Richard Clarke: Orientalist?
Funny what happens when you watch PBS while reading media texts for comprehensive exams. I just polished off Edward Said's Orientalism, and suddenly all sorts of Orientalist claptrap began standing out for me, like when Richard Clarke was arguing on the PBS Newshour yesterday that releasing photos of Osama bin Laden "solves no problem": it wouldn't work because "conspiracy theories are a part of their [Muslim?] culture." Right, no home-grown conspiracy theorists in the USA...
Afterward was a doc on Machu Picchu, and I was struck by the rapid rise and fall of Inca civilization, and its remarkable communications network. In a generation or two, they conquered much of South America, and within a hundred years or so, their empire was gone. They had roads to rival the Romans, but no wheel or iron. They also had no written language, and I wondered what Harold Innis would make of that -- an empire with a huge space bias, but an oral culture. But even so, perhaps writing of some kind is necessary in any civilization that lasts: after all, oral cultures in the Innisian dichotomy still have writing, only they seem to save it for writing down the most important things in more durable media.
Afterward was a doc on Machu Picchu, and I was struck by the rapid rise and fall of Inca civilization, and its remarkable communications network. In a generation or two, they conquered much of South America, and within a hundred years or so, their empire was gone. They had roads to rival the Romans, but no wheel or iron. They also had no written language, and I wondered what Harold Innis would make of that -- an empire with a huge space bias, but an oral culture. But even so, perhaps writing of some kind is necessary in any civilization that lasts: after all, oral cultures in the Innisian dichotomy still have writing, only they seem to save it for writing down the most important things in more durable media.
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