Difference is a situational phenomenon with directionality and perspectivism

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 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The quality’s inner figure-ground relation differs from the this-world relation; Difference precedes both acting and being acted upon — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 464; capacities for living with difference arise through situated relations, not abstract categories — Farhan Samanani, Conviviality and its others: for a…, 72 (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Cultural difference originates situationally and may be a self-projection of the observer #corroborates (0.92) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 280