Western orientalism passed through four distinct periods of typified enemy imagery

Evidence

Between the hard and soft schools, however, more or less diluted versions of the old Orientalism flourish—in the new academic jargons in some cases, in the old ones in others. But the principal dogmas of Orientalism exist in their purest form today in studies of the Arabs and Islam. Let us recapitulate them here: one is the absolute and systematic difference between the West, which is rational, developed, humane, superior, and the Orient, which is aberrant, undeveloped, inferior. Another dogma is that abstractions about the Orient, particularly those based on texts representing a “classical” Oriental civilization, are always preferable to direct evidence drawn from modern Oriental realities. A third dogma is that the Orient is eternal, uniform, and incapable of defining itself; therefore it is assumed that a highly generalized and systematic vocabulary for describing the Orient from a Western standpoint is inevitable and even scientifically “objective.” A fourth dogma is that the Orient is at bottom something either to be feared (the Yellow Peril, the Mongol hordes, the brown dominions) or to be controlled (by pacification, research and development, outright occupation whenever possible). — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 762 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Orientalist monster fantasies transferred freely across religious and ethnic enemy groups — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 418; Orientalism divides into a fixed unconscious core and changeable surface views; Orientalism disciplined the exotic into lexicons, codes, and clichés — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 487 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Orientalism persists through four core dogmas about the Orient’s difference #complicates (0.74) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 762
• Orientalism divides into a fixed unconscious core and changeable surface views #complicates (0.72)