In “Can the Subaltern Speak?”, Gayatri Spivak writes about how the wester cultures write about and examine non western cultures. Spivak is a professor at Columbia University and a member of their Comparative Literature and Society. She claims that western cultures report on “others” in ways that benefit themselves. Spivak touches on the idea that this also helps the colonial project, as usually these reports help to justify conquests of other cultures.
Western Cultures usually change the history or the truth about nonwestern cultures inorder to benefit themselves and their actions. She touches on the ideas of referring to these other cultures as the “other” that are the selfs shadow. Spivak refers to the subaltern throughout her paper, meaning the colonial groups that are not considered apart of the hierarchy that is considered imperial colonies. She brings up these ideas that were proposed by Michel Focoult a French philosopher, who has proposed theories on the connection of power and knowledge. He claims that “each society has its regime of truth, its ‘general politics’ of truth” and furthers the idea that societies create their own knowledge of the truth which creates their own sense of power, which are taught through education and media sources. This ties directly into Spivak’s argument, on how western cultures create their findings on other cultures and shape them into a way that shows western cultures ideologies as superior.
Spivak throughout her essay, uses the British colonization of Indian as main example to express her arguments. She is referring to the time when the British colonized Indiana for around one hundred years and talking about the previous Indian tradition of “sati”, which the event of a widow sacrificing herself for her husband. This was a part of the Indian culture dating back to the fourth century and 1800s their were attempts to outlaw it but it was never actually ceased until British rule took over India. Spivak uses this example to comment on how colonization of other countries is changing other cultures and labeling them to then hold themselves at a higher level of power.
Citations:
Gaventa, Jonathan. “Foucault: Power Is Everywhere.” Understanding Power for Social Change Powercubenet IDS at Sussex University Foucault Power Is Everywhere Comments, 2003, www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/foucault-power-is-everywhere/.
This is an interesting outlook on what exactly is being taught. When people can see through the “almost bias” perspectives, this will allow individuals to see the full picture from all sides. Further, this alone would allow one to gain power just due to the fact that they are being exposed to more that just one side of history.
I think what you brought up about the western world altering things and appearances is a major reality that is often ignored or covered up in today’s society. When you live somewhere you are accustomed to believe what you are being told about other places and old history. We often times forget to question the legitimacy of what we are being told. It is easy to believe what we hear but it’s important we are listen to people like Spivak for the truth and reality.
What you said is definitely an interesting thought. This ties into what Adichie said in her TED talk about how people only write or put out what they think they know about a person or place, which oftentimes is not accurate. This example is all the more reason to have a viewpoint of all angles, therefore you are not just assuming only one thing to be true. Although many things in western culture we read about are true, many things are not and it’s important to look more into these issues.
This is a very interesting outlook on the discussion this week but also opened my eyes to what you had written, this made my understanding far greater after reading your post. I like how you introduced the western world and how the altering of looks is covered up majorly by society, this is a tap into the idea of many different views on things and how many things are not true or covered up by society.
Solid presentation, I find the idea that western cultures alter the history of others very interesting, especially the fact that it is generally to benefit themselves. Like you said, in many cases it is the imperial colonies imposing their culture and ideas on the subaltern. I think the relationship between imperialist colonies and the idea of creating beneficial history is important to note because they go hand in hand.
The creation of this beneficial history is a similar idea to the creation of America. Realistically, Native American Indian tribes were unjustly pushed out of their land by pilgrims, but this idea is often an afterthought in the celebration of the United States. Additionally, the fact that African American slaves are responsible for probably the vast majority of the work done to create the United States is pushed under the rug as well.
It’s very interesting to see how western cultures depict others in various way. A lot of countries hold resentment on their colonizing country because throughout history they force certain idelas and beliefs. The bias of the western culture is seen in everything, recently there has been a lot of arguments about how when an American movie has scenes in other countries, the filter for those countries is a yellow-ish tone giving off a completely different perspective of the country.
This was a great presentation! I think its a great point that Western cultures often change notions about other cultures to benefit themselves. Now, looking back on my high school history classes I realized American textbooks often only talk about the good they did for other countries. They barely mention the horrors of war that occurred in other countries or how the US impacted it’s colonies. This shows that even today, the perspective of those under imperialism is not heard.
This is a very interesting way to look at the Western cultures and the way they often use history to benefit themselves. I always realize how American textbooks only mention what they do to benefit other countries and never mention anything negative that they have ever done. I think it’s important to dig deeper into ever concept we read about and never believe something that we read as the only truth just because it is put into book we learn from.
The danger of a single story can be dangerous. When other countries only write out of the satisfaction of benefitting themselves, this can influence the outlooks of others. Textbooks in certain countries can lead to the belief that said country lead to things that are not entirely true. It’s imperative that people take these readings with a grain of salt.
It is very interesting to look at how Western Culture change the history to benefit themselves. It also related to what we learned few weeks ago about “single story”. It is very injustice for nonwestern culture. We should not only look at single story but to actually go and learn other culture.
Spivak uses the term “subaltern” to describe the group. In this group, these people always are ignored and voiceless. Nobod cares about their opinion and life. Spivak uses this question “Can the Subaltern Speak?” to appeal power for these people.