Political Ideology of Edward Said | Edward Said Culture and Imperialism and his Politics

Edward Said has insisted that the most effective way to understand the world is by cultural analysis even though the general public usually associates him with “Politics”, he is, in any meaningful sense of the word, not only, not political but opposed to politics and political analysis. Edward Said’s political ideology is very cut and clear. To understanding and solving problems, culture is always has been the key. Culture has gained the status of a secular sacred in his writing. The privileging of culture is, of course, the hallmark of writings of liberal intellectuals in the West- from Arnold to Gramsci, to Trilling,..... and to Said.

A few years ago in an interview, Said went so far as to condemn irresponsible humanities teachers who used “Literary” (the canonic text of culture for Said) to draw political conclusions from it.

As Edward Said said at the time.

“I don’t advocate and I’m very much against, the teaching of literature as a form of politics. . . . I don’t think the classroom should become a place to advocate political ideas. I’ve never taught political ideas in a classroom. I believe that what I’m there to teach is the interpretation and reading of literary texts.”

                              

                                                           

    

Culture and Politics

The emphasis on “Culture” has done two things for Said: it has made his writing pretty much harmless to the establishment and made him a valuable commodity for the U.S. Academy, which demands his services every year. It has, however, trivialized the issues that he deals with__ trivialized them by reducing their dense class content to a subtle cultural pile. Thus, it worked towards diverting reader from unpacking the layers of the cultural web and obscuring their class content.

Said’s writing on the Palestinian and Israeli “conflict”, are example of this issue of culture to divert attention from the ongoing class struggle in the contemporary situation.

 Said Sys in his essay,

“Thinking ahead: After Survival, what Happens?”

the essay, despite its seemingly political orientation, is focused on reading the situation in Palestine in terms of the moral "Values" of the two sides. on these terms, it is Sharon's "homicidal instincts" and this "single-minded negation and hate" and not the matriculation interests of Israeli suffrage in preserving Palestine as an unseemly labor pool and secure market for Israeli big merchants that is at issue in the colonial occupation and recent military aggressions.  And Palestine should, in turn, be defended not as part of the historical struggles of the oppressed and exploited of the world against their oppressor and exploiters but because it is “one” of the great moral causes of our time.”

This is to be cleared part of Said’s larger view: that is not the “exploitation” of “Labor” and the struggles against it that make history, but “Culture”: the zone of “values”, “Ideas” and “representations.” thus, according to Said, Israel’s “success” in its colonial occupation of Plasticines is only secondarily due to its overwhelming use of its military power (funded by U.S.A imperialism which needs  Israel to protect its class interests in the Middle East)  to quell the class revolts of Palestine and maintain its colonial occupation to Palestine. Rather according to him,

 “ What enabled Israel to do what it has been doing to Palestinians for the past 54 years is the result of a carefully and scientifically planned campaign to validate Israeli actions and, simultaneously, devalue and efface Palestinians actions”.

                                                       (By Edward Said)

                                      

In this perspective, what “has enabled Isreal to deal with [the Palestinians] with impunity” is the “immense diffusional of Palestine and repetitive power of the images broadcast by CNN, for example” which represent all Palestine as the “Terrorists”  and Israel as merely acting in “self-defense”.

Thus what is “Politically” necessary to defend Palestine, according to Said, is to 

“tell Palestinian story” to “ provide context and understanding” and “ a moral and narrative presence with positive, rather than merely negative, values”. 

Hence, in this view, we can easily understand Said’s political ideology in this context. The outcome of this view, of course, is to shift the focus onto cultural “representations” and thus displace any serious discussion of the class interests determining colonialism and the kind of struggle that is needed to combat it.