Commentary Week Ten

Western Supremacy and Composition

In this week’s reading I believe there are two central issues.  The first issue is related to the elitist attitudes of the “Western” world and the approach the West takes to view other cultures.  The second issue involves the ongoing debate between first and second language composition teaching.  Edward Said expounds on “Orientalism” and the Western views of superiority and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak says some interesting things about “tension” and “balance.”

Western ideas of supremacy on the one hand and Islamic/Arab views of western imperialism together add up to a quagmire of opposing views about the nature of Eastern and Western thought.  On the one hand, the West views the “Orient” as a backward culture.  This view came about as a result of Western imperialism and the colonizing of the East.  On the other hand, the East views the West as imperialistic.  The “Orientalist” view is that the West is trying to dominate the Arab world: the West did colonialize and dominate the East and the struggle continues to this day.

The fact that the West colonized much of the Eastern world has an effect on how we view our “oriental” counterparts.  The Western view of Oriental history is jaded by a Western mentality of superiority: the “Orient” does have a history.  Said claims that the Western view of the history of the East is that Eastern history does not exist until it is “discovered” by the West (101).  He says:

So far as Orientalism in particular and the European knowledge of other societies in general have been concerned, historicism meant that the one human history uniting humanity either culminated in or was observed from the vantage point of Europe, or the West (101).

I think that what Said is implying is an underlying theme; in regards to Western elitism and the notion of Western superiority.  The colonialization of the East and the imperialism of the West have caused the current situation of Western elitism in my opinion.

The way we teach composition to second language speakers is somewhat related to the approach the West takes to learn about the Orient.  In other words, in the West we view our culture as superior and our attempts to teach English is guided by this philosophy.

In the other reading for this week Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak brings up a point about the nature of “crisis” (3) that I would associate with “conflict” and the ongoing discussion of teaching composition to ESL students; the debate about how to effectively teach ESL students how to write in English.  Spivak says, “Practice persistently brings the notion of theory into crisis” (3).  I think this is related to the issue in week nine and the history of first language versus second language composition teaching.  Spivak says that balance is not good, “I think that tension is productive, whereas balance is suspect” (3).  I had never thought of “tension” as being productive, but I think I understand what he is saying.  Tension and the associated discomfort make people seek out new information in order to alleviate the discomfort associated with tension.  So, in the first language versus second language composition debate the tension created by the two camps may lead to better instruction for the ESL student.  I may be naive, but Spivak is correct when he says that “practice persistently brings the notion of theory into crisis.”  I believe that only through the “practice” of “theory” do we as teachers ever really improve our technique and pedagogy of teaching.  So, “practice” may not always make perfect, but the use of practice will at least move us along the continuum of improvement.  Because our student population is constantly changing the work involved to try and come up with the one best way to teach composition will never happen.  According to Spivak, “How to mediate between rhetoric and composition, between theory and practice, depends upon the kind of student bodies that come from year to year and change from decade to decade” (5).  So, if we believe that we are ever going to develop the “best” program to teach ESL students without ever changing it, we are sadly mistaken.