“Edward Said complains in his Orientalism that Europeans have always looked down on Orientals and thought of them as cruel, sybaritic barbarians who are not quite human. And he’s quite right. The question he avoids, however, is whether this harsh characterization is incorrect or unfair. Persia–or, now, Iran–is a fundamentalist state that sponsors terrorism and issues fatwahs against those of whom it disapproves. Lacking in restraint and respect for the law, this is a nation that, in Aeschylus’ view, forfeits the right to be taken seriously.”
Aeschylus, 2, Slavitt, David R. and Bovie, Palmer. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia. Pg 5.
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December 30th, 2009 at 2:44 pm #
how do they keep these two ideas at the same time without dissonance:
- “those people” are barbaric/cruel/etc., because
- they are autocratic/fundamentalist/fascist/some other disapproved-of style of government which mistreats the “little people” it rules over
so… “those people” are somehow barbaric because they are… being mistreated? … or is it just that “those people” arent really an actual group of individual people, but rather just an inhuman mishmash, so it doesn’t really matter who does what to whom except insofar as it makes white Westerners feel superior to them?
December 30th, 2009 at 3:54 pm #
yeah because we are not our government but they are?!
wow
and western governments never do anything barbaric.
and western people never do anything barbaric.
December 30th, 2009 at 9:55 pm #
Uh, the U.S. sponsors terrorism too. See Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chile, Colombia, Turkey, (etc., etc.), or, say, the very groups we’re now fighting a “war on terror” against.
December 31st, 2009 at 5:38 am #
i would like to see this discussed and deconstructed more, beyond our knee jerk “but look who’s a bigger terrorist-hypocrite!”.
Like, how does academia not only have a vested interest in perpetuating these myths about “others” being sub-or-inhuman, but also how do they actively contribute to/incite that sort of analysis. Because academia has a great deal of political and cultural power in the U.S. There are people who believe that because something is said by “educated” people it must be true, and who believe that the academic – read “rational” and research-based – conclusions are more authentic and non-biased. Our government relies very heavily on the academic model, and hello? Those academics become advisors to the government. Besides which they “raise up” generations of young people in the universities, filling their heads with just this sort of thinking, which then the young people take back out into society.
Also, just (as BFP’s title brings up) the idea that you can say that Said (or anyone else) is “avoiding” the question of whether it’s true that some people are “barbaric, not quite human” starts from the wrong premise – but a very common premise. It automatically states that “some” people have the right to determine if “other” people count as people at all. And apparently, academia thinks they are the people who have that right. It’s a very lazy way of not truly engaging the issues (in this case, Iran) by simply declaring them “not quite human” and writing it all off. This is exactly how the nation ends up going to war – because advisors make a case that a nation is full of sub humans that we need to control. It’s also the exact mind control that is used when training troops to fight – the enemy are not humans, they are not like you.
Now, in the case of Iran, i am very concerned about how the government is doing a lot of things. And a lot (most) of what they are doing is not Islamic by any means either (people like to cite that they are an Islamic country with and Islamic government, but that is so far from the truth). What is going on there right now is horrifying! But it doesn’t mean that Iranians are sub human. It doesn’t even mean that the people in the government and Basiji are sub human. We have to recognize the humanity in each person in order to come up with effective and MORAL solutions. By which i do not mean that we tell ourselves we are morally superior either, but that in order to engage in a way that isn’t just doing the same thing as what we have labelled them subhuman for doing, we have to accept that they are human. Flawed humans making horrible human mistakes & terrible bad human decisions, yes. But human, part of us. When we recognize that all people ultimately are connected, it makes a huge difference to our decisions about how we engage them and work for change on a personal as well as grander scale.
Said didn’t “avoid” answering whether it was true that some people are “cruel, sybaritic barbarians who are not quite human” – he affirmed that we can’t start or end there. That it isn’t the real question at all.
December 31st, 2009 at 7:00 am #
yeah, aaminah, that’s exctly where i was headed with that post–but i’m too tired and messed up to write everything all beautifully like you did! Not that I have a problem with noting the irony of this quote calling *’others’* barbaric!
but yeah, i read the quote and the first thing I thought was: boy, i just hope there are no iranian kids who *ever* take this author for a class! there is so much power in the position of “educator”–whether it is a full tenured professor or an adjunct–students specifically and “larger society” in general, assume that people know what they’re talking about–and can you imagine buying your books before the semester started, sitting down to skim through some of them, and coming across that shit? And the position that would put you as a student that hasn’t done all the research and work of your professor in? I mean–half of the politics of academia boil down to “work” and how much of it you’ve done. I’ve seen shit professors completely blow off new professors because the shit professor has been doing his/her job for 35 years. And so that means no kid could *possibly* know better than *me*.
so how does a sophomore undergraduate even approach standing up to his/her professor in an environment like that? Much less an environment that is passively hostile towards him because of existing nation/state fights with the homeland–and the fact that he/she is the only iranian student in the class?
Do academics *really* have the right to call the humanity of their own students into question? And was Said “complaining?” or was he asserting a radical position that 1. there are some questions that are too stupid to answer and 2. the west can and should be interrogated over its practices.
And I think that these scholars just tried to one up Said–tried to play “gotcha.” by quickly casting aside (and writing it as less complex than what it really is) Said’s argument in Orientalism, they are trying to resist the second half of Said’s assertion–that the west’s practices can and should be critiqued.
In short–Said’s book is not about “representation and should be people represented in one way or another” and is absolutly about “the systematic justification of imperial colonialism through the use of violent and repressive imagery and words.” There would be no reason at all for Said to answer if “it is true or not” that the barbarians are really barbarians. A question more directly related to his assertion would be “is it ok to use this imagery if it justifies an attack against a threatening nation/state.” Or something along those lines.–i mean, these guys are actually doing what Said exposed and critiqued in his book! Using their positions of power to lay down the ground work for justification of colonial and/or imperial intervention in Iran!
I don’t want to get into a whole disertation of Said’s work—because I think that I could if prompted just enough!!!
But I did want to really point out the power of this quote–and how that power would and probably does play out in the classroom–and how, as aaminah suggested, it can be used to lay the ground work for nation/state intervention–how many kids are going to be reading that quote and going–all the FOX news stuff is *right*???
Exactly.
December 31st, 2009 at 1:35 pm #
How infuriating that a call for western scholars to interrogate their own research practices and accountabilities gets painted as “complaining.” The university is still a place for the production of very specific forms of knowledge, ones that justify and reproduce Western cultural production and empire.
I’d still like to believe that universities could help nurture knowledge production that is interruptive, and maybe these spaces could be nurtured by interdisciplinary fields like Ethnic Studies and Women’s Studies. (Hey, I’m in an optimistic mood.)
Part of my takeaway from Said is that the dominant discourses in academia shore up empire by interpellating “the Orient” in very specific ways. One of the great challenges is not just to make sure that marginalized narratives are included, because that’s what Slavitt is doing in a way. The challenge is to insert ourselves into the discourse, to change the very discourses through which we are interpellated. Maybe then there would be a chance for knowledge production that, among other things, actually allows for critical exchanges of knowledge in the classrooms.
December 31st, 2009 at 3:44 pm #
Classic example of academic indiscipline. The main argument substitutes metaphoric equations for logical inference, and any persuasive power those equations might exercise depends entirely on the ideologeme, if you’ll pardon the expression, that Said’s book documents, analyzes and criticizes. One faction of Iranian government = Iranian nation = all Orientals. The step-by-step expansion of the part for the whole doesn’t even make sense unless you *already* assume that nations and races exist materially and manifest essentialized traits at every level of their social organization.
January 1st, 2010 at 3:16 am #
I know I am being myopic here, but ‘academia as evil” is a monolithic idea that undermines the work of radical academics like Said, whom this quote is trying to dismantle intellectually thru racist academese, as much as it points to the longstanding tradition of failure among certain academics and academic strains. Put another way, both Said and the writing team of Aeschylus, 2, Slavitt, David R. and Bovie, Palmer are academics, Said writes to expose Orientalism and has had a huge impact on the research and activisim of people committed to dismantling it; the others, are ppl I have never even heard of but are aligned with a longstanding Orientalist school of thought that has helped allow unjust wars and teach people to accept them. So not only should we question the later and what they represent but also the framework that allows us to effectively critique their gross generalizations about people and place and how those uphold binaries of good west vs bad east without adopting our own flawed binaries to do it. One thing I have been thinking about alot lately is Fanon warning that world systems cannot change if we do not fundamentally change the way we organize the world and how we see the people and resources within it or if you prefer Ngugi’s invective that we must change the way we think at the very basic level so as to envision a different, and better, world otherwise our vision may be stunted or our execution of that vision will recreate certain core issues from a different standpoint.
That said, the key point about who has a write to humanity, human rights, or even the right to be seen as legitimate (as a leaders, states, faiths, etc.) has always been one of the key bone’s of contention between academics who are trying to free our minds and those who are try to chain them down and harness them for political ends. And as this quote points out, the latter are so invested that they don’t even recognize the glaring incongruities in their thinking. B/c they start from a place of “we”(meaning them) are human and you (everyone else) are not” all of the generalizing, demonizing, and justifying of oppression that they do seems justified by the “inhumanity” that imagine and/or create out of isolated events.
It’s like calling the undwear bomber “The Nigerian”, it helps otherize an entire nation and further demonize a content and a presumed faith and open the way for expanded conflict; whereas “undwear bomber” like “shoe bomber” (note a 1/2 white British citizen who has never been referred to as “The Brit”) denote the crime itself.
January 1st, 2010 at 3:17 am #
wow, I had no idea my comments were that long … sorry (u know I’m wordy)
January 1st, 2010 at 5:39 am #
susurro, i get the impression that you completely misread my comment. Because no where did i say “academia is evil”, nor did i say that ALL academics are bad. Obviously, i am fully aware that Said is an academic. Andrea Smith is an academic. Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison are academics. In my mind, BFP is an academic! Thank God for academic folks who challenge the U.S. system of academia and challenge their students to see their world in a whole new way. Critiquing that the SYSTEM of academia is, however, set up and designed with the intention of creating self-absorbed twits who think their own opinion means the world and that perpetuate a racist/classist/ableist agenda is perfectly valid. Academia is MEANT to be those things – it is meant to be a means of keeping certain people in their place. It’s just that a lot of those people and others have challenged the status quo, gotten into academia, and really have made a difference from within. It doesn’t change the racist/classist/ableist BASIS of academia. And academia is a SYSTEM, not just a group of people. So challenging it, calling it out for what it is is NOT the same as what academics do when they “otherize” and “orientalize” people.
January 1st, 2010 at 8:23 am #
I didn’t actually read your comment Aaminah, so I think you must of misread mine.
January 1st, 2010 at 11:18 am #
Well, i’m the only one of these commentors that applies to what you said… so… i’m also the only commentor as far as i know who is definitely not an academic with a self-interest in ensuring that academics don’t get slighted somehow.
“but ‘academia as evil’ is a monolithic idea that undermines the work of radical academics”
No one else wrote anything remotely, including in the post, that would imply that “academia as evil” was a relevant part of the discussion. But someone in academia might choose to believe that what i wrote was calling out academia.
Thanks for reminding me exactly why i don’t comment on things like this. There is no such thing as an honest discussion.
January 1st, 2010 at 8:17 pm #
But I like what you wrote.
January 1st, 2010 at 11:40 pm #
Aaminah look to the title of this post for your answers; I have never been dishonest in BFP’s house, but there is, as you imply, no way to prove that.
January 2nd, 2010 at 4:16 am #
I like your comments too, Aaminah. And I don’t view “I didn’t read the thread above my comment” as a good explanation. If I were to write commenting guidelines (which I’ve never bothered to do!), one of the first rules would be, “Read the thread with care before adding to it, to make sure your contribution is properly contextualized.”
January 2nd, 2010 at 7:59 am #
There are certain patterns in comments that consistently remind me of “my place”. This “issue” is not new and is a regularly practiced dishonesty, so i’ve decided to just not engage certain people who consistently actively attempt to discredit anything i say in an aggressive manner and then deny it.
Kai, i have commented on posts in the past without reading comments, but i usually would preface it by simply saying that i am commenting with my own thoughts on the actual post, admitting that i have not yet read comments, and am only engaging with the post. Often, but not always, i do end up also commenting on comments and asking questions about how other commentors came to their conclusions, after i go back and read them. This is what discussion means. i have thoughts that the post itself brings up in me, and i want to share those first – without becoming overwhelmed by the information then present in comments. But i am very interested in the comments as well, how other people reacted to the post, what thoughts and feelings it brought up in them and what about their perspectives may actually change my own. i have on many an occasion admitted that reading other peoples’ POV has caused my own previously stated opinion or thought process to shift, sometimes quite radically.
January 2nd, 2010 at 12:36 pm #
susurro i love your work. you are one of the academics that i have had the pleasure of meeting -online- that i admire for being a radical cultural worker working through the academic system. and i think that there is a lot of ground for critiquing the academic system. i mean, aaminah’s analysis was spot on.
it should also be said that i am not an academic. i dont even have a ba. and i have encountered a lot of prejudice among academics about my work and my knowledge because of my lack of higher education.
i should also say that my partner is an academic. a graduate student in the international human rights law. his profs often are challenging the dominant discourse -academic and mainstream- around human rights and law.
i feel like because academia makes a claim primarily to knowledge production, it is assumed by many academics and by the academic powers that be that if you are not in academia, or at least have a higher degree, that you not only lack specific knowledge in certain fields, but that you would not be as able to gather and produce knowledge that is as relevant as those with more education.
let me put this another way: why cant i go to graduate school? why is it assumed in academia that i have to do four years of undergrad in a discipline that i have more than four years of experience in…in order to go to pay to attend grad school?
and why is that those who do have a ba or a ma are assumed to be as qualified, actually more qualified, than i am in a field that i have far more years of experience?
feel me?
this for me is not an intellectual question. this is an issue of being able to feed my kid.
after over a year of unemployment/actively looking for a fucking job…i finally got one. my boss was a woman who had a ma in refugee studies, but little to no experience in the field. what she did have was a series of academic grants (that will probably never be available to me) that allowed her to basically create a field project from scratch. (in my field this is considered a dream job) and she hired me because she couldnt handle her own project.
when it was pointed out to her (not by me) that i could do her job better than she could (and had in the past) her response was that i may have the experience, but she had the access to the funding and to the academic language to continue receiving funding, and that was more important than experience. i quit that job after she got someone in the communities killed. she of course continues to head that project with little accountability to anyone other than other academics.
yes there are radicals in academia. thank god. there are also radicals in nearly every field that exists.
but to say that radical critique of academia undermines radicals in academia just doesnt make sense to me.
on my more optimistic days, i still want to hope that it is true that critique from both within and without a system is necessary in order for that system to change. and if so. then critique from outside of academia supports the change that radical academics are working towards. nestce pas?
on my more pessimistic days, i feel that academics, even radical ones, refuse to see or work against the ways that their system hurts those who have less access to funding, journals, publications, social and political leaders, etc.
i guess i see it like. im really critical of midwifery. and im a midwife. i dont feel undermined by folks who point out that midwifery as a system is fucked, even if there are individual midwives who rock my world. im okay with midwifery=evil cuz there are a lot of women and men who have been hurt by the midwifery system. please everyone critique the midwifery system! it supports radical midwives…
ok so this comment wasnt said in the best way possible. sorry. ive got icky intestines for the past three days. but i hope it makes some sense.
January 3rd, 2010 at 5:58 pm #
Aaminah – this is directed at you. How was susurro being aggressive in his or her response? And I actually agree with you in your first post.
My impression of your responses is that you SOMETIMES seem to go off at people with long run-on-sentences and extreme defensiveness. Especially when you disagree with someone. Why don’t you try to understand what susurro was saying? susurro wrote a lot and you chose to focus on the first few lines and get defensive about it.
January 4th, 2010 at 6:43 am #
Sahara, i would recommend that you not get in the middle of things. You can have whatever opinion you want of me. You don’t know the history of this behavior, for one, and for another, her comment speaks for itself whether you agree with me or not. i didn’t comment on the remainder of Susurro’s post because i agreed with it and there was no need to say anything further. That said, why don’t you actually comment on the post rather than trying to derail by starting something with me personally?