Culture and
imperialism........f bacon
Edward Said –
Introduction
Edward
W. Said was born in Jerusalem, Palestine and attended schools there and in
Cairo. He was a Christian Arab. He received his B.A. from Princeton and his
M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard. He is University Professor at Columbia. He is the
author of Orientalism, The Question of Palestine, Covering Islam, After the
Last Sky, and Culture and Imperialism.
He
delivered his speech Culture and Imperialism at York University, Toronto,
February 10, 1993. He was an influential writer, speaker and teacher.
1950’s he went to the USA and studied at Princeton and Howard. His writings
have been translated into 26 languages. Orientalism is his most
influential book which presents the Western view of the Islamic World. It is
limited to the Middle East only but it covers the whole landscape occupied by
19th and 20th century. He had been a teacher of
Literature (Comparative) and made critical and literary analysis of most
writers literary allusions are frequently found in his political works. He died
on 25th September, 2003.
Said’s
views on Culture and Imperialism
Culture
and Imperialism is a lecture by ES. It briefly surveys the formation of Western
Culture to show that the process itself was a result of imperialism. In
defining the two terms he says that
Culture:
The
learned, accumulated experience of communities and it consists of
socially transmitted patterns of behavior. According
to the anthropologist Cliff Greety, Culture is: An ordered
system of meanings and symbols in terms of which social interaction take
place.
Imperialism: (According to OED may be
defined as): aggressive expansion of peoples at
the expense of the neighbors. This
has been going on for years.
Imperialism
implies some sort of collective premeditation which means a policy formed at
home by the imperialistic force before launching an offensive against another
nation.
The
Historian Solomon Modell, “Imperialism is a policy extending a country’s
power beyond its own borders for the purpose of exploiting other lands and
other peoples by establishing economic, social and political control over them.”
Introduction
to the Book
Culture
and Imperialism is an important document. ES explains his own concepts of
Culture and Imperialism. ES explains Imperialism as “the practice, the
theory and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan center that rules a
distant territory.” Imperialism originated with the industrial revolution
in 19th century. The British and the French held sway over a large
part of the globe.
For
the industrial revolution, cheap raw material and labor was needed so for the
development of the backward countries, loud claims imperialism were made out to
be need of the nations. The slave nations were taught to regard it as a
blessing. 1st world war ended the European Imperialism to some
extent, but the 2nd world war brought about it. The two hot wars
initiated a major cold war between USSR and the USA. Thus, Imperialism took a
new shape. The USA reduced USSR and came to be the sole super power. It the
USA-based Imperialism that ES targets in his works.
The
book also has its literary merits like Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, E.M.
Forster’s A Passage to India and many others.
Important
Textual areas of his Speech
The
19th century is rise of the west for its for its dominating posture.
It
grabbed lands so largely and abundantly as never before.
The
industrial revolution caused imperialism.
Colonialism,
almost always a consequence of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements on
distant territories. Imperialism is simply the process or policy of
establishing or maintaining an empire.
Direct
colonialism of the British in India, the French in Algeria and Morocco has largely
ended but Imperialism exists. Russia acquired bordering lands and the British
and the French jumped thousands of miles for occupation.
The
Soviet Union’s and America’s super power status which was enjoyed a little less
than half a century derives from very different histories than those of Britain
and France in the 19th century. In the expansion of western empires,
profit and the hope of further profit was important – spices, sugar, slaves,
cotton etc. gold. There was very little domestic resistance to
foreign dominations in Britain & France because the superior thought it a
metaphysical obligation to rule the inferior. According to them, their
imperialism was different from that of the Romans who were for the loot but
they went there with an idea of civilizing and improving their life.
We
see in the empire nothing but a mitigated disaster for the native people. It
was their native, cultural design and need that matured imperialism and they
regret it now. Imperialism has caused dislocations, homelessness for the
Muslims, Africans and the West Indians. They have created the troubles for
Britain and France and also caused the emergence of Soviet and later today
America.
According
to Arno Mayer’s telling phrase, “of the old regime” The Willy Brandt
Report, entitled North-South: A program for the survival published in 1980. It
says that the needs of the poorest nations must be addressed. Hunger must be
abolished and other problems solved. The main purpose is power-sharing in
decision making within the monetary and financial institutions.
It
is different to disagree with it. But how will the changes occur? The post-war
classification of all nations into 3 worlds, Ist, Second and the third.
The
solution is the revised attitude to education, to urge students on insistence
of their identity, culture and democracy, thus nationalism is the solution.
The
relationship between culture and empire is one that enables disquieting forms
of domination. Imperialism considered the mixture of cultures and identities on
a large scale, but its worst and the most paradoxical gift was to allow people
to believe that there only white, black, western or oriental.
Imperialistic
allusions from literature
He
believes that novel has been important in formation of imperialistic attitudes,
references, and experiences. He calls Robinson Crusoe “the prototype of modern
realistic novel”. He draws his arguments particularly from the novel
because he believes that “Narrative is crucial to my argument here, my basic
point being that story are at the heart of what explorers and novelists say
about strange regions of the world, they also become the method colonized
people use to assert there an identity and the existence of their own history.”
Said further argues that narratives of emancipation and enlightenment mobilized
the people to rise against the yoke of imperialism. The stories of Sir Walter
Scott charged the Scottish nation against the British rule. Said cites Mathew
Arnold who says that culture is each society’s reservoir of the best that has
been known and thought. Literature is, no doubt, the mirror that faithfully
captures and reflects the picture of culture.
He
says that his entire life was devoted to teaching culture. He developed the
habit of looking for the imperialistic implications in the stories. He says
that in Great Expectations by Charles Dickens “What Dickens envisions
for Pip, being Magwitch’s London gentlemen is roughly equivalent to what was
envisioned by English benevolence for Australia.” Said believes that nearly
all Dickens’ businessmen, wayward relatives and frightening outsides have a
fairly normal and secure connection with Empire.
Said
highly admired Joseph Conrad – a star novelist of the late Victorian period for
his superb criticism of Imperialism, especially in the Heart of Darkness which
is still highly relevant to the situation across the world.
Said’s
message is that Imperialism is not about a moment in history, it is about a
continuing interdependent discourse between subject peoples and the dominant
empire. Said’s view of the empire and colonialism is best expressed through
Fanny and Sir Thomas from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park which is the story of
Fanny’s being taken into Sir Thomas’s life at Mansfield Park where she
eventually adjusts into the role of mistress of “estate”. Fanny was poor. Her
parents are not capable managers of wealth. These skills she acquires
when she goes to Mansfield Park to live at 10. Said’s comment on Jane
Austen’s writings highlight the extent to which he sees in her the reflection
of empire.
Adam
Smith (1723-90) was the father of political economy which Ruskin and his ilk
were to attack in the Victorian age. His Wealth of Nations (1776)
enjoyed a long and undisputed reign as the Bible of political economists. His
style is precise and unadorned to the extent of being altogether sapless:
The
first half of the eighteenth century saw the furious raging of the Deistic
controversy. The Deists including Charles Blqunt, John Tolant, Matthew Tindall,
Anthony Collins and the Earl of Shaftesbury believed in what they called
"Natural Religion," that is, belief in God without corresponding
belief in Christianity, or, as a matter of fact, any religion. Swift was one of
those who controverted the Deistic heresy.
The
rise of Methodism was another theological feature of the century. The two
Wesley brothers-John and Charles-were the initiators of the new move towards
importing the old enthusiasm, simplicity and sincerity into the religion of the
day. John Wesley's prose is characterised by directness, simplicity, and a
rude, compelling force.
Dr.
Johnson (1709-84):
As
a prose writer Dr. Johnson is particularly known for his Dictionary, his
periodical papers, his philosophical tale Rasselas, and his critical
work Lives of the Poets. He was the cham of the realm of letters in his
age and an accepted arbiter of taste. As a critic he made many egregious
errors, but his infectious sanity cannot be ignored. Asa prose stylist he was a
purist. However, his style though vigorous and direct is somewhat heavy-handed,
and as such is sometimes derisively called "Johnsonese", which Chambers's
Dictionary defines as "Johnsonian style, idiom, diction or an
imitation of it—ponderous English, full of antitheses, balanced triads, and
words of classical origin." Goldsmith said jokingly about Johnson's style
that it may fit the mouths of whales but it certainly does not fit the mouths
of little fish.
Biographers
and Letter Writers:
The
eighteenth century produced a number of biographers, autobiographers, and
writers of semi-public letters. James Boswell (1740-95), the biographer of his
idol Dr. Johnson, has the pride of place among them. His work is as massive as
the great Johnson himself! Life of Johnson is a unique work of its kind.
BoswelFs devotion to Dr. Johnson became the cause of his own fame. Among the
autobiographers may be mentioned Gibbon, Lord Hervey, and John, Wesley.
Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu, Cowper, Chesterfield, Gilbert White, Gray, and Horace
Waipole were some of the famous letter writers of the eighteenth century.
Periodical
Papers and Oliver Goldsmith (1730-74):
After
the Spectator there was a remarkable proliferation of periodical
literature in England. To name all the periodical papers which appeared in the
eighteenth century will be an uphill task as their number is legion. Most of
them continued the traditions set by Addison and Steele. The name of Oliver
Goldsmith is associated with numerous periodical papers. His cosmopolitan
attitude, tolerance, delicacy, and sentiment are his hallmarks as an essayist.
He expresses himself in a chaste and elegant style free from artificial
devices.
Historians:
The
eighteenth century saw the establishment of historiography as a respectable and
highly developed branch of learned activity. Edward Gibbon (1737-94)-writer of
the monumental The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire-was the greatest
of the historiographers of the age. His attitude is entirely rational and anti-mystical.
His style is dignified and somewhat ponderous, but he can effectively combine
harmony and majesty with logic and precision.
Edmund
Burke
(1729-97):
Burke
was the greatest orator of the age. He dealt with the pressing political
problems facing the British Empire. His works concerning Indian and American
affairs and the French Revolution are couched in brilliant and rhetorical prose
which cannot but impress the most indifferent reader or listener. He was an
antitheorist who recommended action in keeping with the spirit and complexion
of the times
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