What Said Said

Robert Irwins For Lust of Knowing, en kritik av Edward Saids Orientalism, har orsakat mycken debatt i leden. Så klart. Terry Eagleton, litteraturvetaren som alltid säger så mycket klokt, tar Said i försvar i sin recension av Irwins bok i New Statesman (13 Feb 2006) med hjälp av en generell utsaga om historiografisk utveckling:

"Writing about history tends to proceed in three stages. First, a particular truth is generally accepted - say, that the west has by and large treated the east pretty shabbily, or that the inhabitants of Scunthorpe have behaved brutally to the citizens of Grimsby. After a while stage two sets in, as revisionists spring up to challenge this received wisdom. In doing so, they almost invariably engage in the same set of moves. First, they produce evidence that not all Scunthorpians have been cruel to Grimsbyites. Second, they show that some Grimsbyites have regularly brutalised people from Scunthorpe. Third, they point out that in some respects the population of Grimsby had it coming. Fourth, they remind us not to judge these ancient animosities by our own modern-day liberal standards. Finally, they insist that the whole affair has been grossly exaggerated, and that it is time to draw a line under these events, turn our faces to the future and move on.

Almost every one of these strategies is deployed in For Lust of Knowing to defend orientalism from the charge of complicity with imperial power. Yet it is impossible to avert the arrival of stage three: the realisation that, when every due reservation has been made, every factual error corrected and every exception noted, stage one was pretty much true all along."

Stämmer Eagletons schema? Jag vill ju tro det, eftersom jag köper så mycket annat han säger. Och om så är fallet menar jag att vi egentligen kan dra slutsatsen att historievetenskapens grundläggande Sanningar, liksom påven i doktrinära frågor, är ofelbara. Oavsett vad folk säger för stunden.

Skönt.