Edward Said's Orientalism can be summed up in three following points: first he talks of the distinction between pure and political knowledge, shows the power relation of any text to political, cultural, intellectual and moral domain; secondly he shows how the methodology used by the West to define and interpreting the Orient is just a part of the process that Orientalises the Orient and how his methodology of "historical generalization" is different from all these previous methodologies; and thirdly he clarifies his position by explaining his ethnic background, scholarly interests, and social circumstances he has experienced as an oriental.
Following Derrida it can be assumed the concept of "Orientalism" or "orient' a part of a binary oppositions pair, where the occidental forms the other side of this binary oppositional coin. Levis Strauss' Methodology , if applied to this binary opposition, we reach at the same conclusion as Edward Said, that these two (i.e. the concepts of Orient and Occident; or East and West ) are the two 'entities' that 'support and to an extent reflect each other'(p.5). To make it more clear, 'Orient' has come to be a part of our consciousness due to the process of categorization by the 'West' – i.e. Westerners' view or presupposition about their identity, made the idea of 'Orient' possible. As in a binary pair, one's presence is defined in terms of the absence of 'the other' (i.e. the opposition to it).In case of the Orientalism , (i.e. the discipline that came to front after the completion of this process or the 'event', the sense in which Derrida had used the term in his essay Structure, Sign and play in the Discourse of Human sciences) the 'East' is defined in terms of the qualifications of the 'West'. In Said's words:"European culture gained in strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even under grounded self".
And this process of establishing the identity of 'the other' by creating the identity of the self , is part of the process which said terms in this particular case as being "Orientalized" which means the moment one tries to understand which means the moment one tries to understand culture, history and ideas, one from that moment comes under their direct force. That means when one expresses his interpretation, (which is essentially an work of art) can no longer be external as croce has remarked: 'A work of art is always internal; and what is called external is no longer a work of art' (quoted in Rene Wellek's essay The Fall of Literary history).
That's why Said has avoided presenting any notion or definition of his subject in his book (i.e. Orientalism) rather he chooses a the path of indirectness, by placing in to the pages the various ideas related to the Orientalism that exist 'spatially and complexly interlinked' in his mind and are a part of his consciousness which ultimately he refers to as his subject i.e. the "Orientalism" – the "transdental signified". He is aware that this "transcendental signified" has been a part of the "collective unconscious' of the west and has been growing since the very time the west is conscious about the 'other sidedness' of his existence, on various levels – physical, as well as psychological. This has been since that time of its evolution, has been expressed in various manners making reference to different geographical cultural and ideological difference that exist between the west and the east. To avoid complexity of our interpretation we can simply put this as the fact that due to the ethno-centric attitude of the west there came the relative measurement of various dimensions in the different cultural values, belief systems and this ultimately formed the concept of the "Orient".
Said also makes this point clear in his introduction : "The orient was Orientalised not only because it was discovered to be oriental in all those ways considered common place by an average nineteenth century European, but also because it could be – that is submitted to being – made oriental".
This indicates that the very process of distinguishing orient from the occident is itself a process of Orientalising the orient. Said's use of "historical generalizations" (p.4) – which he announces in his introduction as a different 'methodological alternative' also could not able to escape from being taking part in the process of Orientalization.
This haunts Said as in the last lines of the third chapter he confesses that the study of orient involves a continuous process of degredation in knowledge,"If the knowledge of the Orientalism has any meaning, it is in being a reminder of this seductive degradation of knowledge".And perhaps writing of Orientalism by Said can be seen as the very next added part of this process which he himself indicates in the following line:"Orientalism failed to identify with human experience, failed also to see it as human experience […] if this book has any future use it will be as a modest contribution to that challenge, […] that system of thought like Orientalism , discourse of power , ideological fictions – mind-forg'd manacles – are too easily made, applied , and guarded". And to which he concludes that the accompanied degradation to this is 'Now perhaps more than before' .
That means he himself studies the process of which he is a part of . We need to understand how Said has attempted to describe the process of 'Orientalising the orient' by men in the past before him ( of which he becomes a part of , by writing his book , by doing explanations on Orientalism – which is now the aim of our experiment, to understand how the process of his explanation (on Orientalism) has the similarities to the this above mentioned process.
Said uses a new kind of methodology to bring the whole matter related to Orientalism to light. He does so as explains that :
- 'Orientalism is not an inert fact of nature'– i.e. it is not only related to geographical reality .
- it would be [also] wrong to conclude that the orient was essentially an idea or a creation with no corresponding reality,
He says so because he knows that the geographical sectors as orient and occident are man made, but along with that there is 'a brute reality' which is exerted by the idea of orient if they are at all any orient exists in ideas .
The fact that Said's belief system when comes to front has a centre which alters its meaning and deconstructs it as no particular opposition of the binary pair 'idea / thing' or 'mental dimension/ physical dimension is valid for more than an instance, so the moment he makes a reference to idea associated with the orient he discards the physicality of the orient and vise versa. From such reason we can assume that when an expression on the orient is made it either lies about orient or discard it it is because by 'lying' or creating myth about it, one can contribute to its existence, and the moment some expression is made to explain it, it is no more 'that' and hence it blows out its existence. Said points to this complexity in his introduction: "One ought never to assume that the structure of Orientalism is nothing more than a structure of lies or myths which, were the truth about them to be told, or simply blow away"!
- What Said has done to solve this problem is that he coined a new methodology which he termed as "representation".
