ME 273 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Deconstruction, Adobe After Effects, Lawrence Grossberg
29 Apr 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Durrani 1
Fatima Durrani
Saad Lakhani
3rd March 2017
Topic: How has the discourse of ‘The West and the Rest’ been shaped by and given rise to ideas
about ‘civilization’, ‘progress’ and ‘identity’? Answer with reference to Stuart Hall’s chapter ‘The
West and the Rest: Discourse and Power.’ It is also useful to look at relevant encyclopaedic
entries in your course pack.
A discourse is a set of statements that constructs an object of knowledge. Discourses
travel, are actively circulated and are extensively used by people of various positions to set up
objects of knowledge on the basis of their opinions. The focus of this paper will be on the
argument that the discourse ‘The West and the Rest’ has been shaped by the active circulation of
ideas regarding ‘civilization’, by the travelling of different interpretations of ‘progress’ and by
various opinions regarding identity with reference to Stuart Hall’s chapter ‘The West and the
Rest: Discourse and Power.’. The discourse in turn has also played an active role in giving a rise
to the importance of these ideas and moulding them in order to fit the many, multi-faceted
complexities of this discourse. The idea of ‘The West and the Rest’ is a very provocative idea and
has a wide array of historical occurrences and reasoning’s that have shaped this historical
construct.
Civilization:
The word Civilization has been defined as ‘‘…the humanization of man in society”, ‘‘a
developed or advanced state of human society” and ‘‘the action or process of civilizing or of
being civilized.’’ (New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, pg. 35) The
word civilization has strongly tied connections with the Enlightenment period in context of the
Western history which is essential regarding the discourse of ‘The West and the Rest’. The
Durrani 2
period of Enlightenment was a very important time of scientific, political and cultural awakening
for Europe. During this period, ideas about ‘civilization’ and the importance of ‘being civilized’
and ‘civilizing’ perked up. These ideas regarding civilization were starkly dichotomized, narrow
and digressive in a sense that they were very quick digress from their supposed premises to
desired conclusions. The civilization card played an active role in constructing the idea of the
‘West’. Colonizers repeatedly used this word to define themselves and to degrade the differences
that they observed in the natives of the lands that they ‘visited’ to conquer. These differences
were stringently ‘oriented’ and mis-recognized. According to the European point of view,
civilization is all that is clearly observable in Amerigo Vespucci in Van der Straet’s painting
‘America’. Civilization to them was ‘Western knowledge’, ‘Catholicism’, ‘government’, ‘civil
society’ and ‘technological advancement’. All of these elements represented the ‘basis of all
civilization’ (p. 304). While it’s one heavily opinionated idea to have a certain constricted image
of a self-constructed, imagined civilization, it is quite another to demand that all civilizations
conform to these pre-requisites and display them in order to be categorized as ‘civilized’. The
colonizers supposedly set out to civilize all those that needed to be civilized on the basis of a
self-proposed model that depicted perfect civilization. These steps that were taken to ‘civilize’
the natives of the lands that the colonizers ‘discovered’ were steps so drastic, and in certain cases,
so unimaginably inhumane that the immediate and after-effects of these steps resulted in the
gradual construction of the ‘West and the Rest’ discourse. The steps taken by the colonizers
included the repeated stating of the fact that they were unarguably the ‘higher’ race and
possessed knowledge that was high enough to only be comprehended by them. The use of force
and excellent rhetoric to reinstate these facts every provided moment resulted in the natives
accepting the ‘West and the Rest’ discourse. This discourse introduced the West as the epitome
of civilization at its highest.
The repeated use of the civilization card and the ‘civilizing you’ rhetoric gave shape to this
discourse and also took shape in return. Civilization, a word previously used to describe a civil
Document Summary
Answer with reference to stuart hall"s chapter the. West and the rest: discourse and power. " it is also useful to look at relevant encyclopaedic entries in your course pack. A discourse is a set of statements that constructs an object of knowledge. Discourses travel, are actively circulated and are extensively used by people of various positions to set up objects of knowledge on the basis of their opinions. The discourse in turn has also played an active role in giving a rise to the importance of these ideas and moulding them in order to fit the many, multi-faceted complexities of this discourse. The idea of the west and the rest" is a very provocative idea and has a wide array of historical occurrences and reasoning"s that have shaped this historical construct. 35) the word civilization has strongly tied connections with the enlightenment period in context of the.
