The exotic East

Taking a break from primary blogging, there's a minor discussion going on in various bits of the blogosphere over what texts the Pentagon should have been reading to learn about the Middle East. Over at Crooked Timber, Kathy G. suggested that they should have been reading Orientalism instead of the somewhat kooky Arab Mind. Matt is skeptical. James Joyner suggests "Wouldn’t we be even better off if, instead, they used a book that hadn’t been widely discredited? Say, Bernard Lewis’ Islam and the West?"

This is basically a fruitless debate, because as in the Israel/Palestine debate--for which this is basically a proxy--there is precious little middle ground. Middle Eastern Studies professors are, as far as I can tell, overwhelmingly in the Edward Said camp; they regard Bernard Lewis the same way those in the Lewis/Pipes camp regard Said.

The fundamental problem with all the books is the same: they're all trying to offer an inside perspective on the culture from outside the culture. The Pentagon is not going to read Edward Said for the same reason that most Middle Eastern scholars like him: he writes as an outsider deeply critical of western culture. No government institution can accept such a text as canonical, certainly not here.

The problem is, Kathy G. is right: regardless of the book's errors, those are the sort of things the Pentagon should be reading, even if the work in question has problems. Our planners spent too much time reading western opinions on Arab culture, when it was at least as important to know how we looked to them. That's not something an outsider can or will tell you. And I'd say that Edward Said's main error was in thinking that because the west is the hegemonic culture, he was immune from this problem.

Comments

The Mitrokhin Archive, or some book by a former Eastern Bloc spy that deals with "active measures." Litvinenko's books, had they been published, would have been particularly insightful. Then they would have realized that Russia is the one pulling the strings behind every major terrorist group, and that the US in the Middle East driving up oil prices is precisely what Putin had in mind.

Posted by Stephen Smith | May 6, 2008 9:58 PM

First, Said was an English professor, not a real deep middle eastern expert. IMHO, his work caught on with the general anti-everything-western movement in academia that was taking place in the 70's.

Certainly anyone trying to understand ME issues should read from all perspectives, but Said wasn't representative. He was a rich Christian who was private schooled.

The reality of the ME and the Arab world is complex. Israel/PA issues are very newsworthy here, but it's a small slice of the history of the region and of its current conflicts. I'm not sure what are the best books to start with, there's a lot of ground to cover, beyond the usual deploring of capitalist-imperialist-patriarchal blah-blahs.

Posted by JoshK | May 6, 2008 10:05 PM

Well, no. Actually Edward Said was pretty standard academic Western babyboomer leftist in approach. That's why he never mentioned that his parents had fled Egypt after Islamic fundamentalists had made their lives there impossible.
You want a real "outsider" iconoclast? Check out V.S. Naipal. (Though, of course, he rightly sees himself as part of the Western tradition of thought and writing at a very high level.)

But, yeah, of course, Kathy G. wouldn't know that.

Off topic somewhat: McArdles' reaching out to Kathy G. (starting with the, of all things, Dolly Parton post) has been both gracious and classy.

McArdle may be even too generous. There are worse sins.

Posted by former grad student | May 6, 2008 11:50 PM

Reading Said sure kept Hitchens from supporting the war.

Posted by Thomas | May 7, 2008 12:27 AM

Megan--

You said, "The Pentagon is not going to read Edward Said...."

I'm curious as to why you believe that.

First, the Pentagon employs scads of analysts whose job it is to read everything available about anything that may concern the US military. The notion that not one of those analysts has ever read Said is disturbing, because it displays serious ignorance about the way the Pentagon approaches its mission.

Second, senior officers of the Army are incredibly well educated in a wide variety of disciplines. It's difficult to get promoted to Colonel without a master's degree; even more difficult to become a general without a Ph.D. Gen. Petraeus, for example, has an MPA and Ph.D. from Princeton. Do you really believe that every single one of these people has refused to read Said?

It's almost certainly correct to suggest that we don't have enough senior officers with advanced degrees in fields directly relevant to conflict in the Middle East.

It's probably also correct to say that the DoD doesn't hold Said in high regard.

But to say that the Pentagon won't read him demonstrates either ignorance or bigotry on your part.

Posted by KODjr | May 7, 2008 5:18 AM

Read? Why not just talk to people who've lived in the area? Like the friend of mine who declared "The Yanks are potty to think they'll be welcomed: those buggers just hate the lot of us."

Posted by dearieme | May 7, 2008 6:16 AM

I was dating an Arab at the time, and I got it wrong . . .

I'm not saying no one in DoD has read Said; I'm saying that it's probably not going to end up on their official reading list. I'm no expert, of course, but it seems institutionally difficult for a number of reasons.

Posted by Megan McArdle | May 7, 2008 8:26 AM

Megan,

Now you're really venturing into territory that you know nothing about.

You wrote:
"The fundamental problem with all the books is the same: they're all trying to offer an inside perspective on the culture from outside the culture. The Pentagon is not going to read Edward Said for the same reason that most Middle Eastern scholars like him: he writes as an outsider deeply critical of western culture. No government institution can accept such a text as canonical, certainly not here."

Um, Orientalism, or any of Said's work and thought was NOT trying to offer a correct inside perspective of 'the arab world' from 'the west'. He rejected these false dichotomies--that was the main thrust of his life.

And um, Said was a fluent Arab speaker born in Jerusalem--hard to paint him as someone outside the 'Arab world.'

Posted by rickm | May 7, 2008 9:45 AM

And for the record, claiming that there is no middle ground between Said/Lewis, is a statement that completely contradicts the prevailing historiography on the Middle East.

Posted by rickm | May 7, 2008 10:15 AM

The problem is, Kathy G. is right: regardless of the book's errors, those are the sort of things the Pentagon should be reading, even if the work in question has problems. Our planners spent too much time reading western opinions on Arab culture, when it was at least as important to know how we looked to them. That's not something an outsider can or will tell you.

I don't think this is thought through enough. Megan's argument is fundamentally contradictory.

Megan states that our military should read accounts written by Arabs to learn "how we looked to them [Arabs]". Presumably, then, Megan thinks that our military can learn "how we looked to them" by reading their works directly. But why, then, does she think that a scholar like Lewis cannot read their works and subsequently recount to the military what they say? What's the difference between the military reading the Arab writing directly and the military reading scholars like Lewis who have read those Arab works themselves?

In fact, I think it is probably better to read Western scholars than to read Arab works directly, unless you are steeped in Arab culture enough to understand the relevant references.

The best analogy is to a translator of a foreign language. I can read spanish at a high school level. So if I want to learn about spanish culture, is it better to try to read a complex book by a spanish writer directly in original spanish? Or is it better to read a translation by a Westerner who will also be able to interpret the work and give you insight into what is being written about. You lose something in the translation, but you likely gain more in return.

Posted by Al | May 7, 2008 11:07 AM

Al-

You could read Bernard Lewis' or Daniel Pipes' interpretation of Arab texts...... or pay attention to the other 99% of scholars who aren't has-been hacks.

Posted by rickm | May 7, 2008 11:15 AM

rickm: Interesting that you don't include Said in the "has-been hacks" category, despite it fitting him, on the scholarly evidence, better than Lewis.

But then, you seem more interested in the trends of historiography than mere factual or logical errors. Ask Ibn Warraq about Said, perhaps?

Posted by Sigivald | May 7, 2008 1:27 PM

Sigivald-

I stopped reading Ibn Warraq after he claimed that Egypt could not have been colonized by the British because Egypt was a British protectorate, not a colony. He also said that Britain could not have colonized Pakistan, because Pakistan didn't exist before 1947.

I stopped because those are two of the dumbest things I ever heard, and Ibn Warraq assumed his readers would buy it.

Posted by rickm | May 7, 2008 2:16 PM

I stopped because those are two of the dumbest things I ever heard, and Ibn Warraq assumed his readers would buy it.

Compared to what has, and continues to, pass muster as "fact" or "conventional wisdom" or "worldview" or what have you in the various corners of the intellectual desert that is Islam in general, and the Arab "world" in particular, I should think these two howlers are pretty small beer. Their only interest is that they run more than a tad counter to the usual nonsense peddled by people with names like "Ibn."

Posted by Dick Eagleson | May 7, 2008 8:20 PM