole, guilty of a false essentialism as characteristic of their studies of the Near East.

The fundamental question here lies in the very charge and construction of the term essentialism. If one holds to the fact that essentialism is false, then one cannot apply the charge of the use of essentialism to more than one subject at a time without being an essentialist. That is to say, if essentialism is a false idea, then one cannot be consistent and apply it to a group of people at the same time. In an overarching sense, one cannot claim any essential nature to the Orientalists, one cannot even charge them, as a homogeneous group, with being essentialists, by the very nature of the argument. Bernard Lewis articulated this point in his essay on Orientalism.

“…the assumption that there is an Orientalist conception or line to which all Orientalists adhere – an illusion to which even the most superficial acquaintance with the writings of Orientalists should suffice to dispel.[28]”

It needs to be noted that Lewis was a staunch critic of Said as Said was of him and there were times in each scholar’s writings where their arguments descended into personal attacks[29]. Lewis went on, later in the essay, to detail major contributions of Orientalist scholars that were devoid the essentialism that Said claimed that they were guilty of in other parts of their work[30]. Thus, Lewis charged that Said cherry-picked his examples to provide support for the theory.

Is this the case? Did Said pick and choose only the examples that supported his case? To be sure the examples that Said did choose as representative of the essentialism by scholars did reflect essentialist tendencies. Similarly, Lewis gives example after example of works that are not essentialist in nature. Lewis uses the work of Edward Lane as a case in point. Lewis noted that Said used one of Lane’s minor works that was also criticized by the Orientalists while omitting Lane’s life work. He also noted that in order to obtain a fully representative analysis of the Western approach, one would need to include the work of the Germans. “… a history of Arabic studies in Europe without the Germans make as much sense as would a history of European music or philosophy with the same omission.[31]” What was needed was a comprehensive analysis of all of the works by all of the Orientalists across Europe. Only then could one adequately determine to what extent the charge of essentialism can be applied to the Orientalists. Since this is an undertaking well outside the scope of this paper, it is also outside the scope of this paper to adequately judge the essentialist nature of the Orientalists. What is certain from a look at the above is that there were more than a few instances of the Orientalist scholars equating a essentialist nature to the Near East. However, the opposite of the previous statement is also true. Therefore, the Orientalists are guilty in part of essentialism, and the percentage of their guilt is uncertain without further inquiry.

Functionalist Racism and Said’s Solution

The false essentialism[32] of Orientalism from the previous section was and is inescapable for any scholar from the West. Said asserted, “No scholar, not even a Massignon, can resist the pressures on him of his nation or of the scholarly tradition in which he works[33].” Said, in step with his rejection of essentialism, went on to say in the immediate sentence that one must allow for the possibility of an individual genius transcending one’s situation. However, this was seen to be highly unlikely, as no scholar had been able to do this so far. This subtle racism, like the violence claimed by the revolting peasants in Monty Python’s Holy Grail, is inherent in the system. The West found itself in positions of political and military power over what it saw as the Orient and subsequently used this power to subjugate it. Developing alongside this power, giving legitimacy and traction, was the scholar of the Orient, the Orientalists.

Once a tradition of superior values of the West and a static view of the Orient developed, the tradition crystallized and it was and is nearly impossible to break free for any scholar inside the tradition. Since it was almost impossible for any scholar in the West to break free of these bonds, how can one learn of other people groups? However, “[humans] make their own history[34]”; every society is in a constant state of flux and development. Said’s reply to this conundrum and to Spivak is that the subaltern could indeed speak[35]. Thus, what is needed is for each people group to speak for itself and create discourses of its own history and share and dialogue with other people groups with the goal of true knowledge of the other and not merely political knowledge. It was Said’s hope that his work would help break the bonds that Orientalism has held and is holding over the subaltern world. These bonds were to be broken by new studies of each culture’s history and experience by the respective cultures[36].

Objection

Said went to great lengths to show the flawed knowledge that some of the Orientalists produced. Does that necessarily mean that all of the knowledge produced by the Orientalists were flawed? It does not. There was objective, pure knowledge that was obtained by the Orientalist studies. After all, in order to administer Egypt, Napoleon had to have good maps and a good sense of the language[37]. This knowledge of custom, geography, and habit were real, true, and objective even thought it was used to spoiled ends. The question is how to separate the wheat from the sand.

Once, someone asked me to describe my concept of God to them. I tried as best I could; attributes were listed, ideas were rationalized, doctrines were expounded. At the end of this, my friend said that I had failed in several regards. Not only had I failed to expound of several doctrines of God’s nature that he knew I held, I had used human characteristics and grafted them onto something completely non-human – a significant error. Despite this, that I am fundamentally unable to fully and adequately describe God[38], does that necessarily mean that I cannot even try? I do not think that would be the appropriate response. The most adequate response is to keep in mind that I am unable to fully and completely represent God and through that mindfulness I am able to present a clearer picture of God. It is similar to the holding of a praying mantis; there needs to be a balance between looseness and firmness. If one grasps too hard the subject is mangled, too loose and there is nothing there to look upon.

The same holds for the study of other cultures. Just as one needs to recognize that one is a product of one’s culture and there is an inherent disconnect with the subject, one should also realize that this does not mean that the subject cannot be studied at all. After all, how far does this rabbit hole go? Assuming that one cannot approach another culture because of their inherent bias, can one even read their works? After all, there will be a measure of disconnect there as well. The result of this is an increasing tendency towards intellectual isolation bordering on xenophobia. A healthier approach is to approach the study of other cultures being mindful of the dangers of essentialism and the potential for one’s work for abuse.

Conclusions

One needs to be wary of any theory that purports to have found a singular cause to a complex problem[39]. This does not mean that all parts of Said’s theory are without use. The theory is very useful in explaining how the Imperialists used the Orientalists in their furthering of their power over the subjects of the Orientalists’ study. While the Imperialists used the Orientalists to further their power over the Near East, not all the Orientalists were in league with the Imperialists. While part of the Orientalists and as an extension, their work, were guilty of essentialism, a significant portion were not guilty. Despite the fact that one cannot completely transcend cultures in the study of them, does not mean that one should not attempt. If one is mindful of the limitations, they can better approach other cultures. To not try is to take a step toward xenophobia. One should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Knowledge was not the problem in Europe and America’s Imperialism; it was the abuse of power, thus one should be weary of imperialist tendencies, not good scholarship.

Works Cited

Allen, Barry. “Power/Knowledge.” Critical Essays on Michel Foucault. Ed. Karlis Racevskis. New York: G.K. Hall & CO, 1999.

Halliday, Fred. “‘Orientalism and Its Critics.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 20.3 (1993): 145-163.

Lewis, Bernard. “The Question of Orientalism.” The New York Review of Books 24 June 1982.

Musallam, Basim. “Power and Knowledge.” MERIP Reports 79 (1979): 19-26.

Said, Edward W. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1994.

Seidman, Steven. “Empire and Knowledge.” Required Reading: Sociology’s Most Influential Books. Ed. Dan Clawson. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. 168-172.