Orientalism Today

In Edward Said's Orientalism, Said creates a new definition of orientalism. He defines it as the West heavily trying to influence and imperialize the west. His view forces people to see the East in a new way because it makes it seem as if the East is inferior to the West. This has been an ongoing thing in society; the West has always had some kind of power of the East and how they are viewed by the rest of the world. All of the power lies in the West, while the East is being over-powered by the East. Orientalism has an interesting effect on the way Western culture is viewed. It makes it seem as if the culture and norms of Western culture is the best to have in any society, and gives the West the power to enforce those powers.

In today's society, I think that there is still a lot of orientalism, though it may not be super obvious because it seems to be something that society is used to. I think that the constant fear of Muslims that Western culture has enforced is a big part of modern day orientalism. It has forced people to look at any Muslim as someone who's a terrorist, even if they are nothing close to that. The West has really forced a strong feeling of fear of the East onto people, proving their power.

I don't want to speak for everyone in Western culture, but I do think that orientalism has effected all of our lives, especially today with the amount of Islamaphobia imprinted into our minds. I think that it is something we think is normal because it's something we've heard almost all of our lives, but in reality it is all an effect of orientalism.