Hentsch points out early in his essay that European exploration was a means by which they could attain lands. By thoroughly exploiting these new lands, Europeans saw them as their own possessions: “The Other became reified as it was conquered, subjugated, sold, exploited, or merely explored” (82). This was not merely economic exploitation, but rather a complicated conception of what it meant to (as Helen stated) “possess” a land. Hentsch notes, “commerce aside, curiosity remained the principal means of penetration and appropriation of this nearby, but still untamed Orient” (85). Europeans “pillaged” these lands as they gobbled up texts, sculptures, and other artifacts and brought them back to their homelands. This curiosity can be admired, but the selfishness and ulterior motive of domination soiled this intellectual inquisitiveness.
Historians, travelers, and writers of the day distinguished between groups that comprised the “Orient” but overall these groups were seen in a less kind light than their own people’s character traits. It seems that laziness and idleness are common factors among these people, according to European accounts. I think that because they were potential economic contenders with the Europeans (compared to American Indians and African tribes, who were regularly described as “savages”), they tacked on arbitrary descriptors such as laziness to those of the Orient because it was harder to distinguish the two groups.
Despotism follows in the vein. Because they had functioning governments similar to that of the Europeans (again, much more similar compared to the tribal structure of other groups), there had to be some way to distinguish them, preferably in a negative way. Here in laid the groundwork for referring to such Oriental governments as despotic. Hentsch writes that “As with the Turks, the Persian despot’s absolute, personal and arbitrary power, resting as it did exclusively upon military force, contrasted utterly with that of ‘these happy Lands of Europe where the authority of law guarantees the life and goods of all against violence of all kinds,’ wrote Chardin without batting an eyelid when, in his own country, the king could, on a whim, imprison any person indefinitely without trial” (91). The structure of their governments, and thus the hierarchy and wellbeing of the people were too similar; a negative contrast had to be made. Even though the structures were frighteningly similar, “the fundamental aim of the voyage was to consolidate existing values and convictions…. The crux of the issue was that they were different” (92). To prove their superiority, Europeans had to insist that they had progressed past this stage of despotism. Though their was strong appreciation for the works and creations of the Orient, this admiration, “…was almost exclusively for its past, upon which the West would often draw. Rarely was it for the present, where occasional benevolence barely concealed a strongly condescending tone” (112). The West paid credence to what they admired about the Orient, but shelved it all as past accomplishments to put themselves at the top in the present.
Hi Billy, I agree with your characterization of how Europeans justified their admiration for the Orient by saying it was based in past accomplishments rather than in present impressiveness. What was interesting in the reading, though, was that even here the Europeans were unfair: they claimed full inheritance of Antiquity as part of their tradition as if the Greeks and Romans belonged (and belonged only) to the Europeans.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I thought an interesting theme in the reading was the similarity/closeness Europeans saw between themselves and "the orient." It's a different sort of "otherness" (and in some ways more difficult to understand/identify) than the discourse of savagery etc. that we saw in the past few weeks.
ReplyDeleteI also thought Hentsch did a good job of arguing that by putting the Middle East in a historical perspective made it seem more distant and less threatening. It fit into their idea that European civilization represented the culmination of civilization, with predecessors in Ancient Greece, Persia and the Middle East.
ReplyDeleteIt was interesting that Europeans would lay such claim to the past, yet seem to think that there is such a great distance between them in the present. I believe that acknowledging the present would mean ackowledging that there was another society that had accomplished the transition to civilization. It would ruin the European perspective that saw them at the center, and forefront of modernization and god's people.
ReplyDeleteMackenzie Tudor
I like your reference to the Native Americans - that they were seen as 'savages' while 'Orientals' were 'lazy' and 'despotic' - and your observation that this was linked to the perceived economic and political rivalry with the East, which simply didn't exist in the New World.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the new European benevolence towards the East was largely an admiration of the past and not the present. However, I don't think it arose to make Europeans feel superior. While some monarchs did commission reports on the Orient, many accounts simply reflected their author's beliefs that the East was in decline. And in fact, following the Wars of Religion of the sixteenth century, this technological difference was quite apparent.
ReplyDeleteI interpreted the disparity between European views of the New World and the Orient as an effort to make time replace distance as a method of representing difference. This came out of the conflict between Enlightenment, empirical science and the vague geographical conceptions of "the Orient"
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