Summary
A retired member of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, United States Department of State, whose essay “The Arab World” (American Journal of Psychiatry, February 1972) is Said’s closing contemporary exhibit in Chapter One, I of Orientalism: a four-page psychological portrait of over 100 million Arabs over 1,300 years resting on exactly four sources (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.57 / printed p.48).
Details
- Glidden’s four sources, as Said lists them: a recent book on Tripoli, one issue of the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram, the periodical Oriente Moderno, and a book by Majid Khadduri (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.57 / printed p.48).
- The essay purports to uncover “the inner workings of Arab behavior”, which from “our” point of view is “aberrant” but for Arabs is “normal”; its Arabs stress conformity, inhabit a shame culture, can function only in conflict situations, base prestige solely on domination, and make a virtue of revenge — Glidden citing the June 29, 1970 Ahram for 1,070 murder cases in Egypt in 1969, of which 20 percent were murders to wipe out shame, 30 percent to satisfy real or imaginary wrongs, and 31 percent for blood revenge (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.57 / printed p.48).
- Glidden, as Said presents him: in Arab society only “success counts” and “the end justifies the means”; “the art of subterfuge is highly developed in Arab life, as well as in Islam itself”; and “in Arab tribal society (where Arab values originated), strife, not peace, was the normal state of affairs because raiding was one of the two main supports of the economy” (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.57-58 / printed p.48-49).
- Said’s verdict is that this is the apogee of Orientalist confidence: “no theoretical list of Oriental attributes is without application to the behavior of Orientals in the real world” (Orientalism (1978), PDF p.58 / printed p.49).