Orientalism
I read a column in today's NY Daily News by Zev Chafets which reminded me of an old Diane Ravitch article in American Scholar magazine. She described Orientalism -- if I can recall correctly today an article I read 10 years ago -- just as Chafets did and pretty much the same as Hitchens did: as making the claim that Westerners are inherently incapable of understanding anything non-Western, particularly Islam, and that attempts to do so are necessarily "imperialistic".
Chafets writes:
'Like all great polemics, "Orientalism" rests on a simple thesis: Westerners are inherently unable to fairly judge, or ever grasp, the Arab world. In fact, any attempt to do so amounts to an art of intellectual imperialism. ...Indeed, studying the subject is tantamount to colonialist aggression'
In other words, hands off, or we'll nail your politically incorrect hide to the wall. --Uncle Ed 19:44, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)
