Culture and Imperialism 1

Running head: A REVIEW OF “CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM”

A Review of “Culture and Imperialism” by Edward Said

Jonathan Worth

Salve Regina University

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Whether or not one is in agreement with all of his conclusions there are two very

valuable, fundamental lessons offered by Edward Said in Culture and Imperialism. The first is

fairly broad in scope: because history, culture, and politics do not—indeed cannot—exist in a

vacuum, sealed off from external influences, cultural discourse throughout the world has been

profoundly affected by the long era of European imperialism. A lasting influence from this age

has permeated literature, the arts, the media, and political and social discourse in the West and in

the developing world as well. The second lesson follows from the first and is essentially a

practical recommendation: political and cultural discourse (in particular the news media and

especially literature) should therefore be digested critically with an awareness of its cultural and

world-historical context. Said rails against the prevailing tendency to categorize and subdivide

fields of study and expertise (e.g. “Middle Eastern studies”), because doing so inhibits the

recognition of underlying cultural interdependencies. The inability to apprehend the attitudes,

prejudices, and memes that inform a society’s cultural traditions undermines the cross-cultural

and political understanding that is so important in today’s increasingly interconnected world.

As an Arab-American and a Palestinian exile, Said is very sensitive to, and angry about,

what he sees as the failure of Western scholars to transcend the “imperial dynamic and above all

its separating, essentializing, dominating, and reactive tendencies” (p. 37). It is one thing for the

media, as a cheerleader of sorts for Western pop culture, to fail in this—Said quite reasonably

does not expect the corporate media to challenge Western society’s self-image. Rather, Said

seems to regard this undertaking as the responsibility of academes and literati. Indeed, it is for

them that this book has been written, which is evident in the complexity of his language. His is

an important message that should be conveyed and understood by all but, unfortunately, its

transmission is confounded by overwrought prose.

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The cultural debate, therefore, should not concern what to read but how to read it. The

author calls this “contrapuntal” reading: the interpretation of works of literature not only for their

aesthetic merit but also with an awareness of their historical, cultural, and political associations,

which he calls “structures of attitude and reference” (which phrase appears frequently throughout

the book.) Thus the “great canonical texts” of the Western imperial age should be read in the

broader context of imperialism:

In practical terms, “contrapuntal reading” as I have called it means reading a text with an

understanding of what is involved when an author shows, for instance, that a colonial

sugar plantation is seen as important to the process of maintaining a particular style of

life in England [as occurs in Austen’s Mansfield Park]. (p. 66)

The “particular style of life in England” mentioned here, of course, refers to the ownership of a

large English estate being made possible by the colonial enterprise of slave labor on expropriated

West Indian land.

Liberation forms a central theme of the book: that is to say, liberation from constraining

and outmoded patterns of thought regarding personal and cultural identity. Said wants the West

to recognize how its imperial legacy continues to inform its cultural identity and to liberate itself

from its perpetual need to dominate and to diminish “others” (nonwhites). Reactionaries in the

Third World should not equate postcolonial liberation with nationalism because doing so merely

continues the imperial experience whereby one exploitative oligarchy is exchanged for another.

To be free of the residue of colonialism (which is impossible considering that the very political

boundaries of so many former colonies were created by their former overlords), Third World
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reactionaries should also resist the nativist impulse, which “plays the same game” with

imperialism by reinforcing an artificial demarcation between “us” and “them” and giving rise to

“demagogic assertions about a native past, narrative or actuality that stands free from world time

itself” (p. 228). And today’s American society should liberate itself from the exceptionalist

prejudices and justificatory propaganda served up by an acquiescent media (of course, Said’s

recommendation could certainly apply to most any society in that regard).

Said reserves some of his harshest criticism for the American “information hegemony,”

which he feels contributes little to enlightened debate over the issues, particularly with regard to

the Middle East. Said expresses considerable disdain for and distrust of American television

news outlets, such as CNN, which wield so much influence not only in the United States but

around the globe. The media serves as a propagandistic mouthpiece for the government by

justifying foreign policy and disseminating a neo-imperial perspective of the world. Said even

dreads the information superhighway itself because he feels it will merely propagate uncritical,

polemical, and biased information that will do more harm than good. Said verges on polemic

here; his argument is less convincing in light of the ascendancy of non-U.S. news providers like

al-Jazeera and Asian News International. Indeed, the book shows its (and its author’s?) age a

little—the Internet also now provides many sources of independent information (and

disinformation—it is up to the news consumer to choose discriminatingly).

Said is at his best in his discussion of the impact of imperialism on Western artistic

creativity, where he supports his qualitative arguments with compelling evidence: the relegation

of “native” characters to minimal, supporting roles by Kipling, Conrad, and Camus,

exemplifying the devaluation and marginalization of non-European cultures. Conrad’s African

characters are confined to a passive and silent backdrop, while Camus’s anonymous, dead Arab
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serves the practical function of setting the story in motion—a forgotten grain of sand around

which the pearl of the plot develops. The Indian characters in Kipling’s Kim, so accepting of

their British masters, are never permitted to question the foreign presence in their land. Nor does

Kim experience any conflict of loyalties between his Indian mentor and the British authorities

because Kipling never considers that objections to British rule in India might exist. In Verdi’s

Aida we see the Western capacity to synthesize a totally idealized version of ancient Egypt at

odds with historical fact and which completely disregards the contemporary Muslim presence.

And yet, this seems to be the result of the very human tendency to identify with others who share

the same cultural, ethnic, and religious identities.

Still, there are several soft spots in the underbelly of Said’s methodology that deserve

some attention. Throughout the book he makes some fairly expansive yet unsupported assertions,

as in his broad-brush treatment of the U.S. involvement in the Gulf War and his rather

ungenerous view of Western academia. With the same broad brush he also paints a universalistic

portrait of the West as a homogeneous whole while largely disregarding the contribution of

contemporary and historical dissenters (e.g., anti-imperialists, academes, philanthropists, and

abolitionists). Indeed, Said is at his most polemical in the final section concerning American

exceptionalism. I do agree with him that, in general, American attitudes are largely skewed

against the Muslim world, particularly after 9/11, but there again he wields a broad brush in his

indictments. I do not agree with his assertion that the founders of the United States envisioned a

Christian Empire because, in fact, the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (not to mention

the Treaty of Tripoli) excludes religion from American politics (though, granted, it is hardly

completely separate). Said also seems to ignore or, at least, to downplay the violence committed

by Saddam Hussein when he derides the American media’s characterization of Saddam as “the
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butcher of Baghdad” and as an Arab “Hitler.” But the fact is that he was indeed a violent man.

(By way of disclaimer I do not think that this is exceptionalism on my part because I am aware

that the United States has on a number of occasions pursued a shameful course—e.g. the

extermination of Native Americans, the Vietnam War, etc.) Said’s castigation of the U.S. for its

interventionism and support of despotic regimes to suit its own strategic and economic interests

and admonishment that the U.S. should act more altruistically are a little on the idealistic side.

The United States could (and should) pursue more peaceful and equitable ends, but the

international system is not conducive to altruistic enterprises in its current form.

Also at issue is Said’s decision to focus solely on Western imperialism; in so doing he

discounts the influence of the Ottoman Empire upon Eastern Europe, North Africa, the Middle

East, and the Indian Ocean rim. It is true that Britain and France accumulated vaster colonial

realms and that the Ottoman Empire never achieved the level of extractive efficiency of either of

these European empires. But the Ottomans exerted considerable cultural and religious power

over a significant portion of the planet, and this omission from Said’s book is glaring. There was

indeed a considerable transmission from the ancient Muslim world to the West of science,

mathematics, and astronomy, to name just a few fields of knowledge—perhaps, therefore, a more

apt title for this book might be “Culture and Western Imperialism.”

Moreover, by focusing solely on the impact of the Western imperialist enterprise, Said

presents us with a one-sided view of what is really an innate human propensity toward prejudice

and chauvinism. For all his discussion of the “human community,” Said does not explore in

detail the traits common to all of humanity—ethnocentrism, particularism, xenophobia, fear of

that which is different, fear of change. He acknowledges that “[all] cultures tend to make

representations of foreign cultures the better to master or in some way control them” (p. 100) and
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that imperialism distinguishes and emphasizes “otherness”: we are more advanced and therefore

stronger than they are; they are inferior because we are stronger. But this is about the limit of his

psychological exploration. What about the underlying motivations behind greed, aggression, and

chauvinism that propel imperialism? Nor does Said consider the common human tendency to

gravitate towards that which holds more meaning or familiarity, with regard to the primacy of the

legacy of ancient Greece and Rome in Western culture. Is it such a surprise that the West should

gravitate towards all things Greco-Roman since, after all, this tradition formed such a significant

foundation of Western life? And is it such a surprise that so many Americans are geographically

illiterate, thanks to their geographic isolation in North America? I do agree with Said that the

West mistakenly derived universality from its Classical tradition and that the West has

“appropriated” history for its own purposes (self-definition is a necessary consequence of

interaction with “others”).

Throughout the book Said takes the stand that the West should have taken a moral “high

ground,” that the technologically superior Europeans should have exercised withstraint and not

appropriate foreign lands and foreign peoples. True enough, but again, human nature is being

discounted and the assumption made that politics is necessarily moral. Indeed, politics should be

moral, but it isn’t always so, just as not all individuals conduct themselves morally. Politics

reflects human nature—it is moral in some ways and not so in others. Human beings for the most

part can empathize with a child suffering before their eyes, but considering the wider picture of

human suffering in lands over the horizon is another prospect entirely—more so when these

people differ in the color of their skin, in their dress, and in their customs. Personal self-interest

is reflected in politics, where the self-interest of the nation is analogous to the self-interest of the
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individual. How and why did the West conduct such an expansive imperial program throughout

the globe? Was it because it could—is the answer that simple? Said does not really tell us.

These exceptions aside, reading Culture and Imperialism was for me a revelatory

experience that illuminated certain misgivings I have felt about the American cultural project,

misgivings I have felt since growing up the son of American diplomats—whose sole purpose, I

might add, was of course to promote the American national interest. I have taken away from the

book a renewed and hardened resolve to read critically, to read “contrapuntally,” to search for

those “structures of attitude and reference.” Whatever the book’s flaws, Said has illustrated the

necessity of to understanding that everything is interconnected, that the past lives in the present,

and that there is always more than one side to any story. Every society needs people like Edward

Said to poke and prod it towards constructive self-criticism.

References

Said, Edward. (1993). Culture and Imperialism. New York, NY: Vintage.