These allegories express a proposition that is the
foundation stone of this paper. I can state the proposition
in two ways, one of which will seem trite and
the other perhaps mystical or foolish. First: all things
can be rationalized. Second: all of Western science and
historiography is so closely interwoven with Western
imperialism that the former can only describe and
justify the latter, not predict it or explain it or control
it—not even when human survival is at stake, as may
now be the case. The second form is easily confused
with the “East is East and West is West” form of cultural
relativism, an argument which has some predictive
use in linguistics, but otherwise merely expresses the
fact that cross-cultural communication is always difficult,
always imperfect, but never truly impossible. I am
trying to say something rather more specific. At this
point I need a felicitous term.