The intellectual's spirit as an amateur can enter and transform the merely professional routine most of us go through into something much more lively… - Edward Said

The Orient that appears in Orientalism, then, is a system of representations framed by a whole set of forces that brought the Orient into Western learning, Western consciousness, and later, Western empire. ... The Orient is the stage on which the whole East is confined. On this stage will appear the figures whose role it is to represent the larger whole from which they emanate. The Orient then seems to be, not an unlimited extension beyond the familiar European world, but rather a closed field, a theatrical stage affixed to Europe.

As a way of maintaining relative intellectual independence, having the attitude of an amateur instead of a professional is a better course.

In the end, I am moved by causes and ideas that I can actually choose to support because they conform to values and principles that I believe in.