Reset Dialogues on Civilizations About Board of governors Scientific Committee Events Versione italiana

Questo scritto è tratto dal sito ResetDoC - Dialogues on Civilizations

Orientalism as a field of research emerged in the West in modern times, since the renaissance. It appeared during the second cycle of the history of the West, after the classical period and the Patristics, the Medieval time and the Scholastics. It reached its peak in the 19th century, and paralleled the development of other Western schools of thought such as rationalism, historicism, and structuralism.
Orientalism has been the Victim of historicism from its formation, via meticulous and microscopic analysis, indifferent to meaning and significance. Orientalism expresses the searching subject more than it describes the object of research. It reveals Western mentality more than intuiting Oriental Soul. It is motivated by the anguish of gathering the maximum of useful information about countries, peoples and cultures of the Orient. The West, in its expansion outside its geographic borders, tried to understand better in order to dominate better. Knowledge is power. Classical Orientalism belongs for the most part to similar aspects of colonial culture in the West such as Imperialism, Racism, Nazism, Fascism a package of hegemonic Ideologies and European Supremacy. It is a Western activity, an expression of Western Elan Vital, determining the power relationship between the Self and the Other; between the West and the Non West; between Europe from one side and Asia, Africa and Latin America, from the other side; between the New Word and the classical world; between modern times and ancient times.
This brutal judgement, without nuances, is undoubtedly a severe and painful one, but a real one on the level of historical unconsciousness of peoples, on the level of images even if it is inaccurate enough on the level of concepts. On the contrary, Occidentalism is a discipline constituted in Third World countries in order to complete the process of decolonization. Military, economic and political decolonization would be incomplete without scientific and cultural decolonization. Insofar as colonized countries before or after liberation are objects of study, decolonization will be incomplete. Decolonization will not be completed until the liberation of the object to become subject and the transformation of the observed to an observer. The object of study in Orientalism becomes the studying subject in Occidentalism, and the studying subject in Orientalism becomes an object of study in Occidentalism. There is no eternal studying subject and no eternal object of study. It depends on the power relationship between peoples and cultures. Roles change throughout history. Peoples in the Ancient World, China, India, Persia, Babylonia, Egypt, were studying subjects. Peoples and Islamic classical cultures were previously studying subjects and Europeans at the time were objects of study. The role changed in modern times when Europeans became the studying subjects and the Muslim world became an object of study. The end of Orientalism and the beginning of Occidentalism means exchanging roles for a third time in the subject object relationship between the Self and the Other. The West ceases to be subject and becomes object, and the Orient ceases to be object and becomes subject. Subjective Idealism switches from Western colonial modem times to Third World post?colonial new times. Cogito ergo Sum, which declared the West as a knowing subject, becomes in the third world studio ergo summ.
Occidentalism is a counter?field of research, which can be developed in the Orient in order to study the West from a non-Western World point of view. The Other in the self is always an image. An image is always a caricature, which helps in shooting at the target. Orientalism drew many images for the Orient. These included Blacks, Yellows, Oriental Despotism, primitive mentality, savage thought, Semite mind, Arab mind, Violence, fanaticism, underdevelopment, dependence, sectarianism, traditionalism and conservatism. Once the Other is caricatured, it is easy to deal with him, justifying any action of the Self. The image made the Other a target the Self shoots at. Besides, the Self promotes self?made image to sharpen itself, such as: whites, Western, democracy, logical mentality, civilization, Arianism, peace, tolerance, development and even over development, independence, secularism, modernism, progress. By the power of mass media and its control by the West, the perpetuation and the repetition of this double image was made by the self to disarm the Other and to arm the Self, to create a permanent relation of superiority-inferiority complex between the Occident and the Orient, and a relationship of inferiority-superiority complex between the Orient and the Occident.
If Orientalism was the creation of the center, Occidentalism is the creation of the periphery. The center was also privileged in history of sciences, arts and cultures, while the periphery, was marginalized. The center creates and the periphery consumes, the center sees and conceptualises. The center is the master and in the periphery lays the disciple. The center is the trainer and the periphery is the trainee. Occidentalism, as a new science, can exchange this type of relationship, with the fixed roles played by the two, for reverse relationships and roles.
Orientalism is born in an ethno-racist culture. It expresses Euro-centerism, based on historical pride and organic superiority. This pits White against Black, knowledge against ignorance, logic against contradiction, reason against magic, rationalization against ethico?religious practice, dignity and human rights against dignity and rights of God or of the king, democracy versus despotism or in short, Life against death, Being against nothingness. Occidentalism corrects this type of relationship between the West as Self and the Orient as Other to the Orient as self and the West as Other. The relation between the self and the Other, either way, can be an equal relation, not a high?low relation, an even and sane inter?subjective relation instead of a superiority?inferiority complex. Constructive Occidentalism is the substitute for destructive Orientalism.
The history of the world was written as if the West was the very center of the Universe and the end of history. History of ancient civilizations was reduced to the minimum. History of modern times in the West is blown up to the maximum. Three thousand years of the Orient are summarized in one chapter, while five hundred years of history of the modern West is expounded in several chapters. Orientalism was the victim of Western philosophies of history, which conceived Europe as the peak of all civilizations, the fruits in modern times after planting the seeds in ancient times, the accomplishment of a theological development, the perfection of things after the abrogation of all previous imperfections, the unique Christ after the prophets of Israel, repeated in history. Occidentalism aims at evening the balance of World historiography against this historical injustice in history of world civilization.
Neutrality and objectivity were claimed to be the conditions of Western science. However, Orientalism is neither neutral nor objective. It is an oriented and committed discipline, expressing the inclinations and the profound motivation in European consciousness. It reveals the passions of the subject, more than it describes the neutral object. It substitutes for the independent object the mental image of the subject. Neutrality and Objectivity appear to be a cover?up for partiality and subjectivism. Occidentalism is just the opposite. It is not motivated by rancor or the desire to dominate. It does not consciously or unconsciously deforms the object by stereotyped images, or make value?judgements on it. It tries to be a vigorous science by its object, method and purpose. The desire to liberate one's self from the yoke of the image imposed on him by the Other is a creative power, unveiling the truth of power relationships between the subject and the object in Orientalism, controlling the Other by the image, or in Occidentalism, liberating one's self from the image imposed on him by the other. Occidentalism may produce counter?images for the Other, with its desire to dominate, and for the self, with a self?producing image of endogenous creativity, as a desire for self-liberation.
The object of Occidentalism is to counterbalance Westernization tendencies in the Third World. The West became a model of modernization outside itself, in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Western Life style became very common in Non-Western countries, especially in the ruling classes. The imitation of the West became almost a national behaviour. These Westernization tendencies have generated anti?Western attitudes as they appear in religious conservatism and fundamentalism. Occidentalism is partly a defence of national character, national culture and national life?style against alienation and disloyalty; a popular option against Orientalism as a minority option; a mass culture against Orientalism as an elite culture; an ideology for the ruled against Orientalism as an ideology of the ruler; a liberating device like liberation theology against Orientalism as a dominating device, like church dogmatics.
National culture everywhere in the Third World is split between two antagonistic tendencies. Each is presenting itself as the true representative of the people, the first in the name of modernity, the second in the name of Tradition. In the case of the Arab World, the West is a model of modernization in the three major trends in modern Arabic Thought: Religious Reform founded by Al?Afghani, Secular Scientism initiated by Shebly Shmayyel, and political Liberalism conceived by Al?Tahtawi. In these three trends, the West is a model of knowledge, that is of power, industry, urbanism, democracy, multi?party system, constitution, freedom of press, human rights. This is the image of Europe during the enlightenment. The difference between the three trends is of degree, not of nature. Once national passion calms down, Westernization appears as loyalty to the West and a life style for the ruling class. Cultural dependence on the West generates a gradual loss of national independence. Occidentalism as a science gives the priority to the endogenous over the exogenous, to the interior over the exterior, to the Self over the Other, to antinomy over heteronomy.
Occidentalism as a cultural movement aims at transforming developing societies from transfer of knowledge to cultural creativity. Since the National liberation era, the construction of the Nation State is based on modern sciences coming from the West. The role of intellectuals and even of scientists was to transfer science, art, and literature from the Western to the non?Western World. The West produces and the non- Western World consumes. The West creates and the non?Western World transmits. National cultures became conveyers of foreign systems and ideologies. The Culture of the center radiates on the peripheries. The center profuses and the peripheries diffuse. Occidentalism can help the Third World in sharing the creation, not just the diffusion, of a common cultural homeland for all humanity. Science emerges from reality, not from pre-formulated texts in the ancient tradition or in the modern West. Conceptualisation is not the monopoly of European consciousness. It is a human effort, accessible to every human consciousness. The long and painful work of creativity is preferable to the laziness of consumption and imitation, to the transfer to one's self of concepts formulated elsewhere. Peoples in the Third World can then reach the age of maturity and get rid of Western cultural tutorship.
The scientific data of this new science, Occidentalism, can be drawn from two sources: First, the criticism of European culture by Third World intellectuals, based on simple intuitions and existential reactions or on scientific analysis and demonstrative arguments. Before and after national liberation, national intellectuals in Africa, Asia and Latin America tried to liberate their national cultures from the hegemony and supremacy of Western culture. The critic of the Other and the perception of his limits is the pre?requisite of self?liberation from the control of the Other. The mentality, the history and the culture of the Other are distinct from the soul, the history and the culture of the Self. Indiginismo, Liberation Theology in Latin America, Conscientism and Negritude in Africa, base and democratic movements in Asia. All are examples of national creativity.
The second source of critique of European Consciousness is made inside the West by the Europeans themselves, their thinkers and philosophers. Rousseau criticizes arts, sciences, literature and their negative influence on individual and social ethics. Spengler declares the “Decline of the West.” Max Scheler speaks of the reversal of values. Nietzsche evokes general nihilism and announces the death of God. Husserl and Bergson deplore the loss of life, “Erlebnis,” “vecu” in European Consciousness, which became bankrupt for Husserl, and machines creating gods for Bergson. Nietzsche declares "God is dead", Derridea and the post?modernists declare "Man is dead," and Barthes even declares “The Author is dead!”
This double testimony, external and internal, constitutes the already?existing data of Occidentalism as science.
Besides, there is also primary data, the works produced by European consciousness itself as symptoms of European Lebenswelt, the barometer of Being and Nothingness, of life and death of cultures and civilizations. This raw material consists of major Philosophical Works during the historical course of European consciousness. Philosophy is a whole Worldview including art and science. It is the mirror, which reflects the development and the structure of European Consciousness. The object of Occidentalism is European Consciousness itself, as the soul of' Europe, the condition of its renaissance or decline, life and death. The concept is not an abstraction, a hypothesis or a moral one but it refers to “une prise de conscience,” Besinnung. a self consciousness, a subjectivity, the basis of objectivity studied by most philosophers of history: Scheler, Spengler, Bergson, Husserl, Ortega, Toynbee, Hazard. European consciousness has its sources, its beginning and end. It has a structure coming out of its development. Its future is debated at this turning point from the 20th to the 21st century.
European Consciousness has three sources: Greco?Roman, Judeo?Christian and the European milieu itself: mentality, temperament, popular culture, customs, traditions. The Roman source took over the Greek one, given the Romanist intensive of Imperial Rome, which was reiterated in modern European colonialism. The Jewish source took over the Christian one, with Paul and the Judaisation of Christianity. The European milieu, which was close to Romanism and Judaism than to Hellenism and Christianity, took over two other sources. Realism triumphed over Idealism. Materialism dominated over Spiritualism and Satan overwhelmed God. The first two sources, Judeo?Christian and Greco?Roman, changed models from Plato during the Patristic period to Aristotle during Scholasticism; from Idealism to Realism; from mind to matter. The European milieu is the material substratum for Judaism, Romanism and Aristotelianism. Thus the carrier and the carried are of the same kind.
European consciousness began in modern times, with the Cartesion Cogito, “Cogito ergo Sum.” The subject has an absolute priority over the object. The Word is a perceived world. Subjective idealism was the point of departure. Regarding ethics, temporary ethics were proposed, unsubjected to reason. The will is much wider than reason. Theoretical Truth is guaranteed by Divine veracity. From this subjectivism, two apparent opposite trends emerged: Rationalism and Empiricism. Both are subjectivist, the first as an idea, a proiori or deduction; the second as impression, sensation, a posteriori and induction. The first trend begins from the subject upwards, while the second begins from the subject downwards. European consciousness became like an open mouth. This is the famous Western Dualism which European modern philosophy began with and suffered from. The Transcendental Idealism of Kant tried to unify the two trends as form and matter, category and intuition, a priori and a posteriori, induction and deduction, analysis and synthesis, metaphysics and physics, philosophy and science. In this famous problematique: how an a priori synthetic judgment is possible? organic unity and dialectic movement were absent. The same dualism continued in ethics. Pure reason is incapable of knowing right and wrong. Only practical reason can. Pure reason deals with phenomena, while practical reason deals with noumena. Kant declares that through this dualism, determining the final purpose of Transcendental idealism and critical philosophy, he had to destroy knowledge in order to make room for belief. Later, when efforts were again made through the absolute Idealism of postkantians, to unify this juxtaposed dualism, it only became triadism, sensation, understanding, and raison; aesthetics, analytics and dialectics, in a dialectical process. Fichte conceived practical Idealism and the subjective dialectic between the Ego and the non?Ego to form the Absolute Ego. Hegel reiterated Fichte, transforming subjective dialectics to objective, and going from logic to Being. Schelling preferred a certain kind of philosophy of Identity between Geist and Natur, to begin with unity as an axiom, not Cartesian duality. Schopenhauer reiterated the same dualism in the World as representation and Will, trying to unify the two in the negative aspect of life. This was already a symptom of the end, in accord with Rousseau’s critique of modern civilization. The criticism of the Hegelian left, regarding Hegelian absolute Idealism, is also the beginning of the end. In all efforts to close down the open mouth of European consciousness, the end appeared in three ways: first, with Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Ortega and most existentialists, the critique of Western rationalism became abstraction and formalism, ending in a complete destruction of reason and the affirmation of the irrational, the absurd and the contradictory, in order to bring the upward ascendant line downwards. Second, with Scheler, Weber and all existentialist philosophers, the critique of Empiricism as materialism and naive objectivism, brought the downward descendant line upwards. The two lines meet in the middle in the new Cogito of Husserl and Bergson, in human existence according to all existentialist philosophers, and in life with all philosophers of life, thus putting the third way between the two opposing trends and thereby closing up the European mouth. The course of European consciousness has its beginnings and endings. It has a point of departure and a point of arrival, from the Cogito of Descartes to the Cogitatum of Husserl. The epopee ends.
Besides, European consciousness has a structure formed during its development. It has a Trinitarian structure, expressing itself in a triadic vision which splits the phenomenon into three parts and reduces the whole to one of its parts. The question is whether the phenomenon is formal and can be understood by reason, or material and can be perceived through senses, or lived and can be felt through human experience. The three visions disputed among each other in order to have the monopoly of knowledge. Each vision became unilateral, one?sided and unilinear. European consciousness fell down into the dichotomy of either/or. European consciousness was not satisfied with the two alternatives and ended by neither/nor. The oscillation between all became the only truth. Change took over permanence. European consciousness lost its focus. It shoots outside the point, in all directions except in the center. It goes all the time off to the side in diversion. All alternatives became equally true and untrue, which led to total scepticism, at the very basis of contemporary Nihilism.
The question now is what is the future of European consciousness? Has it accomplished its historical course in the cycle of World-History? Which world?consciousness will take the lead? If Europe in modem times has inherited historical Cultures of Africa, Asia and Latin America, can Third?World consciousness, the new energized by the upsurge of these historical societies, take the lead and inherit European consciousness in a new cycle of World?history? Evidence can prove such a historical possibility, given the symptoms of new existence and optimism in Third World consciousness. Most philosophers of history in the West declared the birth of world history in the East and its rebirth and decline in the West. History was accomplished and the final stage was reached in modem times in the German enlightenment (Herder, Lessing, Kant, Hegel), in the French enlightenment (Voltaire, Montesqieu, Turgot), in the Italian enlightenment (Vico), in the Russian enlightenment (The Slavophiles), or in the American Enlightenment (Thomas Paine). Only Condorect left one stage, the tenth, for the future. Rousseau had already declared the beginning of the end, while Hegel declared the accomplishment of history and the close of an European historical cycle. Contemporary European philosophers showed the different manifestations of Nihilism at the final stage of the development of European consciousness, integral Nihilism, the death of God (Nietzsche), renversernent des Valeurs (M. Scheler), Lebeweltverloss (Husserl), Des machines pour créer des Dieux (Bergson), the decline of the West (Spengler), civilization on trial (Toyenbee), l' Occident n’est pas un accident (Garaudy), la crise de la conscience European (Hazard). The same phenomenon appears in human and social sciences, launching the question of crisis in Western sociology. It appears also in the general malaise of daily life, the counter?culture, two World Wars in thirty years, the collapse of the Western project, maximum of production. for maximum of consumption for maximum of happiness, the high rate of suicide, organized crime, violence. The last hopeful signs of returning back to European classical Liberalism in Germany, Eastern Europe and Russia, the renewal of the capitalist system, the rejuvenation of socialism. All are temporary and ephemeral signs. On the contrary, other real hopeful signs began to appear in Third World consciousness: liberation movements, decolonization, development, mass mobilization, modernization, building?up modern State, endogenous creativity, a new world value?system expressing a new world ethical social and political order in International agencies, a new World consensus against apartheid in South?Africa and Zionism, a new decolonization regime in Palestine. Set?backs are temporary counter-revolutions, dictatorships, militarism, new classes. Westernization, dependence, underdevelopment, violation of human rights. Moral and material Potentialities in the Third World are. Experiences of trial and error are fruitful. Historical traditional experiences of the self from the past and modem European experiences of the other in the present time can be two signposts for a New World consciousness.
Does Occidentalism as a new science sacrifice the unity of world universal culture in favour of national particular culture? In fact, World Culture is a myth created by the Culture of the Center to dominate the periphery in the name of acculturation. It has been created thanks to the mass?media monopolized by the center. There is no One Culture in capital C. There are only multiple cultures, in small cs. Each culture has its own autonomous life, an expression of a people and its history. Cultural interaction throughout history does not mean acculturation, the absorption of small cultures in the periphery by the big Culture of the center, assimilation, imitation, or modelling. It means an equal exchange, a give and take, a two?way movement on the levels of language, concepts, horizons, methods, and values. Is Occidentalism a politicization of historical sciences? In fact, politicization of science is a common experience, shared among all peoples and cultures in all times. It appeared not only in classical Orientalism, but also in European Sciences, human, social and even natural. It is only when the balance of power changed from Europe to the Third world, from the center to the periphery, that politicization of science became an accusation. The master in the center was the champion of such endeavour. Science is Power. The passage from Orientalism to Occidentalism is in fact a shift in the balance of power.

Beyond Orientalism and Occidentalism
March 4th/6th 2006 - Cairo, Egypt

Papers index