A group always finding itself right signals flawed historical method

Evidence

[The historian’s] loyalties may well influence his choice of subject of research; they should not influence his treatment of it. If, in the course of his researches, he finds that the group with which he identifies himself is always right, and those other groups with which it is in conflict are always wrong, then he would be well advised to question his conclusions, and to reexamine the hypothesis on the basis of which he selected and interpreted his evidence; for it is not in the nature of human communities [presumably, also, the community of Orientalists] always to be right. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 812

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lewis articulates a methodological norm that, by Said’s framing, the Orientalist himself spectacularly violates — a useful definition of scholarly self-scrutiny as diagnostic tool.
• XREF: The self-immunizing ‘always right’ pattern connects to systemic critiques of institutional epistemology in later Islamophobia scholarship.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 812