I emphasize in it [my Orientalism] accortdingly that neither the term Orient nor the concept of the West has any ontological stability; each is made up of human effort, partly affirmation, partly identification of the Other.
Interpretation
The quote discusses how the concepts of 'East' and 'West' are not fixed identities, but rather constructs shaped by human perception and social dynamics.
Edward Said's quote highlights the fluidity and constructed nature of cultural identities, arguing that the terms 'Orient' and 'West' lack inherent meaning and are instead formed through a complex interplay of human interpretations. This perspective challenges the traditional dichotomy between the two regions, emphasizing that they are defined by our perceptions, affirmations, and the act of recognizing the 'Other'.
In practice
In a discussion about cultural studies, one might use this quote to illustrate the idea that cultural identities are subjective.
All knowledge that is about human society, and not about the natural world, is historical knowledge, and therefore rests upon judgment and interpretation. This is not to say that facts or data are nonexistent, but that facts get their importance from what is made of them in interpretation… for interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place.
Uninformed and yet open to appeals for justice as they are, Americans are capable of reacting as they did to the ANC campaign against apartheid, which finally changed the balance of forces inside South Africa.
Refuse to allow yourself to become a vegetable that simply absorbs information, pre-packaged, pre-ideologized , because no message.. is anything but an ideological package that has gone through a kind of processing.
Since the time of Homer every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was a racist, an imperialist, and almost totally ethnocentric.
Much as I have no wish to hurt anyone's feelings, my first obligation has not been to be nice but to be true to my perhaps peculiar memories, experiences and feelings.
It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar.
Yet again, the more you strive for some kind of perfection or mastery—in morals, in art or in spirituality—the more you see that you are playing a rarified and lofty form of the old ego-game, and that your attainment of any height is apparent to yourself and to others only by contrast with someone else's depth or failure.
We live in a world which in some respects is mysterious; things can be experienced which remain inexplicable; not everything which happens can be anticipated. The unexpected and the incredible belong in this world. Only then is life whole. For me the world has from the beginning been infinite and ungraspable.
My passport photo is one of the most remarkable photographs I have ever seen- no retouching, no shadows, no flattery-just stark me.
Against eternal injustice, man must assert justice, and to protest against the universe of grief, he must create happiness.
As people used to be wrong about the motion of the sun, so they are still wrong about the motion of the future. The future stands still, it is we who move in infinite space.
You can't have a value structure without a hierarchy. They're the same thing because a value structure means one thing takes precedence over another.
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