The structure of the argument seems to go like this:
The term Western society is non-specific because it refers to a plurality of societies that have a Western influence.
Therefore, if you have a Western influence in your society, you have no right to refer to a Western society that is outside of who you are yourself.
Therefore, Western society is everybody and nobody, but if you happen to see that Western power (eg ideology that is American imperialist) is imposing itself on you and denying you a voice, you are actually oppressing yourself and/or you are delusional.
The term Western society is non-specific because it refers to a plurality of societies that have a Western influence.
Therefore, if you have a Western influence in your society, you have no right to refer to a Western society that is outside of who you are yourself.
Therefore, Western society is everybody and nobody, but if you happen to see that Western power (eg ideology that is American imperialist) is imposing itself on you and denying you a voice, you are actually oppressing yourself and/or you are delusional.
2 comments:
At a meeting of the Southern African Missiological Society a few years ago there was a group that called itself "The Gospel and our culture". We asked them what "our culture" was, and they said Western culture. We said perhaps they should change that, because it was ethnocentric and imperialist. They wouldn't hear of changing it.
Maybe Westerners also don't like being referred to as such, because it seems to be a way of saying that they are ethnocentric and imperalist.
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