Darwinist premise in the Orientalist construction of the “Other” - JPCS

Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies
ISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)
as an image of the “Other” to Europe; it helped the West to define itself by providing a
contrasting image; Orientalism is a style of thought based upon a fundamental distinction
made between the “Orient” ” and the “Occident.” Said’s most important point is to argue that
this intellectual distinction is part of the Western style of “dominating, restructuring, and
having authority over the “Orient”.” Said does not believe that academic texts are “merely
decorative;” they are a form of cultural domination that complements political domination (1-
3). According to an Orientalist ontological schema, the “Orient” is separate, different,
conservative or archaic or barbarian, sensual and passive. Accordingly, the “Orient” is far
away from development; further, its ‘progress’ is measured in terms of, and in comparison to
“the West”, which implicitly and occasionally explicitly maintains its position of the
“inferior Other”. (Richardson 18)
Edward Said has shown that colonialism was premised on Orientalism, i.e. the construction
of an “Orient” which emphasised the “Orient” as an “other” which is distinct, different and
inferior. To emphasise, the inferiority of the “Orient” was established through the device of
essentialising difference – primarily in race and in terms of the universal evolutionary
principles between the ‘Occident” and the “Orient”. Said argues that it is precisely such a
construction that rationalised and made possible the hegemony of the coloniser on the
colonised. Orientaism thus borrowed and was frequently informed by "strong" ideas,
doctrines, and trends ruling the culture. Thus there was ( and is) a linguistic “Orient”, a
Freudian “Orient”, a Spenglerian “Orient”, a Darwinian “Orient”, a racist “Orient” and so on.
Yet never has there been such a thing as a pure, or unconditional, “Orient” (22-23). In the
ideological and epistemological scheme of the Western thought, the “Orient” was destined to
be a scapegoat; a “Calibanic” framework for all that is savage, abnormal, strange, primitive
etc. the Orientalists saw the “Orient” as a locale requiring Western attention, reconstruction,
even redemption. The Orientals were viewed in a framework constructed out of biological
determinism and moral-political admonishment.
According to Said, the rigidly binomial opposition of "ours" and "theirs," was reinforced not
only by anthropology, linguistics, and history but also, of course, by the Darwinian theses on
survival and natural selection. An Oriental man was first an Oriental and second a man.
(227). “Orientalism has been subjected to imperialism, positivism, utopianism, historicism,
Darwinism, racism, Freudianism, Marxism, Spenglerism”. (43)
In his book Literary Darwinism: Evolution, Human Nature, and Literature (2004), Joseph
Carroll has observed that many of Arnold’s specific cultural values can be assimilated to a
relativistic Darwinian model of cultural values. Carroll has maintained that in Arnold’s view
Western achievements represent the highest level yet attained by any culture. Arnold’s own
inclusive term of “culture,” is a term that is roughly equivalent to “Western civilization
regarded as culminating in Victorian gentlemen with a predominantly classical education and
refined literary tastes.” In order to sustain his own sense of a universal, disinterested
sympathy, Darwin must also sustain the priority of his own advanced, Western, scientific
‘Darwinist premise in the Orientalist construction of the “Other”,’ Mohamed Hamoud Kassim Al-
Mahfedi and Venkatesh P
JPCS Vol 3, No 1, 2012
13