Deconstructing the Genealogy of Orientalism in Term of a Supplement

『오리엔탈리즘』 계보학의 해체론적 재해석 "Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions") (진리란 그것이 환상임을 망각하고 있는 착각이다)

Said's Orientalism criticized the European representations on the Middle-East by theorizing orientalism as a discourse. In this text, he explored and criticized the colonial forms of knowledge and language that distorted the image of the colonized. The justification of the discourse of orientalism is derived from the binary system that is originated from Plato which Derrida rejects on the ground that it always privileges one term over the other, that is, colonizer over colonized. Derrida names for this traditional heritage of Western binary system logocentrism which regards logos(the Greek term for speech or reason) as the central principle of language and philosophy, whereas mythos derives its meaning from the logos on the basis of binary oppositions. Thus according to logocentrism, the colonized is merely the defined who can have its meaning from the definers, colonizers. In this paper, utilizing Derrida's a (non)concept called supplement which means both to add on as a surplus and to make up something missing as a mere extra, I propose another alternative interpretation towards the critique of colonial representation by raising internal contradictions in the Platonic dichotomy between logos and mythos embedded in western colonialism discourse, orientalism. I attempt to show that logos(colonizer) and mythos(colonized) is inseparable in itself due to the fact that they exist as supplementary. For this purpose, I demonstrate how colonial binary system constituted and was constituted in terms of language. Through this paper I reinterpret the colonial rationality of privileging 'logos' over 'mythos' by substituting the colonial binary system with the supplement.