Written statements about the Orient are self-referential, not grounded in the Orient

Evidence

In any instance of at least written language, there is no such thing as a delivered presence, but a re-presence, or a representation. The value, efficacy, strength, apparent veracity of a written statement about the Orient therefore relies very little, and cannot instrumentally depend, on the Orient as such. … Thus all of Orientalism stands forth and away from the Orient: that Orientalism makes sense at all depends more on the West than on the Orient, and this sense is directly indebted to various Western techniques of representation that make the Orient visible, clear, “there” in discourse about it. And these representations rely upon institutions, traditions, conventions, agreed-upon codes of understanding for their effects, not upon a distant and amorphous Orient. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 89

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: The poststructuralist ‘no delivered presence, only re-presence’ claim extends to Islamophobic media discourse on Muslims.

Related

• Orientalism functions as a self-enclosed Western text rather than knowledge of an actual Orient. (similarity 0.86)
• The Orient re-enters Western textuality after lived experience fails to match texts. (similarity 0.86)
• Orientalism reflects the producing culture rather than its putative object (similarity 0.86)
• Orientalism is studied via its internal consistency, not its correspondence to a real Orient (similarity 0.85)
• Orientalism fixes the Oriental as passive object while the Orientalist holds interpretive power (similarity 0.85)
• Orientalism’s harm lies in its thought structure, not its content’s positivity (similarity 0.85)
• The Orient is a system of representations, not a place (similarity 0.84)
• Representation constructs the Orient as a closed theatrical stage, not an open reality. (similarity 0.84)
• The Orientalist’s voice displaces the entire Orient’s history (similarity 0.84)
• Orientalist representations operate for purposes within specific historical and economic settings (similarity 0.84)
• Orient and West are unstable human constructs, not fixed realities (similarity 0.84)
• The Orient is constituted as absence while the Orientalist constitutes himself as presence (similarity 0.84)
• Orientalism generated a free-floating mythology detached from actual Orientals (similarity 0.84)
• Orientalist writing is pre-eminently a visual regime of expert and beholding self. (similarity 0.84)
• The word ‘Oriental’ alone invoked a fixed, unchallengeable body of knowledge (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Orientalism is studied via its internal consistency, not its correspondence to a real Orient #corroborates (0.95) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 59