Otherness and the Rhetoric of Imperialist Discourse

Otherness and the Rhetoric of Imperialist Discourse

Le yo vle touye yon chen, yo di’l fou.

(When they want to kill a dog, they say it’s crazy.)

---Haitian Proverb

When Elizabethan map makers came upon an area of the globe that was yet to be thoroughly explored by “western” civilization, they would give a rough estimate as to its shape and terrain, and then label it as Terra incognita, or “unknown land.” To help illustrate exactly how unknown this land was, images of demons and a variety of other monsters filled space usually inhabited by the names of cities, rivers and deserts. While the labeling itself could at first sight be dismissed as a simple acknowledgment of ignorance (as it certainly was,) an understanding of traditional cultural attitudes within imperialist countries provides us with the tools to see such language and imagery as highly representative of an ideology exemplified (though certainly not monopolized) by England during the period. What is so striking about terra incognita is not so much its name or the images it connects to nonwestern culture, but the fact that betrays even something as scientific and functional as a map to be a form of discourse deeply enmeshed in ideology. In a imperialist society, cultural discourse tends to seep into nearly every aspect of human communication and interaction, and is frequently characterized by an emphasis on separation, classification, and the idea of opposites.

This seperative effect exploits differences in ideology, race, religion, tradition, clothing style, and language, among others, to create a images of “cultural oppositeness.” Such images are exactly the type that Edward Said describes in his book Orientalism. As Said puts it, orientalism “is a style of thought based upon ontological and epistemological distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident.’”[1] These distinctions can be found in all colonial and imperialist societies, including those that benefit from modern day manifestations of such constructions. The effect of separating “first world” or “Occidental” culture from that found in countries outside the “Occident” is to create a general perception of the people practicing these cultures as “Others.” “Otherness” (a term frequently used in critiques of imperialist discourse,) is usually synonymous with poor, “third world,” or “pre industrialized,” and suggests many of the same remedies that have been prescribed to countries suffering from “otherness” and “Orientalism” for hundreds of years.