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Orientalism
’s Discourse
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sensible alternative for anyone in a similar position. Rather, he
merely faults Said for relying on the “master’s toolbox,” including
his [
sic
] language, tradition and culture. However, to abandon the
tools of the Western tradition is to abandon all hope of trying to
critique that same tradition. It is no coincidence that Said often cites
C. L. R. James whose monumental work
The Black Jacobins
tells
the story of Toussaint L’Ouverture, a former slave, who was
inspired by the tricolor of the French Revolution to lead the most
successful antislavery revolt in history (Said, 1993, 1994b). Not
unlike Toussaint, neither James nor Said could have achieved what
they have without being privy to the body of thought that came out
of Western Europe and the Enlightenment.
According to Timothy Brennan, when viewed in “its proper
time and place,”
Orientalism
’s “central construct” is not so much
discourse but rather “institution” (2000: 582). In other words,
Said’s point is the inescapable fact of dominance in the act
of amassing information on an area whose coherence is
predicated on an internal, or domestically defined, set of
attitudes. The outlook is itself inseparable from the pursuit
of policies of expansion, forcible inclusion, and
appropriation. (582)
Therefore, to equate, à la Clifford, Said’s critique of Orientalism
with the practice of Occidentalism (whose practitioners are never
identified) is not only wrongheaded but fails to grasp the
oppositional nature of Said’s project, including his attempt to
redress the West’s distorted image of the other.
Likewise, Young’s analysis contains similar distortions,
including his claim that Said neglects to separate “himself from the
coercive structures of knowledge that he is describing.” In other
words, he is unable to avoid “the terms of his own critique” (1990:
167).
As a result, his “account will be no truer to Orientalism than
Orientalism is to the actual Orient, assuming there could ever be
such a thing” (167). However, the problem with Young is that like
Clifford he completely fails to see the oppositional nature of Said’s