Cultural difference originates situationally and may be a self-projection of the observer

Evidence

To be understood properly, difference is situational, namely, it has both directionality and perspectivism inscribed into it. As a relative and perspectival phenomenon, difference also has an imaginary geography. Its sources may appear to perception to originate from one side of the difference’s spectrum rather than another, in which case any diagnosis of difference’s implications must account for these sources, their composition, inclination, value, implications, and historical situational presence, for the sources constitute the problem in the first place. … A question must also be asked. What are the consequences that may ensue from a counterassumption: that the Orientalist ascription of difference to the Orient was a self-projection, that it is Orientalism itself as a mainstream academic discipline and its larger cultural props that were themselves the raison d’être of the difference, that they are the difference itself? — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 280

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Said’s Orientalism directly; the counterassumption that the evaluator’s own discipline creates the difference echoes standpoint-theory critiques of objectivity.
• QUESTION: The hypothetical of reversing who is the source of difference could be worth pursuing against specific Orientalist texts.