Book Review: Orientalism, Postmodernism & Globalism by Bryan S.Turner

INTRODUCTION

The relationship between power and knowledge is an essential issue for social scientists. According to the traditional liberal understanding; power and knowledge are evaluated as contradictory to each other. In other words; the devolopment of science is possible only in a condition in which there is the necessary individual freedom and  there is no any political control over reason. This classical liberal understanding has started to be questioned with Michel Foucault’s contributions to the field. According to Foucault; power and knowledge directly necessitate one another. In other words there is no power relation without a sphere of knowledge, nor any knowledge without power relations(Turner, 1994, p.20,21).

 The structure of power politics is essentially effective also in determinig the content and tendencies of social science. According to Foucault; the devolopment of social sciences in the late 18th and the 19th centuries was directly related with the requirement to control over masses.  In a paralel way the colonial relationships between different societies were the main factor which lead to the theoretical evolution of sociology. Therefore we see the reflections of the orientalist legacy in social sciences also in the discipline of sociology. (Turner, 1994 p.44)

 In general Western socioloyg argues that the absence of some institutional and cultural elements like especially civil society, bourgeois class, capitalism, political democracy, individualism, rational bureaucracy, dynamism and personal property led to the oriental despotism and stagnation in the Oriental world. These elements are the main separation points between Occident and Orient. They are the main characteristics of orientalist discourse, and they are essential for self-definition of European societies (Turner, 1994, p. 22,23).

THE ORIENTALIST LEGACY IN THE ORTHODOX SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

We can see the reflections of the orientalist legacy in the Orthodox sociological theory. For example if wee look at the Weberian sociology we see that Weber tries to explain the devolopment of rationalist capitalist production, which is the characteristic uniqueness of the West, with the important role of Protestant asceticism. In Weber’s sociology Islam legitimatizes and maintains the status quo, and it does not support the social change. In his comparative sociology he emphasizes the opposition between the Western dynamic and Oriental stable social systems. In similar with other orientalist discourses he explains these opposition with  the absences in Oriental societies, which are the unique elements of Western rationality (Turner, 1994, p.38-40).

Marx also showed the effect of this Western orientalist legacy in his works. He also imagined the Orient as an unified system, and described it with stationarity, and with deficiencies of social change, modernization, bourgeois culture, civil society etc.  In their writings Marx and Engel with refence to the concept of ‘The Asiatic mode of production’, the ‘Asiatic conditions’ of despotism, the absence of private property, the absence of class struggle, and the absence of historical changes; they  contrast the socio-economic stagnation of the Orient with the revolutionary and dynamic feature of capitalist, Western societies (Turner, 1994, p.40,41).

Louis Althusser and other contemporary Marxists iniciated an ‘epistemological break’ to make major changes in some basic Marxist notions. However despite their efforts to transform the Orientalist problematic in the theories of Marx and Engels, their theories were still not relevant for the analysis of Islamic and Oriental societies (Turner, 1994, p.31).

From this point of view we can see that Marxist and Weberian concepts and understandings shared some common hypotheses, and both Marx’s and Weber’s perspective was shaped by an orientalist perspective (Turner, 1994, p.5).

THE CRITIQUE OF ORIENTALISM AND EUROCENTRISM

The main question which both Weber and Marx concern is the social origins of capitalism in Western societies and its absence in oriental society. Behind this question underlies the main assumption about the uniqueness of the West, and a deep opposition between the devolopmentalist West and the stationary East (Turner, 1994, p.42,43).

Weberian sociology and structuralist Marxism could not developed convincing answers to this question because of some reasons (Turner, 1994, p.42,43).  First of all; according to Turner; the analysis of the capitalist origins in Orient is not a proper act because it is impossible to talk about an independent capitalist devolopment outside Europe. European capitalism and colonialism led to an economic dependency in the world. As opposite to the Orientalist discourses; the reason for the absence of capitalism in the Orient was the existence of capitalism in the Occident.

 Secondly; capitalism does not has coherent and stable social features or uniform consequences. Each country has its original historical features and uniqe devolopment paths and therefore can not be collected under the same heading of ‘capitalist devolopment’. Also the concept of capitalism’s itself is too ambiguous and too comprehensive. According to the some arguments; capitalism evolved as a result of accidental conditions.  

Thirdly; much of the work of Weber, Marx and Durkheim presupposed a feudal society. Feudal society is a fact which is special to Western societies. So many parts of the Western sociology can not be applied to Eastern societies. In countries where there was no a transition from feudalism to capitalism; the generalization of the results of Western sociologists works on European countries to other cases is not a proper methodology (Turner, 1994, p.8)

ALTERNATIVES TO ORIENTALISM AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EDWARD SAID'S WORK FOR SOCIAL THEORY

Different iniciatives against the damaging legacy of orientalism have been taken to change continuing paradigms and to create different frameworks especially in the period after Second World War. The debate about orientalism during the 1970s showed the emergence of a new revival among third world academics against colonization. Anti-orientalism emerged as an alternative to modernist rationality. Edward Said’s Orientalism was one of the most influential studies. In his study Said tries to analyse the Western interpretations of Oriental societies during the periods of imperial expensions (Turner, 1994, p.3).

Edward Said made important contributions to social sciences:

1) Foucoult’s analysis of knowledge and power provided an essential ground for the critique of Orientalism (Turner, 1994, 44). According to Foucoult; all types o language form categories of sameness and difference. Implementation of these categories, which can be thought as exercising of power,  make one social group capable of excluding other groups.

Edward Said bases his study of Orientalism on Foucault’s analysis. Said analysed how power and knowledge are necesseraly combined, and how power relations are produced through discourse (Turner, 1994, p.4). We can think Orientalism as a discourse of power which constitutes different contrasts. The Occident / Orient contrast in the Orientalist discourse is a signification of power relationships because orientalist discourse emerged in the context of a geopolitical struggle between Europe and the Middle East. According to the Orientalist view of point; Westerners dominate the Orientals (Said, 1977, p.36). In the formation of Western images of the ‘Orient’ and Islam; the role of imperial politics has been essentially important.

To cope with the complexity of Oriental societies and to control them orientalist discourses create some basic typologies and frameworks to define and explain the ‘Orient’. Said mentions about an increasingly profitable dialectic of information and control. Knowledge of Orientals makes their management easy and beneficial. Knowledge provides power, and more power require more knowledge (Said, 1977, p.36). As Said explains in his work; Balfour legitimizes the British colonization of Egypt with their knowledge of Egypt (Said, 1977, p.36). For Balfour having the knowledge of the Orient is to dominate and to have authority over it. As a result of their knowledge of Egypt, they accepts the British superiority and Egyptian inferiority.

Orientalist discourse reflects the ‘Orient’ as a strange and exotic phenomenon, and sees it as "belong to a wholly different category’’ (Said, 1977, p.31). On the other hand Europeans see themselves as distinguished and powerful men who are representatives of the civilized world. As Said argues Europeans think that they knows Oriental societies and what is good for them better than they could possibly know themselves (Said, 1977, p.35).

2) Another contribution of Said to social sciences is that he criticized the assumed separation of facts and values and so-called neutrality of science. His studies showed the fact that discourses and values constructs the ‘facts’. In the advancing year his perspective to orientalism has been adopted by other critical studies like feminism, black studies and postmodernism (Turner, 1994, p.4).

Europeans theories mostly miss many details of the dynamics in our societies and project their views of how we are or should be living. Most of these theories or even the concepts they devised do not actually represent or fit our social reality as Muslims or as Indians/Turks/Arabs. That's why Said's work is very useful to criticise Orientalist sociological theory which is applied to cases outside the Euro-America context,

PROBLEMS WITH CRITICAL ANTI-ORIENTALISM

According to Turner; the Orientalist legacy in sociology has been heavily criticised, However no radical alternative has yet been devoloped because the orientalist critique has its own weaknesses. First of all; even though Edward Said has made a major critique of the oriental discourse, and provided an new vision of Middle East; he does not reformulate this orientalist perspective (Turner, 1994, p.31).

Turner shows the Foucault’s pessimistic perspective on the nature of discourse as responsible for this deadlock. Focault’s analysis of discourse does not propose new alternatives not to form new discourses. He only examines the conditions of discourse. Because the technique of deconstruction only defines the problems of representation, and does not provide new solutions.

However according to Turner; we need a radical change in epistemology, perspectives, paradigms and theoretical frameworks to resolve Orientalist problematic, and this transformation can only be achieved with the simultaneous transformation in the power relations between ‘East’ and ‘West’(Turner, 1994, p.35).

Secondly; Turner criticizes the critique of orientalism with ignoring the two possible ways out of the Orientalist discourse. First of all; besides negative accounting schemes, there is also a different feature of the orientalist debate which is called as secular orientalism. Secular rationalist scholars like Hume and  Nietzsche adopt a positive view on Islam to criticize Christian doctrine. Secondly; Turner argues that Said has analysed only the ways in which orientalism has been constituted on a opposition of differences. According to him the basic dichotomy of sameness and difference is the main element in the formation of  language. To position West in a unique position and to exclude Eastern societies; orientalist discourse focuses and highligts the difference, division and separation between ‘Orient’ and ‘Occident’,  a difference created by discourse rather than by history (Turner, 1994, p.50).

However Bryan Turner suggests an alternative route to avoid orientalist discourses, which is coherent with Said’s universal humanism and Foucault’s pessimism about discourse on discourses (Turner, 1994, p.46). With regards to the relationship between Islam and Christianity, Turner argues that rather than emphasizing the characteristics that divide them; it is possible to focus on the characteristics, mutual contacts, common experiences, common frameworks, and cultural overlaps which unite different religious traditions and provide the foundation of a global culture (Turner, 1994, p.32,50).

Another criticism of the Legacy of Said is that there were many types of orientalism and it was problematic to put these different orientalisms into a single orientalist tradition. The gap between Said’s own political attitude towards Palestine and the epistemological stance of his book, and his focus on textuality and textualism are the other criticisms of Said. However the main concern of the Turner is the threat of equally dangerous occidentalism and the antimodernist dimension of critical theory (Turner, 1994, p.5-7).

One of the effects of Foucault’s and Said’s pespectives on third-world society has been the devolopment of a fundamentalist reading of Islamic knowledge and tradition which is against secularism principle and modernization. The iniciatives of indigenization and Islamization of knowledge have been emerged as a result of the debate about the epistemological imperialism of the West. They asserted that the West’s cultural domination stil continues in the post-colonial period. So, they defended the authority of local over global knowledge, and supported the authenticity of tradition over imported, and Western-led knowledge (Turner, 1994, p.7-8).

 However, whether we can have an indigenous methodology, rationality and epistemology or not is still a contradictive issue. According to Turner; we can not reach to a Islamic or any other type of ethnic or religious social science because the basic logic and theory of social sciences can not be contained by a particular ethnic, cultural, religious or historical label(Turner, 1994, p.8).

The relation of globalization with Said’s legacy and with the Islamization of knowledge debate is also an important point. With the effect of globalization; maintanence of the differantation between oriental and occidental cultures as seperate and independent categories has become very difficult. A new debate has been started on the possibility of a transition from orientalism and occidentalism to a global sociology (Turner, 1994, p.8,9)..