Therefore, Orientalism is not a mere political subject matter or field di.at is reflected passively by culture, scholarship, or institu- tions; nor is it a large and diffuse collection of texts about the Orient; nor is it representative and expressive of some nefarious "Western" imperialist plot to hold down the "Oriental" world. It is rather a §!!1£Yli!2!Lci. .,gi:opolitic~l .• aw_a!!;.~ess into __ ,..aesthetic, 1'£hO~!'!~J~£...~OQ1_~.,_J\q9_l9l(lgic,<1:!1~ with various k~~aped tq_a_E_~ree by the exchange with p~litical (as with a colonial or im£!rial establishm~t), power intell~tl!al (as with reigning sciences like comparative linguisticso'r anatomy, or any of the modem Ii sciences), ower !!Jura as with ort ox1es an canons of taste texts. yalues2_, PQWer moral (as with ideas about what "we" do and what "they" -~do or understand as "we" do)_ Indeed, my real argument is that Orientalism is-and does not simply represent-a con- siderable dimension of modem political-intellectual culture, and as such has less to do with the Orient than it does with "our" wodd.