Orientalism

The adjective Oriental has a long and complex history. It originates in the Latin word oriens, the present participle of "orior": to rise, thus: the region of the rising sun, i.e. the "Far East." While the geographical term Orient is considered relatively neutral, the adjective and substantive forms are the subject of controversy, and potentially offensive. A number of reference works used in the United States describe Oriental as pejorative, antiquated or offensive "in some instances". However, the American Heritage Book of English Usage qualifies this charge by noting:

It is worth remembering, though, that Oriental is not an ethnic slur to be avoided in all situations. It is most objectionable in contemporary contexts and when used as a noun, as in "the appointment of an Oriental to head the commission". In these cases Asian (or a more specific term such as Vietnamese, Korean, or Asian American, if appropriate) is the only acceptable term. But in certain historical contexts, or when its exotic connotations are integral to the topic, Oriental remains a useful term.

Random House's Guide to Sensitive Language states "Other words (e.g., Oriental, colored) are outdated or inaccurate." This Guide to Sensitive Language suggests the use of "Asian or more specific designation such as Pacific Islander, Chinese American, [or] Korean." Merriam-Webster describes the term as "sometimes offensive," Encarta states that when the term is used as a noun it is considered " a highly offensive term for somebody from East Asia" However, the same reference also defines the adjectival usage as "relating to East Asia (dated)" or "high quality".

According to widely accepted textbook guidelines, there are many racially insensitive terms and concepts (including the word oriental) which are to be avoided when used in conjunction with Asian people. Diane Ravitch, a former assistant secretary of education under Clinton and Bush(considered by many to be "one of the country's most spirited and respected education analysts" ) has documented a series of images and depictions which are banned from textbooks and references.

Historical Connotations

In 19th century academia, some works in "Oriental studies" contained inaccurate information that Westerners then used to justify colonization of these countries. Some 19th and 20th century Europeans and Americans who used the term are thought to have held a patronizing attitude toward the region. Many of "these people" saw "the East" as backwards, while the West was seen as logical, rational and more modern. This view was first, and most famously, put forward by Edward Said in his Orientalism.

While the term is clearly an example of Eurocentrism some people do not think Eurocentrism is undesirable. Additionally, many scholarly works in the 19th and 20th Century were riddled with errors, but the outcry to replace words and phrases has not been even-handed or uniform. For example, according to the Encyclopedia Brittanica and Tim McCaskell of the Toronto Board of Education, the works of Charles Linnaeus, Charles Darwin, Francis Galton and others have been used to justify many atrocities, including slavery, colonization, and racial genocide. Despite the fact that evil acts were justified by the works of these men, phrases such as the "Origin of Species"; the "Theory of Evolution"; the "General System of Nature"; "survival of the fittest" et.al., are still in use today.

Edward Said

Said's critique of Orientalism provoked a comprehensive review by postcolonial theorists of the bulk of Western knowledge regarding non-Western countries. This Orientalist literature buttressed the colonial notion of a civilizing mission, which is also supported by many Western feminists, who provide theoretical grounds to such colonialist perceptions. Such postcolonial feminists as Gayatri Spivak, Chandra Mohanty, and Rajeswari Rajan analyze Western feminism's ideological complicity with Orientalist and imperialist ventures.

Early modern Europe

The concept of Oriental despotism allowed early modern Europeans to distinguish themselves from the most powerful and impressive non-European civilizations of the Ottoman Middle East, Persia, India, and China on grounds that were neither fundamentally religious nor linked to sheer scientific and technological progress but were rather political and moral. The French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) situated India within a global context of history and cultural exchange. He helped create a recognizable entity, "India," in the Western imagination by studying selected texts and focusing on a romanticized ideal of India as an Oriental paradise. Voltaire's motivation was primarily the Enlightenment attack on the Catholic Church and more specifically Voltaire's claim that many of the most important Christian rituals had their origin in Hindu rituals.

German scholars

In 1808, Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) published his Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808). This work distilled his long study of Sanskrit and Indian literature and introduced evidence and hypotheses regarding the affinities between Sanskrit and the languages of Europe, especially Greek, Latin, and German. This kinship had earlier been suggested in the writings of Brisih Sanscrit expert Sir William Jones. Schlegel's work also explored Indian and Oriental philosophies and suggested that these, like the language, had been transmitted to Europe in the remote past. In fact, there was a growing interest in Indian civilization, symbolism, and religion in the Romantic era, and interest also visible in the ideas - often derived from etymological research - of Franz Bopp, Joseph Görres, and Friedrich Creuzer. These writers probed the area of comparative mythology with particular eagerness. Accurate or not in its speculations, German Orientalism was significant in part because it contributed to the ideological formation of a German identity in the l9th century, and not just where the emergence of the anti-Semitic notion of an "Aryan Race" is concerned. In this, the Germans' imaginative explorations were rather distinct from those of the British scholars whose views of India were often gained and conditioned by the colonizing experience. Schlegel modeled his studies on the humanistic project of the Renaissance but predicated on the assumption that all European cultures were united around a Germanic core originally influenced by the Asian East.

British thought: Disraeli

Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), a popular novelist and politician (later prime minister), was outspokenly philo-Semitic. He was a romantic who embraced his own Jewishness (although he had become a member of the Church of England as a young teenager) and in culture, habit, and political policy followed a pattern of Orientalist (spiritual, intuitive, and emotional rather than rational and practical) behavior. He clearly believed that Orientalism, rooted in Turkish and Semitic - both Arabian and Jewish - tradition, if supported and protected by the colonial powers, could offer much of value to the Christian West. Fueled by contemporary ethnology and race theories, Disraeli argued that Jews were a superior, "aristocratic" race destined to become the spiritual and intellectual guides for modern Europe. Enabling such claims was Disraeli's skillful manipulation of Orientalist discourse, whereby he routinely reversed its stereotypical privileging of West over East. Following the example of William Makepeace Thackeray's 1847 satiric response to Disraeli in the story "Codlingsby," however, Schweller (2006) argues that Disraeli's "strategy of reversals" ultimately failed because it did not adequately comprehend traditional Western associations and meanings of "aristocracy," a fundamental misunderstanding that, for Disraeli's political enemies and critics, exposed him yet again as a foreigner, an Oriental, and a Jew.

Proudman (2005) presents a detailed critique of Palestinian American literary theorist Edward Said's representation of 19th-century British politician Benjamin Disraeli as the archetypal Orientalist. Far from functioning as a producer of knowledge about the East that undergirded imperialism, Disraeli remained consistently sympathetic to Islam, both in his 1847 novel Tancred and in his political involvement with the Balkan crises of the 1870's. The novel, published one year after the division of the Tory party, was primarily a critique of British liberalism, in which Disraeli used a romanticized vision of the Orient to attack the values of post-Enlightenment Europe. Said, in failing to take into account Disraeli's political environment, committed factual errors that included erroneously holding him responsible for the occupation of Egypt in 1882.

Conservative Opposition to Sensitivity Guides

Supporters of the traditional usage of the term oriental complain that left-wingers have about banning the word from American textbooks. Toby Merrill of the Yale Book Review states:

All it takes to forever banish a word or image from schools across the nation is a well-placed, vocal group to lobby the Board of Education in either of these states. It is in the California market that publishers feel the most pressure from the left.

Conservative activist Robert Bork in Slouching Towards Gomorrah writes, "Now, however, the educational system has become the weapon of choice for modern liberals in their project of dismantling American culture." Likewise other conservative scholars in "The Language Police", "The Battle of the Books" and "Challenging the Myths about Multicultural Education" have argued for the continued usage of politically incorrect terms including Oriental. Diane Ravitch has documented the existence of an elaborate and well-established protocol of beneficent censorship, quietly endorsed and implemented by textbook publishers, states, and the federal government. "Publishers practice self-censorship to sell books in big states." Ravitch has documented "the 'bias guidelines'" for major publishers of texts and tests. "The "bias guidelines" consist of advice to writers and editors about words and topics that must be avoided."

Laurie Morrow, a former Salvatori Fellow of the Heritage Foundation and professor of English contends:

The language police seek to eliminate anything that might cause students discomfort or distress. The world is, however, a difficult and trying place, full of ideas that must be resisted and fought. What students need to learn are courage and perseverance in the face of difficulty, so that they can confront what should be resisted--including censorship by the language police.

However, even those who support traditional usage of words and terms do not support an end to all sensitivity. Sybil Maimin writes:

Ravitch does not call for elimination of bias and sensitivity panels but rather for their work, now behind closed doors, to be open to public view. She believes that teachers or school districts rather than state officials should choose books for the classroom, which would decrease the power of pressure groups and lessen uniformity. She has confidence that “language evolves in response to social change. Lots of words disappear naturally,”

Alternative terminology

Those who consider the term derogatory or archaic prefer to employ geographical terms for people and places typically described by oriental, e.g., South Asia, East Asia, and South-East Asia. Although the Far Eastern is considered more politically correct than Oriental, East Asian is preferred because this verbiage is significantly less Eurocentric. Other alternative terms include Asia and the Pacific or the Pacific Rim or the Pacific Basin. Terms such as these may also be preferred because they do not collapse East and South-east Asian peoples into the same group.

Current Usage of Oriental and Related Depictions

The term is used widely across a broad spectrum of North America.

In Government

Although the term Oriental is "sometimes offensive", the term remains inoffensive sometimes and wide use in across the United States. This usage is evidenced by many sources. The term is used on a great number of governmental document and websites across in the USA describing place names , medicine, wildlife plants, food and people or communities. The term is even found on Equal Opportunity Employment and Fair Housing documents.

Conversely, at least two state legislatures have passed or proposed legislation declaring a preference for terms other than Oriental in official documents. A finding by the Washington State legislature held that

the use of the term "Oriental" when used to refer to persons of Asian descent is outdated and pejorative. There is a need to make clear that the term "Asian" is preferred terminology, and that this more modern and nonpejorative term must be used to replace outdated terminology.

In 2005, the California senate mandated that the terms "oriental massage" and "oriental medicine" in existing statutes be changed to "Asian medicine" and "Asian massage." Despite this "mandate" businesses and schools across California and the country continue to employ the term. California has not purged the term from current documents or websites and the term remains on many pages which display "© 2007 State of California".

"Orient" was commonly used in business names, as evidenced by older companies such as Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, Mandarin Oriental, Oriental Financial Group, Inc.,Orient Thai Airlines, Orient Steam Navigation Company, Orient Watch Co., and Neptune Orient Lines.

Other

According to the FBI, some Asian gangs, the "OPB" ("Oriental Playboys"), and the ORB ("Oriental Rutheless Boys"), refer to themselves as oriental.

Conservative commentators and prominent Filipina Michelle Malkin regularly employ the term. .

The Oriental Food Association , Oriental Bellydancer Association , The Association of Oriental Arts , the Shriners and other social groups continue to use the term. The American Association of Oriental Medicine and many other state-specific associations of oriental medicine still use the term. The World Wide Web has a profusion of "oriental" pornography and so-called mail order bride sites that exploit stereotypes as well desperate individuals on both sides of the transaction. The Oriental Martial Arts College and other martial arts organizations employ the term regularly.

European usage

"Oriental" is not controversial in Europe, where the word is considered neutral and in widespread usage as evidenced by its usage on the online British Monarchy Media Centre. In France the terms "l'Occident" and "l'Orient" are used without any negative associations in academic contexts. In Europe the term is often used to describe cuisine, trade goods, ancient culture, and religions, at times to denote an exotic quality with upmarket or mildly positive connotations. In the UK the term "Asian" has become almost exclusively tied to the Indian subcontinent, as evidenced through BBC Asian Network, a radio station of the BBC devoted to the British Asian community - though the term South Asian is becoming more widely-used.

Bibliography

• Bisaha, Nancy. Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and the Ottoman Turks (2004)
• Hamilton, Alistair, and Francis Richard. André Du Ryer and Oriental Studies in Seventeenth-Century France (2004)
• Irwin, Robert. Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents. Overlook, 2006. 416 pp.
• Klein, Christina. Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945-1961 (2003), re American perceptions
• Kontje, Todd. German Orientalisms. U. of Michigan Press, 2004. 316 pp.
• Lennon, Joseph. Irish Orientalism: A Literary and Intellectual History. Syracuse U. Press, 2004. 478 pp.
• Lewis, Reina. Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel and the Ottoman Harem. Rutgers U. Press, 2004. 297 pp.
• Lockman, Zachary. Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism. Cambridge U. Press, 2004. 308 pp.
• Matar, Nabil ed. , In the Lands of Christians: Arabic Travel Writing in the Seventeenth Century (2003)
• Yoshihara, Mari. Embracing the East: White Women and American Orientalism. Oxford U. Press, 2003. 242 pp.

Further reading

• On Asian and Oriental Model Minority posting by Alan Hu
• Banned Words For comparative analysis: a list "banned" words (including Oriental) as documented by Diane Ravitch.
• The Language Police: How Pressure Groups Restrict What Students Learn Explains how "Oriental" and other terms were "banned" from textbooks