Edward Said sounds like he has a valid political concern in his Introduction to Orientalism. The stereotype of Orientalism does exist to certain degrees (though the fact, which he admits, that the backbone of Said’s argument is a set of historical generalizations, does not provide a very strong basis for his arguments, I sounds like Freud saying that his whole argument is based on the concept of penis envy and if that is abolished his argument would not stand). Said’s argument in III, that it is practically impossible to remove the study of humanities from politics entirely is also a valid argument; writers, painters, even musicians are all affected by politics in some way. However, that is not an excuse to over-politicize everything one comes into contact with, which what Said seems to do. I agree with David Denby that many “critics” try to inflate texts with their own political agendas, using them to prove certain ideological points that they have an interest in proving. Approaching a text already knowing what one wants to get out of it is close-minded and intellectually dishonest, and it does seem that often times “open-minded intellectuals” are just the opposite, close-minded and intellectually dishonest.

There are also a few points that Said makes in a very nonchalant way that I think are debatable, for example, that America is an imperial power. There are very clear distinctions between that way America has gotten involved in other countries and how other imperial powers (Macedonia, Rome, the Chinese, the Mongols, the Muslims, the Ottomans, England etc) dealt with lands that they conquered and were under their sovereignty.

The main gist of his argument also is that there is a way to study the perspective of one general mindset or culture’s towards a radically different one. Not such an amazing new discovery. But of course he does insert some personal politics in the end.