The key to sucessful imperialism is to seperate the subject and opressor completely. Seperation lays the foundation for superiority. Orientalism was yet another binary established by the Western word (coined the Occident by Said) to establish their superiority. Orientalism is a mindset of false admiration by making the Orient (Eastern Asia) unwordly and different from the Occident. It makes out Orients to be mystical, illogical, and reduces complicated social structures to strange fanatacisms. Orientalism was used as one way in Western cuture to seperate the Occident from the Oriental through their dehumanization.
Today, I'd like to believe that oreintalism has decreased significantly. With old physical proximities breached by interent conections, I think we (as a Western majority) are able to understand others and learn that humanities traits and beliefs extend beyond the Occident. Though the Western world has a significant amount of generalizations to over come, such as the sterotypes perpetrated against Musims, I believe that we still have come a long way from the mystification of Eastern cultures present in our past.
Although I'd like to agree with you in saying that orientalism has "decreased", I feel like the problem of orientalism was centered in Europe, and while orientalism certainly does exist in the US and the convenience of the internet probably has changed things, orientalism might just be one of those things that never fades.
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