On Ken Rockwell's (the photographer-reviewer-self-promoter) website he has an entry on "Oriental" cameras. He considers cameras made in East Asia "Oriental," as he argues that the term only applies to the eastern part of the continent - Russia is not part of it.
I thought about writing him some hatemail to persuade him to drop the terminology, but decided that he would probably disregard it in his narcissism. Maybe I still should, though...
So what is my beef with the tobacco store guy and Ken Rockwell? Conceptions of the "East" and "Oriental" are both grossly misapplied terms. The "The Myth of Continents," a book by Martin Lewis and Karen Wigen, goes in depth about the contradictory nature of metageographical terms. The two terms I have picked out for this blog entry have come to be almost empty terms in regards to actual places. They are, however, loaded with essentialist ideas. The following is an excerpt from a precis I wrote earlier this quarter about "The Myth of Continents." I highly recommend this book:
"Said’s 'Orientalism' is to be commended for its exposure of the West’s construction of an illusional Orient. From this deconstructionist viewpoint, we can see the varying borders of the historical Orient. The Orient began mostly as the Near East studied by philologists. It was later used for the Middle East and North Africa, sort of an indicator for Islamic lands. As more contact was made with South and East Asia, those lands came to typify the Orient. Hegel discussed four Oriental zones, and two of them Persia and Egypt were 'historical buffers,' points were purely Oriental ideas were diffused into more civilized forms (due to their proximity to Europe). Japan itself adopted the label of the East (an idea tied to the Orient) and saw itself as a special exception to its sluggish progress and as a leader to the region. Western culture has shifted its conceptual borders with the East constantly since the Middle Ages. At times, the West seems to be little more than Anglo-America. Events like the Great Schism divided Europe religiously, and this event has been used to compare the Cold War division of Western and Eastern Europe. Russia has always been on the cusp of continents, and Communism is often seen as an anti-Western doctrine. In the last fifty years, battles in the defense of Western freedom and democracy have been waged on these grounds (Huntington Thesis). Further, due to Central Europe’s role in the Second World War, how could places like Germany be truly Western? Something Asiatic is perceived in the uncivilized events of Nazi Germany and the war’s eastern front. In the globalized world, there is still a curious notion as Globalization as nothing more than Westernization. If this is true, labeling Japan as Eastern would be as hard as putting it in the West.
Since the Enlightenment, the East evolved as a place ever more stagnant and barbaric. The technological and colonial advance of Europe marked the Orient as a land of irrational and aesthetically minded peoples without humor or freedom. Rationality was seen as a uniquely Western ideal. Weber saw notions of salvation in Eastern religions as the cul-de-sac of contemplation – Asian people had simply given up on rational and progressive thinking. The West itself has never been fully rational. Technological advancement and capitalism are not unique to Europe. Many Enlightenment thinkers operated on Deist and teleological schemes, embracing a mystical framework to be rational within. Many theories that label the East as irrational are irrational themselves, such as Asiatic despotism and hydraulic despotism."
For all these reasons, I think the terms should be thrown out of our daily discourse!!
I thought about writing him some hatemail to persuade him to drop the terminology, but decided that he would probably disregard it in his narcissism. Maybe I still should, though...
So what is my beef with the tobacco store guy and Ken Rockwell? Conceptions of the "East" and "Oriental" are both grossly misapplied terms. The "The Myth of Continents," a book by Martin Lewis and Karen Wigen, goes in depth about the contradictory nature of metageographical terms. The two terms I have picked out for this blog entry have come to be almost empty terms in regards to actual places. They are, however, loaded with essentialist ideas. The following is an excerpt from a precis I wrote earlier this quarter about "The Myth of Continents." I highly recommend this book:
"Said’s 'Orientalism' is to be commended for its exposure of the West’s construction of an illusional Orient. From this deconstructionist viewpoint, we can see the varying borders of the historical Orient. The Orient began mostly as the Near East studied by philologists. It was later used for the Middle East and North Africa, sort of an indicator for Islamic lands. As more contact was made with South and East Asia, those lands came to typify the Orient. Hegel discussed four Oriental zones, and two of them Persia and Egypt were 'historical buffers,' points were purely Oriental ideas were diffused into more civilized forms (due to their proximity to Europe). Japan itself adopted the label of the East (an idea tied to the Orient) and saw itself as a special exception to its sluggish progress and as a leader to the region. Western culture has shifted its conceptual borders with the East constantly since the Middle Ages. At times, the West seems to be little more than Anglo-America. Events like the Great Schism divided Europe religiously, and this event has been used to compare the Cold War division of Western and Eastern Europe. Russia has always been on the cusp of continents, and Communism is often seen as an anti-Western doctrine. In the last fifty years, battles in the defense of Western freedom and democracy have been waged on these grounds (Huntington Thesis). Further, due to Central Europe’s role in the Second World War, how could places like Germany be truly Western? Something Asiatic is perceived in the uncivilized events of Nazi Germany and the war’s eastern front. In the globalized world, there is still a curious notion as Globalization as nothing more than Westernization. If this is true, labeling Japan as Eastern would be as hard as putting it in the West.
Since the Enlightenment, the East evolved as a place ever more stagnant and barbaric. The technological and colonial advance of Europe marked the Orient as a land of irrational and aesthetically minded peoples without humor or freedom. Rationality was seen as a uniquely Western ideal. Weber saw notions of salvation in Eastern religions as the cul-de-sac of contemplation – Asian people had simply given up on rational and progressive thinking. The West itself has never been fully rational. Technological advancement and capitalism are not unique to Europe. Many Enlightenment thinkers operated on Deist and teleological schemes, embracing a mystical framework to be rational within. Many theories that label the East as irrational are irrational themselves, such as Asiatic despotism and hydraulic despotism."
For all these reasons, I think the terms should be thrown out of our daily discourse!!
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