Download Introduction to Culture and Imperialism - Short Notes

INTRODUCTION TO CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM (1993)
Author:
Age:
Edward W. Said (1935 ~ 2003)
Contemporary
Quotations:
I want to begin with an indisputable fact, namely that during the nineteenth century unprecedented power,
compared to which the power of Rome, Spain, Baghdad or Constantinople in their day were far less formidable,
was concentrated in Britain and France and later in other Western countries, the United States especially.
By 1914, the annual rate by which the Western empires acquired territory had risen to an astonishing 247,000
square miles per year. And Europe held a grand total of roughly eighty five percent of the earth.
The economies were hungry for overseas markets
The United States experience was from the beginning founded upon the idea of an imperium.
there were distant lands to be designated “vital to American Interests”, to be intervened in and fought over
the connection between imperial politics and culture in North America, and in particular in the United States, is
astonishingly direct.
As I shall be using the term–and I’m not really too interested in terminological adjustments–“imperialism”
means the practice, the theory and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan centre that rules a distant
territory. “Colonialism”, which is almost always a consequence of imperialism, is the implanting of settlements
on distant territory.
That (imperialism) includes ideas that certain people and certain territories require and beseech domination
The vocabulary of classic nineteenth century imperial cultures in places like England and France is plentiful with
words and concepts like “inferior” or “subject races”.
In the expansion of the great Western empires, profit, and the hope of further profit, was obviously tremendously
important.
(an) almost metaphysical obligation to rule subordinate, inferior or less advanced people
A legacy of connections still binds countries like Algeria and India to France and Britain, respectively.
In Yugoslavia the United Nations is powerless, largely because of the will of the so-called permanent members
of the Security Council, principal among them the United States.
The powerful are likely to get more powerful and rich, the weak less powerful and poorer. And Africa, of course,
is living testimony of this fact.
The U.S., uniquely blessed with surpassing riches and an exceptional history, stands above the international
system, not within it.
In Pakistan and Egypt, for example, contentious fundamentalists are led not by peasant or working class
intellectuals, but by Western educated engineers, doctors and lawyers.
This new overall pattern of domination … a replication, reproduction of the old imperial order … is basically
unstable
The people whose current status is the consequence either of decolonization … or major demographic and
political shifts… constitutes a real alternative to the authority of the state.
A new critical consciousness, a kind of counter discourse to empire is needed. This can be achieved only by
revised attitude to education.
we are mixed in with each other in ways that most national systems of education have not dreamed of. To match
knowledge in the arts and sciences with these integrated realities is, I believe, the intellectual and cultural
challenge of our time.
It is one of the unhappiest characteristics of our age, to have produced more refugees, migrants, displaced
persons and exiles than ever before in history
Imperialism consolidated the mixture of cultures and identities on a world scale.
not constantly to reiterate how our culture or country is number one, or not number one, for that matter. For the
intellectual there’s quite enough of value to do without that.
Introduction to Culture and Imperialism – Edward W. Said
Quotations inside the lecture:
V. G. Kiernan:
Michael Doyle:
Kipling:
Joseph Conard:
Franz Fanon:
Noam Chomsky:
Kennan:
Richard Barnet:
Noam Chomsky:
Eliot:
Anonymous:
All modern empires imitate each other – they were hard at work settling,
surveying, studying and of course ruling the territories under their jurisdiction.
Empire is a relationship, formal or informal, in which one state controls the
effective political sovereignty of another political society … Imperialism is
simply the process or policy of establishing or maintaining an empire.
represented in his novel Kim, principally, but also in some of the short stories,
and he has Indian characters say this, without the English, India would
disappear.
in Heart of Darkness says that the difference between us in the modern period,
the modern imperialists, and the Romans is that the Romans were there just for
the loot. They were just stealing. But we go there with an idea.
Colonialism and imperialism have not paid their dues when they withdrew their
flags and their police forces from our territories. For centuries the foreign
colonists have behaved in the underdeveloped world like nothing more than
criminals.
But it’s an absolute requirement for the Western system of ideology that a vast
gulf be established between the civilized West, with its traditional commitment
to human dignity, liberty and self-determination, and the barbaric brutality of
those who, for some reason, perhaps defective genes, fail to appreciate the depth
of this historical commitment, so well revealed by America’s Asian wars, for
instance.
believed his country (US) to be the guardian of Western civilization.
The goal of US foreign policy is to bring about a world increasingly subject to
the rule of the law. But it is the United States which organizes the peace and
defines the law
The media plays an extraordinary role in “manufacturing consent” as Chomsky
puts it, in making the average American feel that it is up to us to right the
wrongs of the world, and the devil with contradictions and inconsistencies.
Easy commerce of the old and new, the common word exact and without
vulgarity, the form of word precise but not pedantic, the complete consort
dancing together.
reality cannot be deprived of “other echoes that inhabit the garden”
Edward Said – champion of the disposed and displaced
Summary:
“Rise of the West” in 19th century and policies to maintain it. US experience founded on idea of “the
right to command” and its connection with culture. Definition of Imperialism. (Reasons:) Not a
simple act of accumulation but the cultural idea that “they” require “our” domination. Unlike Russia,
England and France occupied distant territories. Illusion of improvement of inferior nations. After
end of colonization, condemnation in colonized people and nostalgia in dominating culture – and
imperialism does not ends at once. UN became Inadequate. Western ideological justification for
domination in cultural terms. American brand of imperialism. Counter discourse to imperialism –
revised attitude to education. Imperialism costs more than accumulation. Imperialism consolidated
cultures. Intellectuals should struggle
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Compiled by: Zia Ullah Khan
Introduction to Culture and Imperialism – Edward W. Said
Relevant Quotations:
Edward Said:
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Culture is “the learned, accumulated experience of communities, and it
consists of socially transmitted patterns of behaviour”.
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Take a young man from Gaza living in the most horrendous conditions – most of it
imposed by Israel – who straps dynamite around himself and then throws himself
into a crowd of Israelites. I’ve never condoned or agreed with it, but at least it is
understandable as the desperate wish of a human being who feels himself being
crowded out of life, and all of his surroundings; who sees his fellow citizens, other
Palestinians, his parents, sisters and brothers, suffering, being injured or being
killed. He wants to do something, to strike back.
It is very hard, for example, to justify the thirty four year occupation of the West
Bank and Ghaza. It’s very hard to justify 140 Israeli settlements and roughly 400,
000 settlers.
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William Blake:
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Camille Paglia – 
Washington Post:
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Noam Chomsky:
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Toni Morrison:
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John Pilger –
New Statesman:
London Review:
NY Times:
The Nation:
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Nadine
Gordimer:
Malise Ruthven:
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Interview – NY
Times:
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The foundation of an empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade
them, and the empire is no more.
Said is a brilliant and unique amalgam of scholar, aesthete and political
activist, an inspiring role model for a younger generation of critics seeking
their cultural identity.
(His prose) is sober, stately, lucid and melancholy.
Literary criticism, which is struggling to bridge the gap between art and
politics, has everything to learn from listening to Edward Said’s dialogue
with himself.
Edward W. Said helps us to understand who we are and what we must do if
we aspire to be moral agents not servant of power.
Readers accustomed to the precision and elegance of Edward Said’s
analytical prowess will not be disappointed by Culture and Imperialism.
Illuminating the imperial doctrine found in much Western culture – from
Conard’s Heart of Darkness to the present day.
a brilliant, courageous and necessary book
an urgently written and urgently needed synthesis of the work in the field.
If Orientalism was Said’s Midnight’s Children, then Culture and Imperialism
is his Satanic Verses, an epic of migration and metamorphosis
Edward Said is among the truly important intellectuals of our century.
A man who has helped to illuminate our crisis-ridden world with its
contradictions and complexities.
There’s lots of talk these days about public intellectuals. Much of it is hot air.
Edward Said is the real thing.
Culture and Imperialism:
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Definitions
English and French Imperialism – its impact
Affect of imperialism and colonization
Rise of United States
Revised attitude to education needed
Style:
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Grasping, Plain, Factual, Rational and scientific
Literary, Scholarly and Historical
Didactic
Precision and conciseness, aphoristic
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Imperialism – Accumulation, ideology, attitude
Literature of dominating nations
Counter discourse of Imperialism
Culture of United States
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Balanced and Practical – Classical
Tone is persuading but authoritative
Comparison & Argumentation
Sensuous and Humanitarian
Compiled by: Zia Ullah Khan
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