Edward Said may not be the most controversial figure in academia, but he certainly made waves when he founded the completely new world academic field of postcolonial studies. A professor of literature by training, Said's influence extended to many different academic fields during his time. None of his works have been as influential as Orientalism, published nearly forty years ago but which remains of great relevance to the modern world, particularly regarding the Western world's relationship with the Middle East. This discussion paper addresses the main thesis of Orientalism: that the Middle East is misrepresented in Western culture precisely because it is represented in the first place. In this way the term “representation” is central to the entire dialogue of Orientalism and also to many of Said's later works. This discussion paper addresses two specific questions: First, what does Said mean by representation? And, second, do representations matter for political theory in postcolonial constellations? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The short answer to the first question is that “representation” is represented by the quote above: Representation is replacing actual experience and knowledge with a perceived reality based on an interpretation historically, politically, and culturally informed. The portrayal does not necessarily exclude the truth, but it has denigrated the West's relationship with the Middle East for centuries. The representations are relevant to the idea of ​​'Orientalism' as a whole because, as another scholar has stated, Said "advanced a global critique of the West, particularly English, French and American, writing on the Middle East and including literature, history, political science, and other sciences” (Halliday 145). Representations, in this way, are the foundation of what anti-imperialists and postcolonial thinkers see as a wholly inaccurate body of knowledge. in these various disciplines. The short answer to the second question is that, yes, representations matter for political theory in postcolonial constellations. The main conclusion of this discussion, then, is that the cultural imperialism of the modern world (which takes the form of representations) is as real as the political and military imperialism of the past. This political theory article does not attempt to provide a holistic summary of Said's work, nor to advance a specific opinion on the validity o on the value of Said's theories in Orientalism. The discussion instead attempts to address the theory itself and address its relevance to the modern political world. Overall, the discussion highlights that the representation is a cultural critique of modern and established disciplines and discourses, and that the concept remains not only an accurate description of the state of affairs, but also relevant to the relationship between the West and the East today. The first theoretical question to ask and answer concerns what Said means by the term "representation" in the first place. Thankfully, Said is a rather talented writer and explains both his theoretical framework and the required evidence in a coherent and direct manner that leaves little doubt about his meaning. As noted above, the best understanding of representation in relation to the necessary but obviously tenuous relationship between the Western world and the Middle East can be summarizedin the following words of Said: “All knowledge concerning human society… is historical knowledge, and therefore is based on judgment and interpretation. This does not mean that facts or data do not exist, but that facts derive their importance from what is done with them in interpretation” (22). This is a description of "representation" in relation to the world as a whole; for example, knowledge of George Washington depends on culture, politics, nation state, and other factors that place an individual. However, its relevance to the relationship between East and West is clear: Said is saying that the West (whether an American historian or a British foreign diplomat) does not have direct knowledge of society in the Middle East, but only knowledge that it depends on personal, political or cultural judgment and interpretation. “Real” knowledge of the Middle East exists, but any part of it that relates to the West is, as Said states, almost inherently subject to interpretation. Said is not making a cultural critique of human interpretation as a whole. In this way, “representation” as a theoretical term has much more to do with West versus East, or rather West versus East. As Said states, "Unlike the Americans, the French and the English... have had a long tradition of what I will call orientalism, a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient's special place in the Western European experience" (20). This is the cornerstone of Said's scholastic work, and essentially means that relationships between Western nations – such as France and Britain – are not shaped exclusively by today's reality, but above all by past interpretations of what it means to relate to what which was to be called the East. The idea of ​​an “Orient” may be at least a century old, but it seems that the idea has remained true to cultural norms and inherent personal biases. Said clarifies this point, stating that it must be clear “about cultural discourse and exchange within a culture that what is commonly disseminated by it is not 'truth' but representations” (21). In other words, any cultural exchange undertaken by one culture depends on a representation (accurate or inaccurate) of the other. This representation, Said argues, is built not so much on contemporary reality as on the “institutions, traditions, conventions, and agreed upon codes of understanding” with which foreign culture has been approached in the past (Said 22). What does Said mean by representation? It means that making sense of the Middle East, from a Western perspective, has not yet depended on the Middle East, but has instead depended on the West itself, creating a sort of tautological set of knowledge that may not be all that useful. to move forward. Instead of expanding knowledge, Said seems to be saying that representations tend to reduce knowledge: “Note how easily the 'Arab' seems to adapt to the transformations and reductions…to which he is continually forced” (285). This is not a productive approach or use of knowledge and can be potentially harmful not only to the Middle East but to the entire relationship between Western and Middle Eastern nations, damaging economic, political and cultural relations. It is also clear that these views are harmful to academia, which may be equally important considering that representations are shaped primarily by historical interpretation. The term can be further understood by considering the different forms that representation takes, as advanced by Said. They include the “politics of cultural relations,” reducing the Middle East to “mere Islam” and making “the East” paramountin international relations and postcolonial economics (Said 293). He goes on to say that modern investing in the Middle East “is built on a foundation of sand, as experts educate policy based on marketable abstractions such as political elites, modernization and stability, most of which are simply the old ideas orientalists. stereotypes disguised in political jargon” (Said 321). Clearly, what Said means by representation is not just a historical description of the evils of the past as the West treated them in the East in academic writings, political speeches, and even in economic choices such as investment and development. Instead, it is an ongoing issue that cuts to the core of how the West tends to understand the Middle East – as an entirely separate culture, with not too much in common, but just enough in common to make “Arab” a valuable investment partner. This last aspect of the term representation brings the discussion to the secondary question of this article: why is the theoretical framework formed by Said almost half a century ago important for the modern world, when we are now well beyond the colonial era? This is perhaps the most important question, since the main purpose of Said's writings is to demonstrate that representation in cultural exchange between East and West is not a question of the past, but a problem of both the present and the future. So far, the term “representation” has seemed largely relevant to the colonial powers of the past: France, Britain, Spain, and so on. However, the reason representations matter today is because they did not simply disappear with the end of colonialism (in the political and military sense). This cultural approach has remained in the Western psyche, in an unconscious way that has made it potentially even more insidious, even within a country that did not have a colonial past (at least not in the traditional sense of the term): the United States of 'America. Since World War II, the United States has also been committed to the representational approach to understanding itself in relation to the Middle East. As Said states, “a vast network of interests now connects all parts of the former colonial world to the United States, just as a proliferation of academic subspecialties divides (and yet connects) all formerly philological and European disciplines such as Orientalism” ( 284). In other words, the West's colonial influence on the United States did not stop at the political and military situation. There was a cultural element to colonialism that was allowed to survive, largely because it was an unconscious part of Western thinking. Said goes on to state that in the decades following World War II, “the Arab Muslim has become a figure in American popular culture, as well as in academia, the world of policy planners, and in the business world much attention is paid to being paid the Arabic” (284). The simple fact that this idea of ​​“Arab” continues to exist today, until 2016, demonstrates that the influence of representations of the past has certainly influenced representations of the present. Said concludes this part of the discussion with a powerful statement: “A wide variety of hybrid representations of the East roam the culture today. Islam and the Arabs have their representations... and here we will treat them as they manifest themselves in that fragmentary - but strongly and ideologically coherent - persistence, much less discussed, into which, in the United States, traditional European orientalism has flowed. .” In other words, representations remain powerful in culture, politics, and historical dialogue because they shift everyone's ideological focus..