Edward Said's Theory of Orientalism
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In discussing Edward SaidÆs Orientalism and the creation of a different and competitive ôother,ö Windschuttle (p. 31) relates, ôThe construction of identity in every age and every society involves established opposites and æothers.Æ This happens because the development and maintenance of every culture require the existence of another different and competing alter ego.ö With respect to American dominant cultural identity, white have primarily established a construction of identity that narrowly defines race and remains superior to the construction of a different, i.e., ôother.ö With respect to the ôotherö in American society, the American identity is primarily identified as a ôWesternö identity in comparison to the alter ego of the ôEasternö identity. This analysis will discuss how SaidÆs theory of ôOrientalismö continues to permeate contemporary American culture. SaidÆs theory of Orientalism theorizes that dominant mainstream cultures typically act in an imperialistic and ethnocentric manner in defining their own identity and that of the ôotherÆs.ö In Orientalism, Said discusses the era of Vietnam and the Kissinger-style of diplomacy orchestrated by the Nixon administration. In this work, Said outlines the basic nature of these two identities and underscores the superiority of one reflected by the inferiority of the ôother.ö As Said (p.47-48) writes, ôBoth the traditional Orientalist and Kissinger conceive of the difference between
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er changes in U.S. law enforcement to include racial profiling of Muslims. Such incorporation of the perception of Arabs and Muslims as the dangerous and evil ôotherö follow within SaidÆs theories on Orientalism. We also see how Orientalism is pernicious in the sense that it often underlies social institutions whose values and laws often treat the ôotherö unjustly. As Said (p. 191) maintains in Culture and Imperialism, from observing this relationship between the East and West we learn not only of the inequality between cultures but also the very foundation of American cultural practices in general; ô[Studying]àthe West and its dominated cultural æothersÆ is not just a way of understanding an unequal relationship between unequal interlocutors, but also a point of entry into studying the formation and meaning of Western cultural practices themselves.ö
The portrayal of the ôotherö is also seen in many feature films that depict conflicts against the Eastern ôenemy.ö In Apocalypse Now, the Vietnamese ôotherö is depicted as living in the most hellish place in the world. Not content to depict Vietnam as the worst place in the world, the Vietnamese are also depicted as having a culture that is barbaric in comparison to Western civil
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1405
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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