Orientalism

Edward Said is a well known, one of the most prominent post-colonial critics and theorists. Edward Said is a Palestinian but in his own words he can be called an American critic. There are several kinds of developments which have gone into the making of Said himself and his critical theory' Orientalism'

 It would not be wrong to say that much of the post colonial we have today, emerged with and in the shape of Said's oreintalism. West for the first time provided an example of sustained application. In a way it inaugrated a new phase to understand, colonial and imperial practices of the West and connections between Western culture and imperialism. What orientalism basically argued was the politics, the considerations, the positions and the strategies of power.

Jospeh Pristow suggests that for the majority of the white academics, the debate about post coloniality began with Said. The debate is also acknowledged by Homi Bhabha and Gayatri  Spivak 

In a sustained argument, said brilliantly distinguishes between orientalism and orient.  Orient applies to the sociologist, historian or philologist having its own historyand ethenic characterostics. Orientalism on the other hand, is an other description through which the West, dominated and represented, the orient through a variety  of intellectual disciplines. The  two  according to, Said are both inter-related and inter-dependent. In his own words: 

" Orientalism lives on  academically thorough its doctrines and thesis  about the orient and the oriental".

For the fist time Said perhaps extended the scope of literary and critical activities in relation to culture history and literature itself.

 one of the notable aspects of  Siad's text is that it continually insists on the importance of attention to be paid to the political and material effects of Western scholarship and academic institutions and their affiliation to the world outside them .

Said says, 

" .....Ideas cultures and  histories cannot seriously be understood or study without  their force".

Said while propounding these arguments relies on two principal methodological sources. Gramsci and Faucault's more influence can be seen in Said's early work. Orientalism is related to Foucault in two principal ways- what power is and how it operates. Foucault was a famous French philosopher and through many of his words like Madness and Civilization, the order of things etc., he had laid bare the operation of power and ideas in human history. He rejects the conception of power as a force that is based on the simple repression of the weak and mad members of humanity by the powerful.  

He sees power as an impersonal force.

Said adopted from  Foucault  the argument of discourses. For Foulcault all ideologies and systems of language were basically forms of dominance  and suppression.  Whose origin he traces in the Western history and philosophy.  All ideas,  according to Foucault are  ordered through some material medium. This ordering imposes a pattern on them and it is this pattern that he called the discourse.   In other words discourse is a domain or a whole field within which language used in particular ways in human practices and institutions. 

There is however, one  difference between Said and Foucault  and that is where Foucault laid stress on larger historical, political and other developments by ignoring books and authors, Said gives great importance to individual authors, historians, anthropologists, political, thinkers and others . There he connects to the structure of thought and working of power. Thus according to Said knowledge and power both are related. 

Said has combined the aspects of focused thinking with the  work of an Italian marxist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci is  also less concerned with the repressive apparatus of state power and more with the way that the consent of the Subordinates sectors of the society is sought repeatedly in the domain of civil society as.

"  one should not count only on the material force which power gifts in order to exercise in effective leadership"

The aim of  Said's orientalism is to expose the degree which western systems of knowledge and representation have been Involved in the history of Western material and political subordination of Non western world. For  Said  orientalism operates in the service of the West's leadership, hegemony over the east .