Orientalist cultural borrowing mixed admiration with denigration, not pure contempt

Evidence

In a penetrating article, Karatani argued that the Orientalist treatment of the non-West as the inferior Other went “hand in hand with an aesthetic worship” of that very Other, producing “an uneradicable self-deceit: Those with an Orientalist attitude come to believe that they, unlike others, treat non-Westerners more than equally—they treat them with ‘respect.’ ” Looking down upon the Other as an object of scientific analysis and looking up to the same Other as an aesthetic idol are not a contradictory attitude but in fact an interdependent and mutually corroborating activity. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 334 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Cultural Orientalism mixed reverence with denigration and shifted across moments; Orientalist condescension and aesthetic worship of the Other are mutually reinforcing — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 334; Orientalist representation is purposive deformation, not mere misrepresentation (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Cultural Orientalism mixed reverence with denigration and shifted across moments #corroborates (0.95)
• Orientalist condescension and aesthetic worship of the Other are mutually reinforcing #corroborates (0.90) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 334
• Orientalist representation is purposive deformation, not mere misrepresentation #corroborates (0.85)
• Orientalism’s harm lies in its thought structure, not its content’s positivity #qualifies (0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 26