REVIEW
FOR THE INTRODUCTION FROM CULTURAL
IMPERIALISM -EDWARD SAID.
Cultural Imperialism was a book by Edward said. In which he seeks
to define a space that is true to both to his experience of literature and of
art more generally and to his enforced awareness of imperialism. It is an
essential contribution to political, cultural, and literary criticism that has
been engaged in the process of decentring knowledge. It should be closely read
by all interested in recent development in cultural studies. Defining culture
is seems to be simple but it is not simple as it was.
In the introduction he says that “after the
publication of Orientalism in 1978
Said began to gather some ideas about the general relationship between culture
and empire that had become clear to me while writing that book”.( Said xi)
There is an influence of Orientalism
in this book. The discipline of
anthropology, history and area studies have developed arguments that he put forward
in Orientalism, which was limited to
the Middle East. It has to describe general patterns of relationship between
the modern metropolitan west and its overseas territories. However the present
book giving prominence to the westerners and also the non western countries and
for their literature too. In this he includes mainly a series of lectures that
he gave at universities in the United States, Canada and England in 1985 and
1986. These lectures core argument where the argument of this presents work.
In the introduction he goes on to make a
comparison between his previous work and the present work. That is what he
missed in Orientalism, the present
book is an elaboration of that points. He left out of Orientalism was that response to western dominance which culminated
in the great movement of decolonization all across the third world. He actually
lists need of a third world, i.e. cultural resistance, national identities and
political realm the creation of associations and parties whose common goal was
self determination and national independence. It was never the case that the
imperial encounter period. An imperial encounter period was an active western
intruder against a resistless or insert non western native; there was always
some form of active resistance in the overwhelming majority of cases the
resistance finally won out.
These two factors a general worldwide
pattern of imperial culture, a historical experience of resistance against
empire inform this book in ways that make it not just a sequel to Orientalism but an attempt to do
something else. Hence altogether it called as “Culture”. There are so many
meanings attached to it, but none of them were accurate it tangles according to
community differ. In this book Said uses the word mainly in two broad
categories particularly. The first one was; culture it means all those
practices, like the arts of description, communication and representation that
have relative autonomy from the economic, social and political realms and often
exists in aesthetic forms, one of whose principal aim is pleasure. His
exclusive focus was on modern western empires of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Said
focus on the novels to illustrate imperialism in culture, he gives importance
to fiction that he justifies that “he believed that novels were immensely
important in the attitudes, reference and experiences.” which expands aesthetic
object mainly in Britain and France. He explains main battle in imperialism was
over land, of course; but when it came to who owned the land, which had the
right to settle and work on it, who kept it going, who won it back and now
plans its future issues were reflected congested in narrative. He refers to
some critics opinion to prove his argument that one critic has suggested
nations themselves are narrations. It was very important in culture and imperialism,
the power to narrate or to block other narratives from emerging and forming.
Most of the narrative themes rise up and throw of imperial subjection. It
narrates equality and human community.
The second point he explains in relation
with culture was, culture is a concept that includes a refining and elevating element,
each society’s reservoir of the best that has been known and thought as Mathew
Arnold put in the 1860s. Said explains Arnold‘s opinion about culture. For
Arnold culture is a law, that altogether neutralizes the ravages of modern aggressive,
mercantile, and brutalizing urban existence.
The main idea that the said put forward
was that the culture comes to be associated with nation or state. This
differentiates ‘us’ from ‘them’. It creates social phobia in the concept of
culture. Culture in this sense is a source of identity, and rather a combination one at that, as we see
in recent returns to culture and tradition.
In the colonial perspective these world returns have accompany. In this
sense culture is a sort of theatre where various political and ideological
causes engage one another.
To make sure about the
opinion of culture and imperialism he takes an example of great fictions like;
Dickens Great Expectation (1861) is
self delusion and Conrad‘s Nostromo
in (1904). Through these fictions he explains how the imperialism works in our
culture and how it depicted the way as westerners and nonwestern identity, a
cross cultural identity. There many other novels he sites too and the portrayal
of imperialism in it. He again argues in
the introduction that the novels of V .S .Naipaul and Robert Stone o theoreticians of
imperialism and they mainly focus it in their travelogues. In the work of Conrad, he allows the reader
to see that imperialist system in western and non western world.
Imperialist culture was a
visible one and nor did it conceal its worldly affiliations and interest. Its
main achievement is that to bring the world together. And although in the
process the separation between Europeans and natives was an insidious and
fundamentally unjust one. It is our belief that the historical experience of
empire as a common one, it is the impact of imperialism.
It was said who focus the
individual works because to read them first as a great products of the creative
or interpretative imagination and then to show them as part of the relationship
between culture and empire. Every work it was influences, the author his social
experience and history. Thus culture and aesthetic forms; it contains a method
to derive historical experience. The result was a global circulation, global
process of exchange. Said adds the British,
French and American imperial experience is that it has a unique coherence and a
special cultural centrality.
It is considered as identity that has been
important cultural thought during the era of imperialism. Yet the ideologies
concern over identity is understand entangled with the interest and agendas of
various groups. The later part of the introduction giving an account of reason
for the argument of this present book. That is, it was like I said earlier the
book wrote in the culmination of series of lectures that given at
universities. While writing he was received many opinions and suggestions
from his friends. In introduction a gives a brief merit to them too.
It is
exposing contemporary inter cultural communication to define cultural
communication in two terms i.e. culture and imperialism. In culture and
imperialism Edward recognizes culture as it is used throughout the text as a
dual paradigm. First of all it means all whose principal aim is pleasure. And
the second idea is that culture it associated with nation or state, the idea of
us differs from them. It was imperialism that fosters an equally complex
significance. Imperialism possesses some powers over politicized, economic and
socio cultural identity. The former colonized structures provoked the emergence
of new and controversial form of imperialism. The imperialism employed
singularity by the United States implies an indirect control over democratic
values in deprived nations.
In concluding the introduction Edward Said
ultimately focuses on how culture especially through literary works perpetuates
an acceptance and legitimacy of imperialism and its resistance to empire. At
the end it establishes its relation to the human historical reality. The introduction covers the idea that culture
and imperialism is the book to link with intercultural communications. It seems
to convey realities and unique implications, yet in reality this is not the
case. It is a part of historical reality and hierarchical division in human
experience (western and non western).
In
could be conclude that ,as we examine closely the ideas of Edward Said’s
introduction on culture and imperialism we sometimes agree with it or sometimes
we deny. Hence his ideas would lead us to examine and understand the world
around us. It is to identify the complex identities of global periphery. It is
visible that inter cultural communication; in which the non western voices
continually changes, it shapes its subordination in all spheres of literature,
art etc.
Bibliography
·
Said, W Edward. Culture And Imperialism. New
York: Library of Congress Cataloging, 1994.
·
Wikipedia.
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