What is culture and imperialism by Edward Said | Edward Said culture and imperialism

Edward W. Said’s Culture and Imperialism

Edward Said, a brilliant and unique amalgam of scholars, literary critics, and political activists, examines the roots of imperialism in Western culture and traces the relationship between culture and imperialism. Imperialism has always fascinated literary writers and political thinkers as a subject. It was a major theme of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries of native and non-native novelists and poets. Different people have different perceptions about the phenomenon. Most of them have been written on this subject in the past but Edward’s Book Culture and Imperialism attracted everybody’s attention. This book has been read and discussed all over the world and was hailed by reviews and critics as a monumental work.

In the introduction to culture and imperialism, Edward states that his previous work “Orientalism” was limited to the Middle East, and in the present book he wanted to describe a more general pattern of relationship between the West and its overseas territories. In addition, he says this book is not the sequel to Orientalism. He says there are two types of attitudes toward culture. One that considered culture as a concept that includes refining and elevating elements, each society's reservoir best that has been known and thought. The other is the aggressive, protectionist attitude viewing culture as a source of identity that differentiates between “Us”, and “them”. As he says,

                  “I have found it a challenge not to see culture in this way- that is,

                   antiseptically quarantined from worldly affiliations but as an

                   extraordinary field of endeavor.”

Edward sees the European writing on Africa, India, Ireland, the Far East, and other lands as a part of the European effort to rule distant lands. He says that Colonial and Postcolonial fiction is central to his argument. These writings present the colonized land as “Mysterious Lands” that are inhabited by uncivilized barbarians, who understand only the language of violence and deserve to be rude. This is a misconception about the native people and needs to be reconstructed. Edward claims that these European writers are ignorant about the East and ignore the important aspect of reality- the native people and their culture. 

Said cited the European novels Great Expectations by Dickens and Nostromo by Joseph Conrad to explain their misconceptions about the colonized people and manipulating their rights by doing injustice. Dickens did not bother to discuss the plight of the convicts in Australia, from where they could never return. In Said’s judgment, the prohibition placed on Magwitch’s return is not penal but also imperial. These ugly criminals could not be allowed to return to England- the land of decent people.

Conrad’s Nostromo, the second example picked up by Said, is set in the Central American The republic was independent, but dominated by outside interests because of its immense silver mines. In this novel Holroyd, the American financier tells Charles Gould, the British owner of a mine:

               “We shall run the world’s business whether the world likes it or not.

                 The world cannot help it and neither can we, I guess.”

This is the general thinking of the imperialists. Much of the rhetoric of “The New World Order” with its self-assumed responsibility of civilizing the world, seems to have originated from the thinking, says Edward Said.

The problem with Conrad is that he writes as a man whose Western view of the non-Western world is so ingrained as to blind him to other histories, other cultures, and other aspirations. He could never understand that India, Africa, and South Africa had lives and cultures of their own, not controlled by the imperialists. Conrad allows the readers to see that imperialism is a system and it should work properly.

Edward says that all such work shows that only the West is an important source of significance and the rest of the world is mind-dead and has no life, no culture, no civility, history, and integrity. 

West's real drawback was their inability to take seriously the alternate step which was “imperialism”. The world has changed due to imperialism and globalization. Time has changed and various cultures have closer interaction and have become interdependent. The colonizer and colonized do not exist in separate worlds. So, one-sided versions cannot hold for long. One has to listen to what people are saying on the other side of the fence. Even those who are fighting for freedom from the imperialists should avoid narrow-mindedness and chauvinistic trends. One should always remain impartial to an exclusive consciousness. Most of the Western writers, for example, could never imagine that those “Natives” who appeared either subservient or uncooperative were one day going to be capable of revolt.

In the last part of Culture and Imperialism Said mentions some other important points about the book. He says that the purpose of writing this book is to trace the relationship between culture, aesthetic forms, and historical experience. His aim is not to give a catalog of books and authors, “instead, I have tried to look at what I consider to be important and essential things.”

Mainly Edward Said focuses on three empires Britain, France, and America. This book is about the past and present, about “Us” and “Them”.

Said says that the origin of current American policies can be seen in the past. All powers aspire for global domination and have done the same things. Superpower countries always adopt the strategy to appeal for power and national interest in running the affairs of “Lesser Peoples” and their countries and the same destructive zeal when things go wrong. America made the same mistake in Vietnam and the Middle East. The same exercise is done by artists, intellectuals, and journalists with the practices for “Lesser People”, which is the worst part of it. 

Edward says that criticism of imperialism makes the aggrieved colonized people exempt from criticism. The rise of nationalism, separatism, and nativism has a dark side. A narrow and dogmatic approach to culture can be as harmful as imperialism. Culture is not the property of the East or the West. 

Edward Said, by necessity, was in a position to be objective in his approach, as he lived most of his life in exile and had the personal experience of both cultures. He was born in the Middle East and lived as an exile in America, where he wrote this book. He sums up his position in the following works.

He says,

                     “The last point I want to make is that this is an exile’s book.

                      Ever since I remember, I have felt that I belonged to both 

                     Worlds, without being completely of either one or the other.”