Orientalism Quotes

• Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient—dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.

  Edward Said

  Teaching, Views, Style

  Orientalism introduction (1978)

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• The Orient that appears in Orientalism, then, is a system of representations framed by a whole set of forces that brought the Orient into Western learning, Western consciousness, and later, Western empire.... The Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined. On this stage will appear the figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emenate. The Orient then seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe.

  Edward Said

  Europe, World, Empires

  "Orientalism". Book by Edward W. Said, 1978.

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• While [European] national cultures were concocted to distinguish one economic unit of capital from another, civilizational thinking was invented to unify these cultures against their colonial consequences. Islamic, Indian, or African civilizations were invented contrapuntally by Orientalism... in order to match, balance and thus authenticate 'Western Civilization'.

  Hamid Dabashi

  Islamic, Thinking, Order

  "For the Last Time: Civilizations". International Sociology, Volume 16, Issue 3, September 01, 2001.

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• Since the time of Homer every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric.

  Edward Said

  Racist

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• The sense of Islam as a threatening Other - with Muslims depicted as fanatical, violent, lustful, irrational - develops during the colonial period in what I called Orientalism. The study of the Other has a lot to do with the control and dominance of Europe and the West generally in the Islamic world. And it has persisted because it's based very, very deeply in religious roots, where Islam is seen as a kind of competitor of Christianity.

  Edward Said

  Religious, Islamic, Europe

  Source: progressive.org

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• Oh East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.

  Rudyard Kipling

  Misunderstood, East, West

  "The Ballad of East and West" st. 1 (1892)

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• Ideas, cultures, and histories cannot seriously be understood or studied without their force, or more precisely their configurations of power, also being studied.

  Edward Said

  Ideas, Culture, Force

  Edward W. Said (2014). “Orientalism”, p.5, Vintage

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• I emphasize in it [my Orientalism] accortdingly that neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly affirmation, partly identification of the Other.

  Edward Said

  Effort, West, Affirmation

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• Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires.

  Edward Said

  Order, Tyrants, Democracy

  Edward W. Said (2014). “Orientalism”, p.21, Vintage

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• There is an orientalism in the most restless pioneer, and the farthest west is but the farthest east.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Pioneers, East, West

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.105, Xist Publishing

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• Edward Said talks about Orientalism in very negative terms because it reflects the prejudices of the west towards the exotic east. But I was also having fun thinking of Orientalism as a genre like Cowboys and Indians is a genre – they’re not an accurate representation of the American west, they’re like a fairy tale genre.

  Craig Thompson

  Fun, Thinking, Cowboy

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• Romantic Orientalism was fascinated by the color and excitement of a powerful culture, and nearly always approached its subject with love.

  Kage Baker

  Powerful, Color, Culture

  Kage Baker (2012). “Ancient Rockets: Treasures and Train Wrecks of the Silent Screen”, p.121, Tachyon Publications

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• Maybe we need to start with the rethinking of what is "west" and what is "non-west." It seems to me that there are any number of populations who already cross that divide, and we could probably point to several existing states that belong exclusively neither to one category nor to the other. Do we use these terms to designate geographical realities, geopolitical ones, or perhaps sites of power, exploitation, orientalism that move through space and time in ways that have to be tracked historically.

  Judith Butler

  Moving, Reality, Numbers

  Interview with Cihan Aksan and Jon Bailes, www.counterpunch.org. October 11, 2013.

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• It is interesting that Hindus, when they speak of the creation of the universe do not call it the work of God, they call it the play of God, the Vishnu lila, lila meaning play. And they look upon the whole manifestation of all the universes as a play, as a sport, as a kind of dance — lila perhaps being somewhat related to our word lilt

  Alan Watts

  Dance, God, Sports

  Alan Watts (1997). “Zen and the Beat Way”

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• Orientalism has successfully built my critical awareness to question and see the big picture of knowledge, perspective or idea from a Western point of view and always see things from different perspective.

  Okky Madasari

  Views, Ideas, Perspective

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• There had been observed in this country certain streams of influence which are causing a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct...a nasty Orientalism which had insidiously affected every channel of expression...The fact that these influences are all traceable to one racial source [Judaism] is something to be reckoned with...Our opposition is only in ideas, false ideas, which are sapping the moral stamina of the people.

  Henry Ford

  Country, Expression, Ideas

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• Nothing like this has been attempted before. (...) It might be called a literary Porto Alegre. That implies a beginning, with much fierce argument and discussion to come. But whatever the outcome of ensuing criticisms or objections, The World Republic of Letters -- empire more than republic, as Casanova shows -- is likely to have the same sort of liberating impact at large as Said's Orientalism, with which it stands comparison.

  Perry Anderson

  Impact, Criticism, World

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• I think it is less the limited amount of information than the filters that information about the Middle East must pass through before being fairly addressed in the mainstream media. In more intellectual and geopolitical terms, the perceptions of the region are distorted by a combination of Orientalism and the priorities of the state of Israel, including the refusal to discuss the relevance of Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal in the context of addressing Iran on its nuclear program.

  Richard A. Falk

  Thinking, Israel, Media

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Tofu and futons. The adepts of Orientalism seem to spend most of their lives reclining. They can't quite summon the energy to crawl up onto a chair. Even their Yogic exercises are carried out in a prone or sitting position.

  Edward Abbey

  Exercise, Energy, Sitting

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.16, RosettaBooks

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