The Critical Study Of Edward W. Said's Post-colonial Cultural Theory

After World War II,with the collapse of the colonial system,cultural colonialism rose.Post-colonialism cultural criticism theory came into being.Edward.W.Said was the actual pioneer and the leader of this theory.By reading the Orientalism texts,and using deconstructionism,he exposed and criticized Western cultural hegemony,and thought about how to deal with it for the East.As cultural hegemony grows stronger,Said's cultural perspective on the relationship between East and West has significance.However,the lack of historical materialism cause Said cannot effectively deal with the cultural hegemony.Chinese culture "going out" also suffers from the dilemma of cultural hegemony.With the help of Marxism,we can break through the limitation of Said's theory and even the whole Post-colonialism theory,and provide effective countermeasures for Chinese culture "going out".Based on the realistic background,such as the prevalence of cultural colonialism,the reflection on Globalization by Postmodernism,and the rise of Cultural Studies,drawing on some ideological achievements,such as Antonio Gramsci's cultural hegemony theory,Michel Foucault's "knowledge-power-discourse" theory,Frantz Fanon's anti-colonialism theory,and Jacques Derrida's deconstructionism theory,Said expanded his study.By researching the connotation and essence of Orientalism,the collusion between "culture" and "imperialism",Said revealed the objective existence and the realization form of western hegemonic ideology.Based on these,he put forward some strategies to resist,such as "mixed culture","contrastive reading",and "counter-narrative".Although he discovers cultural hegemony and tries to solve it,his strategies are weak in the face of reality.In order to further analyze the limitations of Said's Post-colonial cultural theory,this paper introduces Marxism as a reference system and a critical tool.Said had cited Marxism's research of hegemonic spatial structure,Marxism's analysis of ideology,and continued Marxism's critical attitude towards colonialism.But because of the thought inertia of essentialism,and the lack of historical materialism,the limitation of Said's theory cannot be avoided.Said mistakenly believed that Marxism is no different from Orientalism on the issues of "the development road of eastern society","the attitude towards Western colonialism",and "'representative'/'represented'".His criticism and solution to cultural hegemony are even more flawed: firstly,the cultural identities of "East and West" were divorced from history;secondly,the criticism of Western centralism is superficial;thirdly,the revelation of colonial means is one-sided;fourthly,the resistance to cultural hegemony is not thorough;finally,the value position of his theory is uncertain.In order to avoid the defects of Said's theory,under the enlightenment of Marxism,this paper makes further thinking,and tries to break through the limitation of Said's Post-colonial cultural theory: cultural hegemony is a social phenomenon in a certain historical stage,so the study of colonial texts should be transformed into the study of realistic colonial / anti-colonial history;cultural hegemony has its economic origin and class position,so the criticism of cultural hegemony should explore the economic origin,and the resistance to cultural hegemony should not give up the thought of class struggle;in the process of multicultural communication,we should respect the differences and judge the advantages and disadvantages of the culture according to whether it is conducive to social progress.Because of the challenge of western cultural hegemony and the restriction of Chinese culture's ability to export,China has also fallen into the "other" dilemma described by Said in the contact with the West: demonizing image by the West,gradually weakened cultural identity under the impact of the West,and suffering from “Aphasia” in international dialogue.Because Said's strategies to solve cultural hegemony are flawed,they are obviously not effective for Chinese culture to break through the "going out" dilemma.China should explore the Chinese path of culture "going out" under the guidance of Marxism: firstly,we should safeguard the security of Chinese culture by strengthening the supervision of foreign culture;secondly,we should enhance cultural self-confidence by carrying forward traditional culture;thirdly,we should enhance the cultural strength by expanding the cultural industry;finally,we should break down the Western discourse resistance by constructing the Chinese discourse system.