Orientalism
The Orient doesn't exist on the map. It's an idea; it's a cultural myth. Before Edward Said, things are fine and happy. Many people hate Edward Saidbecause they think he disturbed orders. Before Said, woman is considered inferior to man; light above darkness; master higher than disciple; black better than white. this is why we have the canon in literature about the White Dead Man. The big work of the 19th -20thcentury is to break off the binary system. The job of postmodernism is to give this positive uncertainty about ultimates. Derrida, Foucault, Barthes has distabilized the Western philosophy. Said's work is to question this simplistic binary construction built on supplements and absolute. The man is stronger than the woman etc... Derrida said that without the supplement, we don't have the absolute.Without the woman, we don't have the man; without the Black, we don't have the White, etc... According to Said, when you position yourself as an analyzer, you see from a high perspective .The analyzee sees himself only; the analyzer sees himself and others. A neo-liberal Arab is the one who thinks that Arab are bad and the West has given us everything. Basically, culture is good; but it inhibits us from seing any other culture. Culture freezes us in a mold that is not totally true.