03. Associated Dairies and Power.

Sorry about the week + delay :|
I'm still not exactly sure where I'm going with this, so with any luck it will be half rubbish and half interesting...

   As I've said before, I'm back home for the Easter break. Amongst other things, this means I'm back at work (woo! great holiday!). I don't do anything particularly interesting to be honest with you; I stack shelves in a supermarket. Like with most jobs out there, it is not the most entertaining job around, but money is money, and the people are not too bad either. So I put up with it.
The good thing about my job is I can pick and choose (to a degree) which hours I work (my boss is a badass!). Which gives me the freedom to do stuff; the next week is lining up to be a good one ; ]

    Speaking of work, I finally decided what topic to do for my 'power in the modern world essay'. A little foregrounding on 'power' is needed here I think. This module is, as suggested, about power, or rather, the sources of it throughout history (it is after all a History module). However, it is about here where any similarities with History end. The way this module is structured focuses on the theoretical frameworks that help historians to establish the various narratives of power throughout History. In this respect then, it has more in common with a Politics module (well, political philosophy at any rate). As such it doesn't focus on the importance of any given event(s), but rather the importance of a concept in understanding events. In all honesty this is something any Historian should already understand, in fact most people should understand, but this module just gives the concepts flashy names. For anyone interested, I'm doing Orientalism. 

  Orientalism fits quite nicely with a couple of my other modules, and is a concept a lot of people will be familiar with, even if you have not heard the term itself. Throughout history there has been talk of East and West relations, especially in regards to the cold war. However it is not limited to that era. In texts about fascism the western Bloc of democratic nations is portrayed as the opposite of the South/East bloc of authoritarian regime. What constitutes as East and West? Predominantly history focuses around a 'Eurocentric' view of the world. West being the nations to the west of and including western Europe and the East nations to the east of and including the east of Europe. This view of the world is not a modern concept, for example if one were to look at Early Modern conceptions of power one would find a divide between the Christendom of the West and the 'other' of the East. This Eurocentric western view of the world is what Said defines as 'Orientalism.' 

    "Orientalist; the heir to a 'narcissistic' tradition of European writing founded by, amongst others, Homer and Aeschylus, through his writing 'creates' the 'orient'. In the process, he assists in the creation of a series of stereotypical images, according to which Europe (the West, the 'self') is seen as being essentially rational, developed, humane, superior, authentic, active, creative and masculine, while the orient (the East, the 'other') (a sort of surrogate, underground version of the west or the 'self') is seen as being irrational, aberrant, backward, crude, despotic, inferior, inauthentic, passive and sexually corrupt." - Edward Said

    The Basic point Said makes is that this Orientalist attitude is not only a misconception, but is also self perpetuating. Despite the various (and indeed, many) flaws in Said's argument, this concept is quite convincing. Some of you reading this might think to yourselves 'I would never think in such a way.' But that is Said's point; 'you' don't think, you absorb. Next time you're watching the news, or reading a paper, watch out for this view point. It need not be sinister; for example, generalisations about 'Africans' as a single entity, a single 'people'. This is ridiculous when you think about it. After all Africa "is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Africa) and it has vastly different cultures and traditions within each sovereign state. 

I challenge you to catch yourself doing it. I know I make assumptions and generalisations sometimes. When/if you do, stop. Take a moment, and think; do you understand the differences within what is being generalised? If you don't, maybe you should take some time out to get to know how some of the people you share this planet live, and respect those differences.

   I could go on about Orientalism, but for now I think I'll leave it there, before I start to sound too 'radical'

Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment and stuff.
- DH -

Bibliography 

• Macfie. A. L (Ed.) (2000). 'Orientalism: A Reader' (Edinburgh University Press).

P.S: This is a warning; The AV (Alternative Vote) Debate is heating up, and as a Politics student I WILL feel the need to write about it. I see myself as an advocate of Social Liberalism (Socialism + Liberalism), and I think you might be in for a shock when you read my side of the argument. If you have no interest in politics/ don't like political debate I advise you skip the blog post where I talk about it (It will be titled appropriately)