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Unit 19: Two Types of Orientalism—Orientalism as a Literary Theory

characteristics that transcend not only mere individuals but also such minor distinctions as Notes
those between Arabs and Asians, or Hinduism and Islam, or Egyptians and Turks, and that
the Oriental mind doesn't change significantly despite the passing of time. Said asserts that,
"whereas it is no longer possible to write learned (or even popular) disquisitions on either 'the
Negro mind' or 'the Jewish personality,' it is perfectly possible to engage in such research as
'the Islamic mind' or 'the Arab charaaer" (262); indeed, a letter that appeared in my local
paper as I was working on this essay insists that "Arab people do not share our modern
thinking .... Modern man's striving for progress and the well-being of all people is lacking in
the Arabs' social and governing systems" (Winnipeg Free Press, May 26,1991); I doubt the
paper would have published that letter if it had said "Israeli" instead of "Arab." "Childhood"
is equally stable in the works of child psychologists, writers of children's fiction, and children's
literature specialists.
Just as "the scholarly investigator took a type marked 'Oriental' for the same thing as any
individual Oriental he might encounter" (230), Piaget assumed that the few individual Swiss
children he studied could accurately represent the inherent cognitive development of all
children in all times and all cultures. Contemporary children's literature is filled with images
of childhood experience that accord more with Wordsworth's visions of idyllic childhood
innocence than with the realities of modern children's lives, and contemporary children's
literature journals are filled with the same few generalizations about how all children are
creative (unlike most adults), or have limited attention spans (unlike most adults). And we
happily assume that it must have been the imaginative bits in medieval or eighteenth century
literature that the children in the audience responded to, rather than the religious or moral
parts-as if medieval or eighteenth century children were inherently different from their parents,
inherently one with the children of contemporary urban agnostic liberals.
The major effects of these "eternal truths" is, obviously, to confirm our own eternal difference
from the other. "What the Orientalist does," says Said, "Is to confirm the Orient in his readers'
eyes; he neither tries nor wants to unsettle already firm convictions" . Neither, apparently, do
most children's writers and most adult experts in aspects of childhood.
8. Power
But why? Why must we continually confirm our limiting assumptions in this way? The
answer is simple: power. Knowledge is, quite literally, power. When we talk about mastering
a subjea, we don't often allow ourselves to see the literal truth of the metaphor: our doing so
is truly to subject it to our power.
To know something is to be separate from it, above it, objective about it, and therefore in a
position to perceive (or simply invent') the truth about itÂ-to be able, in other words, to aa as
if what one "knows" is in faa true. Thus, "knowing" that Orientals are different from and
therefore inferior to themselves, Europeans have been able to justify their efforts to dominate
the East-just as we North Americans continue to use our knowledge of "the Arab mind" to
justify our efforts to dominate Iraq. We adults similarly use our knowledge of "childhood" to
dominate children. My children's teachers have frequently justified blatantly cruel punishments
or deceitfully manipulative uses of group pressure by telling me that children of this particular
age or stage cannot possibly possess my subtle moral perceptions, and therefore are not
actually being hurt. What would be painful for us is acceptable for them, and allows us to
behave toward them as we would not behave towards each other. By and large, children's
literature tends to be a more subtle version of the same kind of wielding of adult power. I
spoke earlier about the silence of children's literature on the subjea of sexuality; indeed, we
almost always describe childhood for children in the hope, unconscious or otherwise, that the
children will accept our version of their lives. In a famous formulation, Jacqueline Rose suggests
that, "If children's fiction builds an image of the child inside the book, it does so in order to
secure the child who is outside the book, the one who does not come so easily within its
grasp" . In other words, we show children what we "know" about childhood in hopes that
they will take our word for it and become like the fictional children we have inventedÂ-and
therefore, less threatening to us.

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