Western ignorance refines and grows more complex over time, not knowledge

Evidence

The best part of Southern’s analysis, here and elsewhere in his brief history of Western views of Islam, is his demonstration that it is finally Western ignorance which becomes more refined and complex, not some body of positive Western knowledge which increases in size and accuracy. For fictions have their own logic and their own dialectic of growth or decline. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 169

Categorization

• XREF: Core mechanism for how orientalism accumulates: fictions develop their own internal logic. Connects directly to the scaffolding of Orientalism as a self-perpetuating system that later Islamophobia readings will assume.
• SEED: Angle: falsehoods do not stagnate but evolve with increasing sophistication — a useful frame for modern iteration of Islamophobic tropes as ‘more refined’ than medieval versions.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 169