A linguistic label could become a transtemporal essence predicting all behavior.

Evidence

Renan’s “Semitic,” as an instance, was a linguistic generalization which in Renan’s hands could add to itself all sorts of parallel ideas from anatomy, history, anthropology, and even geology. “Semitic” could then be employed not only as a simple description or designation; it could be applied to any complex of historical and political events in order to pare them down to a nucleus both antecedent to and inherent in them. “Semitic,” therefore, was a transtemporal, transindividual category, purporting to predict every discrete act of “Semitic” behavior on the basis of some pre-existing “Semitic” essence, and aiming as well to interpret all aspects of human life and activity in terms of some common “Semitic” element. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 584

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘transtemporal, transindividual category’ — the core mechanism of racial essence-thinking that later racism and Islamophobia inherit.
• XREF: Directly parallels how ‘the Muslim’ functions as a transtemporal essence in contemporary anti-Islam discourse, predicting behavior from presumed inherent character. Scaffolds the Islamophobia readings ahead.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 584