Can Orientalism Be Undone?

The way I understand Edward Said’s idea of Orientalism makes me concerned that it is something that is nearly irreversible at this point. Will our society be stuck perpetuating these stereotypes, misconceptions, and homogenous images? It’s hard to see a way to undo this on a large scale. I was particularly struck by the power involved in creating and reproducing the East versus West binary. The imperial West has been able to ‘other’ the East, throwing all of these other countries, people, and cultures into one group, and call it the Orient, a place that apparently is stuck in time, not developing. Said points out that history clearly disputes these notions, but it consistently ignored. While I was trying to make sense of Said’s ideas, I started to wonder what effect, beyond things like discrimination and prejudice, Orientalism has had on Middle Eastern cultures. Have they lost significant amounts of their histories because the West neglects it?

 The idea that I think will be very important to keep in mind while reading our novels for class is worldliness, which was thoroughly examined in Edward Said. Rather than a strict functionalist approach to literature interpretation, it’s vital to recognize the text’s “material being” (16). While reading and understanding the work of literature, we have to keep in mind the world and time in which it was written, as well as the author’s “own position in the world” (16). While the worldliness of the author and text are important, it seems as though the worldliness of the reader must come into play as well. The way any work is interpreted does not solely depend on the time when it was written and authorial intent, but the discourses employed by the reader. This is where I think the link between Said’s ideas of Orientalism and worldliness come together for us, as readers. We have to be careful while reading, being sure to consider the circumstances and author that produced the text, while at the same time interpreting it for ourselves through appropriate lenses, rather than letting our ideas be shaped by Orientalist thinking. This is at least a small step we, as individuals, can take in stopping this reproduction of false ideas.

            Said has a unique perspective on this phenomenon, being a Palestinian-American who was brought up in an English school system, he surely can easily feel the East versus West binary at play. While he would be considered quite Westernized, he is suddenly viewed primarily as an Arab when Western opinion demonizes the Middle East. Despite the life he actually lived, Orientalism at work makes his status as the West’s Other the most important aspect of his complex identity.