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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (33960)	7/8/2002 9:15:16 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Notice how he does not make this prohibition conditional on what the scholars do or do not know. It's quite clear he's talking about the frame. And it's also quite clear, with his discussion of Lewis only knowing Turkey and that not too well, that he thinks Lewis lacks first hand knowledge. Notice, and he says this quite clearly, it's Lewis lack of first hand knowledge that is the issue, not his ethnic background. No, John, it's far from clear. Aside from one comment about music, he gives no examples of the supposed ignorance and patronising in the text, he just indulges in one long ad hominem attack. After reading that whole review, we both know that Said hates Lewis but we don't know what aspects of Lewis' conclusions he disagrees with -- or what Lewis' conclusions were, for that matter, since they are not mentioned. Said's attacks on Lewis are sweeping and not backed by so much as textual citations in the review. He says Lewis doesn't have first hand knowledge, except for Turkey. That's one hell of a charge to make against an eminent scholar of medieval Islamic history without giving evidence. Nor would it necessarily be damning even if true -- Lewis spent his career as a medieval historian. Since time travel is not an option, medieval historians usually get their information from books and archaeology. Are these sources supposed to be discredited now? He says Islam is complex. Well sure it is. Christianity is complex too. Nevertheless, good books have been written about Christian history and culture. Generalizations have their use in history, as long as we know that they are generalizations. It is useful to talk about the "Middle Ages" or the "Rennaissance" in European history, even though these terms are sweeping generalizations. Did Said say what exactly was wrong with Lewis' generalizations, or what they even were in the first place? This is, of course, your own conclusion. There is, unfortunately for your assertion, a great deal of westerners explaining the middle east to westerners that Said not only doesn't condemn. There is an entire field of endeavor out there that he helped establish that has a great many westerners in it. The trouble with this field, is that the westerners in it can only escape the charges of "Orientalism" by imitating Said. Kinda puts a damper on intellectual freedom, that, as Kramer points out. Your list of suggestions would be good if Said stopped there, or limited himself to addressing issues and not persons. He never does -- the personal and the political are always prominent in his arguments, to the detriment of serious scholarship.