Encountering the unknown and threatening triggers reliance on texts over direct experience

Evidence

Two situations favor a textual attitude. One is when a human being confronts at close quarters something relatively unknown and threatening and previously distant. In such a case one has recourse not only to what in one’s previous experience the novelty resembles but also to what one has read about it. … The idea in either case is that people, places, and experiences can always be described by a book, so much so that the book (or text) acquires a greater authority, and use, even than the actuality it describes. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 261

Categorization

• DEFINE: Specifies the mechanism by which the textual attitude takes hold: threat plus novelty plus previous distance pushes the reader toward textual authority.
• XREF: Links to reader’s module on how colonial administration relied on Orientalist texts — the ‘book acquires greater authority than the actuality’ is the core colonization-of-knowledge mechanism. — connects to: Meaning threats trigger affirmation of whatever meaning frameworks are handy — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 3; Only unexpected violations in familiar settings threaten meaning frameworks — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 11; Meaning threats evoke a content-independent need for meaning structure — Travis Proulx, Steven J. Heine, and Kathleen D. Vohs, When Is the Unfamiliar the Uncanny?…, 64
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 261