American Orientalism in Popular Culture Post 9/11: A Gramscian (Re)Reading

Abstract

This academic paper focuses on Bush’s administration ability to capture the common sense of the American populace and diffuse a common ideology namely; neo-conservatism to mobilize public support for its war against Iraq. It is the examination of Oriental discourse as a source of knowledge for imperialist means and the role of the mass media in promotion of the neo-cons agenda of the Bush administration that the military intervention of Iraq was justified vis-a-vis the construction of the aberrant ‘other’ or ‘enemy’. The Gramscian concepts of common sense and the organic intellectual offer an elaborate perspective on how the latter point was effectively institutionalized in the American society and discourse. While at the same time, allowed the Bush administration to dominate the discourse over national security and the safety of its citizenry. The paper is divided into three sections. Firstly, it provides a general overview of Oriental discourse and its usage as a form of knowledge for imperialist and/or colonial purposes. Secondly, it examines Gramscian notions of common sense and the organic intellectual from his work within the ‘Selections from the Prison Notebook.’ Thirdly, utilizes Gramscian concepts in relation to the important of mass media discourse post 9/11 and its effects on public consumption leading to U.S Invasion on Iraq. In doing so, this paper aims to show how we can understand the instrumentalization of Oriental discourse and the mass media functions within civil society to diffuse the dominate ideology of the organic intellectuals associated with the Bush administration in a Gramscian sense.