Orientalism And Dualism In John Macleod's Beginning Postcolonialism

1559 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Impact of colonialism on postcolonialism

It indicates that if it is the Other, it should not be understood, defined and explained. Nevertheless, the Other exists in a place that is opposite to the self and is named by the self. To put it another way, this Otherness is a creation for marginalising a certain group. Thus, when repeatedly addressing the Orient as the Other of the Occident, it implies that the Occident is greater and superior. John MacLeod also explores this division in Beginning Postcolonialism. He argues that “[f]undamental to the view of the world fashioned by Orientalism is the binary division it makes between the Orient and the Occident” (49). The dualism exists is the cause that the presence of the Orient is able to “define Europe (or the West) as [the Orient’s] contrasting image, idea, personality, experience” (Said 1-2). Consequently, the existence of the Orient has its necessity for the Occident. MacLeod addresses that “[t]he Orient is conceived as being everything that the West is not, its ‘alter ego’. Each is assumed to exist in position to the [O]ther(O capital or not?), …show more content…

in V. G. Kiernan 52). As a day-dream, it is fictional and fabricated; however, while everyone in Europe has the day-dream that nearly the same, the situation would be entirely different. An individual’s day-dream would deem to be a hallucination; however, a collective day-dream can make it look like a reality. That is, even it is a lie, by repeating often enough, it will be accepted as truth in the end. This acceptance is not merely happening to the Occident, but also in the Orient. Be subject to the power of the West, the East cannot refuse to accept this knowledge. This knowledge would constantly be reinforced by power, and power makes the Occident has the strength to force the Orient to submit itself. Indeed, resemble what McLeod points out that “knowledge and power always work together”

Show More
Related

  • 'Imperialism In The Film Argo'

    1255 Words  | 3 Pages

    Orientalism is the misconception by Westerners of foreign people from the

    Read More

  • Global Plastic

    1809 Words  | 4 Pages

    By examining this particular novel's relationship to these overlapping, yet also contestatory, interpretive rubrics, I hope to shed light not only on two salient notions of community formation that continually vie for hegemony in the field of Asian American studies,” (Lee 235). In this analysis, Lee focuses heavily on the building blocks of postcolonial theory in regards to the Asian Pacific while dissecting the novel Through The Arc of the Rainforest. Unlike Heise, who argued primarily that the colonial and neocolonial agendas were negative to mankind through means of environmental destruction, Lee argues that that the industrialization of the Asian Pacific dramatically and negatively affects the chosen paradigm, or model, that the native asians and american asians follow. Similarly to Heise, the principles of marxism play a part in the colonialism, as marxism stands to criticize the capitalist mindset that drives colonialism to begin with. There is a fallacy created in the process of neocolonialism; for a collection of nationalist banning together to recreate themselves in a self describe image that only mirrors the oppressor in hindsight, the question that begs to be answered: why does this happen. Lee seems to suggest

    Read More

  • Of The Indivitual In Discipline And Punish By Michel Foucault

    2705 Words  | 6 Pages

    ...taken the form of universalization of those same structures across the world through reforming measures or through discourses in the Muslim world, thus creating conflicts as noted by Majid. The main weapon of this power relationship is observing and differentiating between good and bad, thus ingraining binary oppositions with the western values at the superior end. Thus, the western hegemony is like a beauty myth which is an unattainable western standard which is not only undesirable but harmful for the non-west. Still, they are coerced to adopt this standard due to a constant gaze and pressure from the West. Therefore, there is a need to revert this gaze and dismantle the western hegemony and power structures through the proliferation of ideas; ideas that take root not merely from the power elite or existing structures but stem from individual and provincial needs.

    Read More

  • The Orientalist in Arthur Sullivan´s The Rose of Persia

    753 Words  | 2 Pages

    A comedic opera of two acts, The Rose of Persia stands as the final opera completed by the English composer Arthur Sullivan. After departing from his comedic roots for several productions, Sullivan cultivated an opera consisting of exoticism influences within its constructed environment and plot elements. Though irregularly revived today, The Rose of Persia exploits Arthur Sullivan as a consistently successful composer; demonstrates the influence of ethnic groups from the late 19th century within this particular musical; directly draws parallels to Middle Eastern cultures, and sufficiently implies similarities and differences to comparable earlier works, of which also include depictions of Exoticism and Orientalism.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Michel Foucault

    1042 Words  | 3 Pages

    Orientalism, which became famous as a term after Edward Said’s book written in 1978, explains a power relation between the Orient and the Occident inspiring from the Foucault’s The Archeology of Knowledge and

    Read More

  • Hegel's Audaciousness Of Freedom

    982 Words  | 2 Pages

    But, utilizing both Napoleon’s ideas on national hegemony and also Hegel’s views on the evolution and progression of consciousness clearly show that the Orient, particularly in the era after Sykes-Picot, was a region doomed to conflict and turmoil. This internecine conflict infamously linked to the Orient has now clouded our scholarly and geopolitical understanding of the area, making it our scholarly imperative to analyze and assess the modern Orient as 1) a product of Anglo-French interests and 2) as a region arbitrarily categorized into states entirely unprepared for the prospect of nation

    Read More

  • Imperialism Essay

    994 Words  | 2 Pages

    The 1800's were a renowned era in European history. With the rise of imperialism came the ruthless desire to seek new land through the use of authoritative implications. Whether it be the discovery of the Americas, where Christopher Columbus discovered various islands, which were clustered with indigenous people that were eventually completely wiped out for the pure desire of Spaniard power. This craving to "assimilate" indigenous people and to convert them to Christianity was an element, which rooted 19th century Europe. Although the actual question to whether these actions were good or evil are up for debate. Imperialism has been viewed as an expansion that serves only ones "object" and that it has no purpose beyond the benefit of the "self". This paper will explain Imperialism through a sociological perspective, while blending in notions of capitalism and modern day Imperialism that may now be viewed as Globalism.

    Read More

  • Orientalism as termed by Edward Said

    1411 Words  | 3 Pages

    Orientalism as termed by Edward Said is meant to create awareness of a constellation of assumptions that are flawed and underlying Western attitudes towards the Muslim societies. Evidence from his 1978 book “Orientalism”, states that the culture has been of influence and marred with controversy in post colonial studies and other fields of study. Moreover, the scholarship is surrounded by somehow persistent and otherwise subtle prejudice of Eurocentric nature, which is against Islam religion and culture (Windschuttle, 1999). In his book, Said illustrates through arguments, that the long tradition in existence containing romanticized images of Islamic stronghold regions i.e. Middle East, and the Western culture have for a long time served as implicit justifications for the European and American Imperial ambitions. In light of this, Said denounced the practice of influential Arabs who contributed to the internalization of Arabic culture ideas by US and British orientalists. Thus, his hypothesis that Western scholarship on Muslim was historically flawed and essentially continues to misrepresent the reality of Muslim people. In lieu to this, Said quotes that, “So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Muslims and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Therefore, very few details such as human density, the passion of Arab-Muslim life has entered the awareness of even the people whose profession revolve around reporting of the Arab world. Due to this, we have instead a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression” (Said, 1980).

    Read More

  • Orientalism and 47 Ronin

    1024 Words  | 3 Pages

    In addition, Orientalism also explained in the book “Orientalism” written by Edward Said, a Palestinian post-colonialism scholar. In this book Edward Said explain about history and culture of Asia, Africa, and Middle East, also he explained Orientalism in this book more briefly. Said believe that orientalism has an explicit and implicit sides. Said wrote that connotatively, Orientalism is a tool for the west to get a political influences in the east which means, “It connotes the high-handed executive attitude of nineteenth-century and early- twentieth-century European colonialism.”(Said, 2). Which is the whole point of the book “Orientalism”. Moreover, Said also wrote “Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident.’ Thus a very large mass of writers, among whom are poets, n...

    Read More

  • Under Western Eyes by Mohanty

    1374 Words  | 3 Pages

    Mohanty is drawing upon theoretical perspectives of postmodernism to understand difference and by that uncover essentialist and Universalist interpretations (Uduyagiri 1995:159). In particular she is drawing upon approaches familiar to Edward Said’s Orientalism and Focault’s approach to discourse, power and knowledge. Foucault’s theories are especially useful in a postmodernist argument since he acknowledge that there are several structures of power, and that the there is a diversity of localized resistances ( Udayagiri 1995: 161). Mohanty uses Foucault’s conception of power to uncover Universalist categories and how feminist writers define power as a binary structure – to be in possession of power versus being powerless (Mohanty 1991:71). This limited way of theorizing power fails to recognize counteroffensives and the varied forms of power. Mohanty uses Said’s Orientalism to show how the way Western cultural perceptions of the Orient “became a means of controlling the regio...

    Read More

  • Somnambulism: A Fragment By Charles Brockden Brown

    2126 Words  | 5 Pages

    In "Somnambulism: A Fragment" Charles Brockden Brown uses the gothic style to convey an unharnessed terror in a single vision: Young Althorpe, while sleepwalking in a forest, murders the woman he desires. But the story is more than a ludicrous curiosity, to read it thus would miss its elegantly stated manifesto against the dangers of Benjamin Franklin's megalomaniacal ideals of industry and pragmatism. The story exploits Franklin's example of the studious, dutiful, useful young man and turns him into a monster. Browns' mode of style is strategic, subversive, infiltrating the reader and earnest student of the eighteenth century by mixing the ordinary with the grotesque, the intelligent with the very wrong.

    Read More

  • Edward Said's Orientalism

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    According to Said, one definition of Orientalism is that it is a "style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between 'the Orient' and the 'Occident'." This is connected to the idea that Western society, or Europe in this case, is superior in comparison to cultures that are non-European, or the Orient. This means that Orientalism is a kind of racism held toward anyone not European. Said wrote that Orientalism was "a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient." This Western idea of the Orient explains why so many European countries occupied lands they believed to be Oriental.

    Read More

  • The Savage Slot

    694 Words  | 2 Pages

    Anthropology is concerned with studying human beings, both in the past and present. From another perspective, Anthropology is the study of the “Other” or of populations whose culture is different from one’s own. The questioning of these differences in prior centuries led to theories of inherent biological distinctions between Westerners and non-Westerners as well as divisions in evolutionary characteristics of their cultures. Michel-Rolph Trouillot, in a chapter of his book entitled “Anthropology and the Savage Slot: The Poetics and Politics of Otherness”, argues that Anthropology as an academic discipline acquired these theoretical outlooks before its emergence as an actual discipline. As a result, “Anthropology fills a pre-established compartment within a wider symbolic field, the ‘Savage’ slot” (Trouillot 2003:9). By utilizing the resource of Trouillot as well as Moberg, Perry, and Moore, I will illustrate that the Savage Slot and the “Savage” or “Other” are theoretical concepts fashioned with the creation of the West and consequently the field of Anthropology.

    Read More

  • The Origins of Occidentalism

    2314 Words  | 5 Pages

    Jacques, M. (2004) Upping the anti, something missing in Ian Buruma and Avishai Margalit's study of enmity towards the west, Occidentalism. The Guardian, Saturday 4 September.

    Read More

  • Hybridity and National Identity in Postcolonial Literature

    2599 Words  | 6 Pages

    Hybridity and National Identity in Postcolonial Literature. Every human being, in addition to having their own personal identity, has a sense of who they are in relation to the larger community—the nation. Postcolonial studies are the attempt to strip away conventional perspective and examine what that national identity might be for a postcolonial subject. To read literature from the perspective of postcolonial studies is to seek out—to listen for, that indigenous, representative voice which can inform the world of the essence of existence as a colonial subject, or as a postcolonial citizen.

    Read More

More about Orientalism And Dualism In John Macleod's Beginning Postcolonialism

Open Document