Orientalist discourse denies the Orient any capacity for historical development or change

Evidence

Moreover the male conception of the world, in its effect upon the practicing Orientalist, tends to be static, frozen, fixed eternally. The very possibility of development, transformation, human movement—in the deepest sense of the word—is denied the Orient and the Oriental. As a known and ultimately an immobilized or unproductive quality, they come to be identified with a bad sort of eternality: hence, when the Orient is being approved, such phrases as “the wisdom of the East.” — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 517

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines a core trait of Orientalist representation: the ‘static, frozen’ Oriental denied transformation — a mechanism of othering the reader must carry forward.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 517
• XREF: connects to: Enlightenment mechanism denied man’s historical capacity for development. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 776; Balfour denied Orientals any history of self-government; Balfour claimed Orientals never developed capacities for self-government