There has never been a pure or nonmaterial form of the Orient

Evidence

Thus there was (and is) a linguistic Orient, a Freudian Orient, a Spenglerian Orient, a Darwinian Orient, a racist Orient—and so on. Yet never has there been such a thing as a pure, or unconditional, Orient; similarly, never has there been a nonmaterial form of Orientalism, much less something so innocent as an “idea” of the Orient. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 91

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘Orient’ is always constituted through the dominant ideas of its era — a key genealogical insight for the module’s biopolitics and representation threads.
• DEFINE: Clarifies that the Orient is always a material, historically-constituted construct, never an innocent idea — a core definitional move in the field.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 91