“We” confronting “Them”

联想到Edward Said "The Orientalism"，好像Fabian给书中描述的现象做出了解释，其成因便是他的主要论点the differentiation of time，再一个就是他俩都对被研究对象自我描述/陈述的能力对这种文化之间双向或单方向的交流有所讨论。再缩小范围想到一个社会内同样的这种"we" confronting "them", 非本阶级/本教育水平等级的人类都好像live in another time需要被教育被智慧光芒照耀。然后就是他提醒了我类似"traditional" "unchanging"的中性词其实极具政治性。

Fabian expanded my understanding of time as a physical rule that is not substantial, or as a pure internal sense that constantly changes regardless of the cosmetic rule. He explained that Time does not only exists across history but could be spatialized, and that it is not only meaningfully constructed vertically but also horizontally on the plane of a specific moment. When it comes to his specific discussion about human society and anthropology, it is also a constitutive dimension of social reality for the purpose of distancing those who are being observed from the Time of the observer.

Not only used to distance the Other, Time is also created as a denial of coevalness. There is the persistent and systematic tendency to place the referent of anthropology in a Time other than the present of the producer of anthropological discourse. This kind of denial of coevalness creates the situation of “we” confronting “them”, who lives in another epoch far away from our age. Therefore, it creates the situation for “us” that there seemingly exists the need to help, to educate and to enlighten the Other in order to universalize the progress. However sadly, if we look through the human history, “our” goal of civilization always came within the context that education went hand in hand with assimilation, which desperately leads to conquer and equals to death.

The way of describing the Other as the savage and the primitive reminds me The Orientalism by Edward Said. Fabian reminds me, once again after Said, that words used to describe the Other like “traditional” and “unchanging” which have been considered as neutral are deeply politicized. In addition to this, many of the researchers tend to treat the Other as static to lessen the effort of studying and writing about them as if they had been and will always be like that. The oriental, treated as the Other by the western people and by anthropologists, had never been invited as an active partner in dialogue but as a passive object being observed and analyzed. It is also believed that the members of the other culture are not only non-subjects, but also unable to speak for themselves.

Then it comes to my ongoing concern about the role of education. Given that the Other lives in a time not contemporary with our own and there is the tendency of describing them as primitive, there seemingly exists the need of bringing the Other up to the modern civilization through education. Education, setting itself up as the nonviolent form of helping the Other, is laying the grounds for national defense, political propaganda and manipulation and control of the Other. In many cases, it is in fact put to work for the process of assimilation and violent conquering.

Just as the relationship between the anthropologists and the Other described in Fabian’s work, there is a kind of the similar relationship between the educator and their teaching objects. In today’s society, people give so much power to the experts as well as to educational institutions that hinders the two-way communication. It is easy to ignore that the eager to bring knowledge to the uneducated sometimes leave them no choice with what kind of information they want themselves to be exposed to. Order and discipline have been placed in the hands of governing bodies who have been analyzing their objects and designing the whole system. There should be the same cautiousness and attention paid to it.

即时随想，语法错误不要介意。