The Study Of Said's Humanistic Cultural Criticism

Since the 1980s,as the impact of the post-modern thoughts and the trend of the globalization develop,The thought of cultural criticism of Edward Said becomes a school of theory and its influence extends from literature and culture to history,political science,sociology,and other fields,broadening the horizon and study of the cultural and social science and has an deep impact on these fields.The studies of Said at present focus on the field of post-colonialism and few of them are from a humanist perspective.From the entire academic career of Edward Said,humanism is not only an ideal of his life-long struggle,but also the final purport of his academic studies and social activities.Said’s study on orientalism,the relationship between culture and imperialism,secular criticism as well as the social responsibility of the intellectuals are all related to his humanist thought.Based on close reading of the original texts of Edward Said,this paper is to re-interpret his cultural criticism from the humanist context,trying to comb the trend of development,the content and the characteristics of Said’s humanist critical theory in a larger ideological context.The main contents of the paper are as follows:The introductory part is an overview of the writing of this paper,including the causes and significance of choosing this topic,the present study on this topic at home and abroad,the arrangement of the contents and the methods of research etc.Because of the significance of humanism in Said’s cultural criticism and the relatively insufficiency in this area,this paper,on the basis of close reading,is to re-read and summarize the development and the characteristics of Said’s cultural criticism from a humanist perspective,and by this to compensate for the weakness of the humanist perspective.The second chapter based on combing Said’s life and the main contents of his works,identifies the important position of humanism in understanding Said cultural criticism.Said’s life experiences in the Middle East,as well as his experiences of living between the two cultures of the east and the west is particularly important for the formation of his academic thinking.His cultural criticism involves many fields,which consist primarily of the topics discourse representation,knowledge and power,cultural identity,secular criticism and intellectuals.Because of the extreme emphasis in present research on the perspective of postcolonialism in Said’s thought,this chapter compares the contents of Said’s thought and theory of the postcolonialism,and gets the conclusion that the perspective of postcolonialism in Said’s thought is of much importance,but it is not the whole,it can not cover Said’s theories on secular criticism,intellectuals and other important issues,therefore all of Said’s cultural criticism theory should not be included into the scope of post-colonialism.From the works of Said,his study on the discourse reproduction and other issues are is the organic components of his humanist thought,which runs through his literary and cultural criticism,providing an important philosophical background and ideological guidance for his academic research.Therefore,humanism is a key to the understanding of Said’s the academic thought and political practice.The third chapter illustrates some important cultural criticism texts of Said,such as Orientalism,Culture and Imperialism from a humanist perspective,and combs the development of Said humanist ideas.From a logical point of view,Said humanism critical criticism experiences three stages:from anti-representation to resistance and then to the cultural co-existence.Orientalism is the logical starting point.In the study of the East,Said proves with quantities of historical events that orientalism is a system of discourse representation of the West to the East.This system departs from the real existence of the East and forms a self-referring and close discourse,which belongs to the typical liberal tradition in the study of humanism and behind which is the cultural domination and the ideology of the colonial expansion of the west imperialism.The east in the orientalism is dehumanized,demonized,and changes from a free domain into a colonial space;orientalist are also modelized and become tools in this tradition,losing their freedom as human being.The first step of Said’s humanist cultural criticism is to comb the history in a reversed way in the name of humanism,reexamine the system of representation of orientalism and then present the antihumanist traits of this system.The next step after the anti-representation is cultural resistance,which is also a double liberation process.On the one hand,to the east,the cultural resistance is a way for the former colonial countries to seek liberation and independence of national culture;on the other hand,in terms of Western intellectuals,cultural resistance is also a way to get rid of the control of "the structure of attitude and reference" of orientalism,and is the best expression to seek their will.With in-depth understanding of the cultural exchanges,Said recognizes that on certain stages in the development of national culture,cultural resistance is a necessary strategy,but it does not solve the whole problem.From resistance to dialogue,and to construct an equal and tolerant multicultural society is an ideal state of cultural existence.As to this ideal,Said,one hand,extends to prove in theory the hybridity of culture and the uncertainty of cultural identity,on the other hand,intervenes politics with aesthetics and seek his worldwide humanist ideal of the multicultural symbiosis.The fourth chapter summarizes theoretically the connotation,characteristics and strategies of Said’s humanist cultural criticism,Said’s humanism grows out of the Western traditional humanism.From the point of view ideological core,he inherits the humanist spirits of freedom,democracy and progress,and his ultimate purport is to seek an equal and tolerant multicultural society.However,different from the research perspective of the traditional humanism,Said does not define humanism from the metaphysical level or epistemological level.On the contrary,his concern is humanist practice,thus,practice is a prominent character of Said humanist cultural criticism,and secularity and criticism are two basic characteristics of his thought.Secular humanism is manifested in two aspects:literary criticism and the secular nature of the humanities.In literary criticism,Said refutes the then prevalent poststructuralist criticism in the U.S.,adheres to "truth" and "meaning" and other factors in literary interpretation,in stark contrast with the "anti-humanism" fashion in criticism,thus highlighting the humanist aspirations of literary criticism.Based on this,Said includes the humanities into criticism vision,points out that the traditional Western humanism is a cultural spirit which is based on hierarchy,having the typical characteristics of elitism and exclusivity and thus losing its effectiveness in marginalized groups.Said advocates secular humanism to broaden the scope of its research,and make it open to all peoples and cultures.The other basic feature Said’s humanist critical thinking is critical.Traditional Western non-secular humanism not only clears the voice of the marginalized groups,but also become a tool of oppression,and thus becomes its opposite.Therefore,restoring the secularity of humanism is accompanied by a critique of traditional humanism,to strip the covering and distortion on the marginalized groups of the mainstream ideology and take the underlying "others" to the surface,to the humanities vision,and then extend humanism practice.Philology has important methodological significance in criticizing the narrowness of the traditional humanism and in resuming the secular nature humanism.Philology is an effective way to open the domination of discourse and to enter the others’ existence.It is also a royal way to achieve humanism,and thus bears the mission of rebuilding the integrity of humanist practice.The fifth chapter examines Said’s theory of intellectuals.The practical characteristics of Said humanist criticism decides his emphasis on the problem of intellectuals and this is a key problem in Said’s cultural criticism which is related to success or failure of the humanist practice.After examining the situations of intellectuals,Said pointes out that intellectuals are facing difficult choices:either be assimilated,or be ignored.In this regard,Said clarifies the image of his ideal intellectuals,that is,"indomitable erudition".To accomplish this,the intellectuals on the one hand should maintain their secularity,intervene the society with their knowledge;on the other hand,they should stick to the state of exile and amateur,keeping away from the system of power,seeking independence space from sparse and tainted network of power speaking truth to the power the power to tell the truth.Said himself shows to the world such a heroic and idealistic image of a public intellectual with his life-long writing and action.The last part is conclusion.This part summarizes the main points of the paper,and introduces briefly some important but neglected issues in the study of Said.