Orientalist training typically converted initial fascination into a debunking project

Evidence

And thus the actual profession of Orientalist enshrined this inequality and the special paradoxes it engendered. Most often an individual entered the profession as a way of reckoning with the Orient’s claim on him; yet most often too his Orientalist training opened his eyes, so to speak, and what he was left with was a sort of debunking project, by which the Orient was reduced to considerably less than the eminence once seen in it. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 386

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 386