/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2553399]

I like studying other cultures because they are different from mine.

Edward Said would have likely called this a sign of cultural imperialism on my part.

Fuck Edward Said.

[Anonymous No.2553408]

Edward Said is indeed a moron. Fuck people reading Orientalism in 2012. Especially now that it's all about occidentalism.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.2553411]

Would he now? If it can be categorized as "cultural imperialism" perhaps that's a better animal than ACTUAL imperialism.

Good gob, I hope I don't get the naked kid with a snake cover.

[Anonymous No.2553455]

>I like studying other cultures because they are different from mine.

>Edward Said would have likely called this a sign of cultural imperialism on my part.

...Did you read the book? Some of his assessments of individual authors were a unfair and I don't buy into a lot of what he said about the connection between orientalist scholarship and colonialism, but he was absolutely correct about the uncritical, self-replicating nature of the field throughout most of its history. The third part of the book is the most important. The persistence of age-old prejudices among the general public and certain 'scholars' even today is something that any modern student of the Near East is likely to be aware of. Generally speaking, the orientalism he discusses is not what today's academic study of the Arab World is like at all. He wouldn't consider you a cultural imperialist unless you were perpetuating the sort stereotypes that render Middle Easterners "vulnerable to imperialism"; quit being ridiculous.

>>2553408

>Edward Said is indeed a moron. Fuck people reading Orientalism in 2012.

Oh, lord.

>Especially now that it's all about occidentalism.

What is this even supposed to mean?

[Mwu !z5VJUXtDQE No.2553470]

>I like studying other cultures because they are different from mine.

>Edward Said would have likely called this a healthy interest in cultural exchange.

>I'm trolling or didn't read Orientalism.

ftfy

[Anonymous No.2553474]

>>2553455
The west is dehumanized more than any other culture.

[Anonymous No.2553490]

Maxime Rodinson's "Europe and the Mystique of Islam" is a good book to read alongside or in addition to Said. It's short, less complex, and more of a straightforward history of the field than a deconstruction of it.

I've heard that Eric R. Wolf's "Europe and the People Without History" is also good, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

>>2553474

"The West" isn't a culture...

[Anonymous No.2553508]

>>2553490
>"The West" isn't a culture...

Funningly enough, this assertion supports what he's saying.

[Mwu !z5VJUXtDQE No.2553511]

>>2553508

Only if you think England, all of the United States, Ireland, France, Spain, Mexico, Canada, and the rest of "The West" are all one culture. To me THAT would support what he is saying.

[Anonymous No.2553525]

>>2553508

...no it doesn't?

The history, culture, and intellectual heritage of Western/Catholic Europe differs significantly from Eastern/Orthodox Europe, and both differ significantly from North America and Latin America. All of these regions, especially the Americas, can easily be subdivided further.

Likewise, there are similar differences between Turkey, Iran, the Levant, Mesopotamia, the Arabian peninsula, Egypt, and the Maghrib.

Viewing "the West" and "Islam" as unified cultural units is unhelpful and misleading.

[Anonymous No.2553552]

>>2553525
but viewing them as discrete, identifiable cultural / intellectual traditions is helpful and useful and true

[Anonymous No.2553632]

>>2553490
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_culture

inb4 its wikipedia so it doesn't count.

by the way, are you fucking serious?

[Anonymous No.2553642]

No he wouldn't have. Had you imposed your views over the perspectives and opinions of the natives (IE: Buddhism stupid Christianity correct), then he would have called you a cultural imperialist.

To a certain degree you'll never be able to return to a tabula rasa state of being. You'll always be wrapped up in Western tradition and will apply those views to the East. It's inevitable. Said would say that acknowledging this allows you to enter safe zone where you can discuss your perspective with authentically native Easterners.

[Anonymous No.2553641]

>2012
>wilfully misinterpreting Said/being a dumbass

shiggydiggyetc

[Anonymous No.2553677]

>>2553552

>Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, is a term used very broadly

>very broadly

The point is that it's usually too broad of classification to be useful. It makes more sense to separate it into a Western European tradition and an Eastern European tradition; the Orthodox world didn't experience a Protestant Reformation or an Age of Discovery or many of the other formative periods that shaped the Catholic/Protestant world. Both share a Greco-Roman intellectual heritage, but that doesn't really distinguish them from the Arab Muslim world; platonic and peripatetic philosophy were extremely important there as well.

[Anonymous No.2555312]

>>2553525

Except that the west has been at war against Islam for much of the late 20th and most of the early 21st century so far.

[Anonymous No.2555367]

The existence of a government enforcing laws is cultural imperialism against criminals, but that's not an argument against enforcing laws, it's just the same idea with a pejorative worked into it.

[Anonymous No.2555400]

>>2555312
Yes, I agree with you, Western greed and Western attacks on Islam really are deplorable. I am glad we both think this thing.

[Anonymous No.2555412]

>>2555312
>huntingtonian 'clash of civilizations' nonsense
>2013

i seriously h-... just get the fuck out of here.

[Anonymous No.2555415]

"The West" is typically used to mean "the eurocentric concept of Modernity."

I don't think those making use of the term mean to say every pocket of culture within the West is the same.

Read Provincializing Europe by Dipesh Chakrabarty.

[Anonymous No.2555416]

>>2555400
>Western attacks on Islam really are deplorable.
Cultures that murder gays for being gay and punish women for getting raped are worse. Cultural relativism is sure easy when you live in the secular first world, isn't it?

[Anonymous No.2555431]

>>2555416

>"Cultures" comprising hundreds of millions of people or more are monolithic and the people who are part of them act uniformly

[Anonymous No.2555438]

>>2555431
>It's my privilege to belittle the plight of people oppressed by theocracy on the grounds that some theocracies are better than others.

[Anonymous No.2555437]

>>2555416

Islam is not a monolithic culture, you parochial twit!

[Anonymous No.2555435]

Some cultures are superior to others.

[Anonymous No.2555441]

>>2555416
cultural relativism is all that there is.

what does cultural absolutism look like?
maybe you hate liberals or whatever,
but "not that/them" is not an absolute position.

it is another, different, relativist position.
(which i think is fine, btw.)

[Anonymous No.2555442]

>>2555312
yes because islam never waged war against the west or invaded europe, huh? Are you really this retarded?

[Anonymous No.2555445]

>>2555438
you know i was thinking that usa and saudi are both the biggest shitholes in the world, and that the only difference between them is that one gorges itself on pork and the other wants you not to eat pork and will treat you harshly if you do. i mean this metaphorically.

[Anonymous No.2555447]

>>2555438

>You know those people I talked about earlier? The ones who act uniformly? Well they all live under "theocracies" too.

[Anonymous No.2555449]

>>2555312
>>2555312
Dude, just stop. This is not what Orientalism is about at all. It's about the narrativization and discourse of history and the arts.

[Anonymous No.2555453]

>>2555441
>2012
>cultural relativists

Why do these leftists hate "racism/fascism/whatever" so much if they truly accept everything as being relative?

[Anonymous No.2555454]

>>2555442
>Islam waged war...
>The West did [x]...

I don't want to imagine how hopelessly, abjectly retarded some of you must be to actually think like this.

[Anonymous No.2555461]

HEY GUIZE, ISLAM TOTALLY ISN'T MONOLITHIC. IT'S NOT LIKE ISLAM HAS A CENTRAL HOLY TEXT THAT DEFINES THE MAJOR TENETS OF THE RELIGION THAT EVERYBODY WHO CALLS THEMSELVES MUSLIM IS EXPECTED TO BELIEVE IN OR ANYTHING. NOPE.

[Anonymous No.2555459]

>ITT: People who haven't read "Orientalism."

[Anonymous No.2555458]

>>2555453
shockingly, this actually turns out to be a good objection and people defending cultural relativism should actually try to address it. i know he's a stormfronter and everything but still.

[Anonymous No.2555468]

>>2555453
its worse relatie to their tastes and preferences.
thats completely consistent.

what is there to "accept" about things being relative?
could you give me an example of an absolute society
or ideology?

im not certain you know what relative means.

[Anonymous No.2555470]

>>2555461
how can you miss the parallel to western christendom when you worship the same fucking god as muslims

[Anonymous No.2555473]

>>2555470
I don't worship any god, idiot.

[Anonymous No.2555477]

>>2555473
your culture does!!

[Anonymous No.2555478]

>>2555461

Yeah, fucktard, let's completely ignore how decentralized Sunni Islam is. While we're at it, let's disregard the religion's long history of competing exegetical traditions and pretend that a 1400 year old religious text can't possibly give rise to more than one understanding or interpretation.

[Anonymous No.2555479]

>>2555461
because there is total consensus in the muslim world about how to live.
yep. good point.

[Anonymous No.2555483]

>>2555461
making posts about things you know nothing about

good times

4chan

[Anonymous No.2555495]

>>2555478
>>2555479
>>2555483
Can you name a single sect of Islam with any political power that doesn't advocate Sharia law?

[Anonymous No.2555496]

>>2555468
How can you be cultural relativist and want to apply your own tastes/preferences to other cultures? That is exactly what they complain about.

>what is there to "accept" about things being relative?
"accepting" it is the point of their whole ideology, that we must judge them in the frame of their culture. Hence muslim countries stoning women for being raped is a-ok.

[Anonymous No.2555515]

Every liberal interpretation of Islam I've come across has been laughable. Usually still promotes at least a few barbaric practices. Even the leftist hero Tariq Ramadan.

Do this world a favor and start giving out Hirsi Ali books to Islamic women.

[Anonymous No.2555526]

>>2555495
sup everyrepublicantoday
so if i tell you about a muslim friend
that loves ecstacy and one-night-stands
and thinks scarfs are bullshit

will you tell me he is "not muslim"?

if so, notruescottsman
else
can you pick a single issue and tell me
where "too conservative" happens?

you want somewhere between california and pakistan?
fine, but you on the spectrum.
not transcending it.

>>2555496
they want to apply it less, relatively.
who cares what people complain about?

you entirely missed the question bro.

[Anonymous No.2555537]

>>2555526
I asked for sects with political power, not anecdotal stories about your totally liberal and tolerant Muslim friend.

[Anonymous No.2555534]

>>2555526
So you agree that they aren't at all cultural relativists, they are just anti-white/anti-western?

>will you tell me he is "not muslim"?
He is plenty muslim, he has one night stands treating white women as whores, and then he goes and marries a woman selected by his family. He is not a "friend" of yours, he is an acquaintance. You are simply delusional about many things.

[Anonymous No.2555541]

>>2555537
That's the thing, his friend is likely not tolerant or liberal at all.

The non-whites agree with anti-white liberal policies because it benefits them, not because they like the policies at all.

[Anonymous No.2555547]

>>2555496
>"accepting" it is the point of their whole ideology

submission is the point of every ideology.
its how ideologies make it past generation 1.
can you name an ideology that doesnt require some sacrifice?

>that we must judge them in the frame of their culture. Hence muslim countries stoning women for being raped is a-ok.
i dont even know what youre saying here bro.

>>2555515
what should we do about young brides
to old mormon polygamists?

is all religiously inspired violence repugnant?
or just certain flavors? if so why?

[Anonymous No.2555554]

>>2555547
> if so why?
because the world and humans operate in groups, and you support the group you are part of or you die unremarked and uncared for.

[Anonymous No.2555581]

>>2555534
>So you agree that they aren't at all cultural relativists

nope.
EVERYONE is a cultural relativist.
i dont think you know what that means.

>>2555537
if "sects" and not "the sect" exist then some difference of opinion is implied.
you suggested all muslim were of a single mind.
do you hold this position?

>policies..because it benefits them
i dont know what youre talking about here.
could you give me some examples of anti-white policies?

are you suggesting that "policies" that benefit one group over
another arent celebrated by those they privilege?

stormfags are ok when they make sense.
you guys arent even trying.

[Anonymous No.2555594]

>>2555554
>and you support the group you are part
and the size of the group is a relative measure.

me and immediate fam?
me and my state?
me and my country?
me and blonde people?

its relative and its an arbitrary function of
the circumstances of your birth.

welcome to cultural relativism, friend!

[Anonymous No.2555599]

>>2555581
>could you give me some examples of anti-white policies?
what is affirmative action?

>are you suggesting that "policies" that benefit one group over
Have you not left your house in 100 years or something?

[Anonymous No.2555617]

>>2555581
>if "sects" and not "the sect" exist then some difference of opinion is implied.
>you suggested all muslim were of a single mind.
>do you hold this position?
Apparently, you seem unable to comprehend my question, so I'll ask it again - can you name a single sect of Islam with any political power that does not advocate Sharia law?

If you want to delve into the issue further, then alright, but until my question is answered I don't.

[Anonymous No.2555627]

>>2555599
yep.

>affirm.
thats *an* example.
got more?

>Have you not left your house...
i was suggesting the your post had a contradiction.
i pointed it out and you agreed with me.
well done.
this is where you should feel shame/rage.

are you ready to agree that EVERYONE is a cultural relativist?
you can be racist, i dont care.
i just dont want you thinking that you transcend cultural relativism.
you dont.

[Anonymous No.2555650]

>>2555617
>all muslims hold the same opinion
no they dont
>name a single group...

whats shifting the goal post?

seriously though, will you accept any of the groups on this page as an answer?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_movements_within_Islam

[Anonymous No.2555662]

just a reminder
the word "liberal"

means: individual liberty(from govt intervention) and open markets.

dont believe me? look it up.
now, who would want to smear the ideas
"liberalism" stands for?

whos turning it into a bad word?
why would they do that?

[Anonymous No.2555665]

>>2555617

The Canadian Muslim Congress.

[Anonymous No.2555681]

is this the silence of a defeated racist?
everyone soak it up.

theyll be back all too soon with the same
confused logic.

[Anonymous No.2555690]

>>2555681

The marxists started calling themselves liberals, and so we call them liberals now.

[Anonymous No.2555695]

>>2555681
>is this the silence of a defeated racist?
I don't like Christianity, which apparently makes me anti-white now.

[Anonymous No.2555706]

>>2555690
lol nice try

who started that?
what communist placed this demand
on the world and the world (loving commies above all else)
happily obliged?

did conservatives reverse what they called
themselves to accommodate their buds, the commies?
when did this happen?

[Anonymous No.2555721]

>>2555695
i was arguing against racist arguments.
your other positions are fine with me.
(except excluding yourself from being a relativist,
if that was you.)

you may have not been the person i was
arguing, in which case i dont assume anything about you.
apologies if i appeared hostile to you.

i agree with your xtian beef.
christianity as commonly practiced has little to recommend itself.

cheers bro!

[Anonymous No.2555722]

>>2555495
Gulen/Nur movement in Turkey.

And advocating Sharia law doesn't mean they are necessarily centralised because they've got different laws, even though they are minor.

[Anonymous No.2555939]

>>2555495
>Sharia law

Do you know what this means? "Shari'ah" isn't a single list of explicit legal injunctions that all Muslims can refer to when they want to know how to act. In traditional Sunnism alone, there are four major schools of jurisprudence; each has developed its own methodology for assessing scripture and secondary source material and for deriving rulings. It's not uncommon for jurists within a single school to issue divergent rulings on the same issue. Wahhabis/Salafis tend to disregard the methodologies of the traditional schools and are fond of formulating their own rulings. And with Shi'ism, of course, you're deriving laws from a completely different set of secondary source material. Islamic jurisprudence is dynamic... even at the state level, adhering to Shari'ah doesn't mean that your country is going to be some sort of Taliban state.

[Mwu !z5VJUXtDQE No.2555948]

Oooooh boy is this thread full of misconceptions. This is why I shouldn't sleep.

>Can you name a single sect of Islam with any political power that doesn't advocate Sharia law?

All of them. "Sharia Law" is actually hypothetical metaphysics based on Islamic thought on divinity, one cannot implement "Sharia Law" anywhere, nor can anyone issue a ruling on it. The word you are looking for is "Fiqh", which is Islamic Jurisprudence, a rough equivalent to British Common Law from which many anglo derived countries draw on. If you're going to knock Arabicate nations for drawing on Fiqh then go ahead and knock the US, Canada, and Britain for drawing on British Common Law.

Also many Imams are not "Islamist" (the word you're looking for) in that they do not advocate a Theocracy. The only Theocracy in the region is the pseudo-theocratic Iranian government, which is fairly modernized and highly successful by any measure of a former colony. Quite a few fatwas, however, are anti-islamist. I won't bother digging for links since they're in Arabic and you probably cannot read them (and mine is rusty as fuck).

(field way the fuck too long)

[Mwu !z5VJUXtDQE No.2555953]

>>2555948

>Rape, women's rights

Actually up until the sexual revolution in the West and the backlash Muslims had against it they were well ahead of us in terms of egalitarianism. People gloss over is the fact that right here in the US a report of a missing woman got the response "She's a slut/whore, don't waste our time", resulting in thousands of cases never investigated. Up until the sexual revolution Islam allowed for birth control and at least tolerated abortion. As to gays, they have it rough all over.

The model for pressing for women's rights does not involve throwing out your culture for another cultural model: the pursuit of feminism in the US and Western Europe did not involve becoming Polish or Russian. It means internally critiquing your own culture and advancing under your own auspices. Western feminist intervention has infamously undermined the actions and stances of indigenous feminists throughout the region due to a combination of infantilization, straight up cultural imperialism, and protesting becoming trendy in western popular culture.

(field still too long)

[German Girl !!U1zrDtZdnC8 No.2555961]

I wish there was a book titled "Why am I not a Zionist - Said" It would be the best. I love Edward said, perhaps I am a fan.

[Mwu !z5VJUXtDQE No.2555969]

>>2555953

There was an infamous case a few years back where a woman who had been sentenced to flogging for some trivial shit had successfully appealed her case: a coalition of indigenous feminists, a good lawyer, and more level headed officials called the whole thing off. It was over. Then a bunch of pop-culture western feminists heard about it, didn't bother to coordinate with the local feminists groups or research exactly what was going on, and proceeded to go on a campaign that the local officials found so offensive that they went ahead and flogged the poor girl in spite of being told by the higher ups not to.

The moral of the story? If social reform and feminism is ever going to happen, it will be internal, and if people want it to happen their best bet is to lend a hand to local interested officials and reformers instead of going full retard and assuming they know better than everyone else.

[Anonymous No.2555975]

>>2555961

Oh, hey, an on-topic post! He wrote a book called "The Question of Palestine" that might be along the lines of what you're looking for. I have it sitting on my bookshelf but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

[Anonymous No.2555977]

>>2555953
>People gloss over is the fact that right here in the US a report of a missing woman got the response "She's a slut/whore, don't waste our time"
What? Missing women are media darlings. When the fuck do we EVER hear about missing men?

[Anonymous No.2555983]

>>2555969
The moral of the story is that the yokels are a bunch of dumb savages who need to be lifted up to Western standards before they'll start treating each other like human beings, and doing so is our moral duty.

[Mwu !z5VJUXtDQE No.2555992]

>>2555977

>What? Missing women are media darlings. When the fuck do we EVER hear about missing men?

Read what I wrote: I'm talking about the 1950's and earlier. What you're describing is the media and police officials attempting to atone for the neglect of their predecessors.

>>2555975

This is 4chan: everything goes off topic.

[Anonymous No.2556005]

>>2555992
>Read what I wrote: I'm talking about the 1950's and earlier. What you're describing is the media and police officials attempting to atone for the neglect of their predecessors.
It's not like missing men were treated any better in the past than they are now, they were and are pretty much ignored. All that happened to the media and police officials was that they discovered chivalry.

[Anonymous No.2556009]

>>2555983
>Western standards
>implying

[Mwu !z5VJUXtDQE No.2556013]

>>2556005

Nope. Missing man was a big deal back then because men were the most important people period. I don't blame you for not knowing this though, because the mainstream thought's conscious memory only goes back about three months. I only recall this because I watched a report on the phenomenon.

[Anonymous No.2556029]

>>2556013
>Nope. Missing man was a big deal back then because men were the most important people period. I don't blame you for not knowing this though, because the mainstream thought's conscious memory only goes back about three months. I only recall this because I watched a report on the phenomenon.
Oh please. Rich men were the most important people in society, and for the most part still are, so I can understand if we're talking about them, but working class men have always been the most disposable and expendable class in western civilization.

[Mwu !z5VJUXtDQE No.2556048]

>>2556029

>Oh please. Rich men were the most important people in society, and for the most part still are, so I can understand if we're talking about them, but working class men have always been the most disposable and expendable class in western civilization.
>but working class men have always been
>but... always

Hang on a minute. You knew absolutely nothing about the phenomena that was prevalent a mere sixty years ago, but you're attempting to argue against an evaluation of gender valuation in that time period with words like "always", even though demonstrably there are cultural things you don't know about even the immediate past?

Also this is not about class, stop trying for a communist derail.

[Anonymous No.2556068]

>>2556048
>Hang on a minute. You knew absolutely nothing about the phenomena that was prevalent a mere sixty years ago, but you're attempting to argue against an evaluation of gender valuation in that time period with words like "always", even though demonstrably there are cultural things you don't know about even the immediate past?
You have provided absolutely no evidence for your argument, beyond claiming that it naturally follows from the fact that men were the most important people in society. Tell me, since when are the most important people in society expected to bear all of the casualties that result from being drafted in war and being expected to to do the most dangerous work? Women may have been oppressed and marginalized, but they sure as fuck weren't expected to die at the rate men were.

[Mwu !z5VJUXtDQE No.2556094]

>>2556068

>hurr evidence in an internet argument, derr society didn't think men totally weren't more important than women in that time period for the purposes of this discussion even though it is widely understood and accepted that women were second class citizens at that time by virtually all academics and laymen alike

So to sum it up you're grasping at straws because it has been pointed out that your assumption that the present state of your culture is not, in fact, the way it has always been, and you're hoping the argument derails into the usual idiotic back and forth about the valuation of young men in society due to the fact that you know you have no defensible ground in the original topic of discussion?

My work here is done! Hi-ho Silver!

[Anonymous No.2556118]

>>2556094
>Make a claim
>Provide no evidence
>Claim the intellectual high ground when other people ask for evidence

[Anonymous No.2556153]

>>2556094


>pretend that because an argument is posited on the internet it needs no evidence
>continue to posit claims that have zero cogency

[Anonymous No.2556165]

>>2556153
This is the first picture of Hitler I've ever seen where he looks like a pretty average dude. It's both weird and refreshing.

[Anonymous No.2556168]

>>2556165
he was just an average dude, a patriot who loved his country and race.

[Anonymous No.2556184]

>sign of
>not mark, qualifies you for, etc

Son, looks like you misunderstood what Edward Said said