Orientalism must be examined at both the general and the individual level

Evidence

And yet, one must repeatedly ask oneself whether what matters in Orientalism is the general group of ideas overriding the mass of material—about which who could deny that they were shot through with doctrines of European superiority, various kinds of racism, imperialism, and the like, dogmatic views of “the Oriental” as a kind of ideal and unchanging abstraction?—or the much more varied work produced by almost uncountable individual writers, whom one would take up as individual instances of authors dealing with the Orient. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 64

Categorization

• XREF: The general-versus-particular tension echoes the methodological debate in critical theory about whether to read structures or agents — relevant to later Islamophobia readings that must hold both levels.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 64