Universal generalization is a totalitarian imposition on the world

Evidence

Errant, he challenges and discards the universal-this generalizing edict that summarized the world as something obvious and transparent, claiming for it one presupposed sense and one destiny. He plunges into the opacities ofthat part of the worId to \vhich he has access. Generalization is totalitarian: from the world it chooses one side of the reports, one set of ideas, which it sets apart from others and tries to impose by exporting as a model. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 162

Categorization

• DEFINE: Opacity is the errant thinker’s refusal of the universal’s transparent claim — the concrete practice the reader is seeking.
• XREF: Sets up the creolization / opacity anti-essentialist mechanism Glissant opposes to both root and universal — the reader’s core question. — connects to: Universalization is an irreducible moment in any discourse. — Elizabeth Grosz, Criticism, Feminism and the…, 120; The abstract ideal of human equality secretly serves totalitarian homogenization — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 117; Even power requires a universalistic code to function in complex societies — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 669 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The abstract ideal of human equality secretly serves totalitarian homogenization #exemplifies (0.92) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 117
• Cultural universalism logically demands imperial imposition to be realized #exemplifies (0.90)
• Theoretical universalizations can recuperate difference into old Enlightenment universalist frameworks #corroborates (0.88) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 409
• Universals function as normative ideals, not logical class concepts #qualifies (0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 790
• Total universalization of capitalism erases the concept of the system itself #expands (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 865
• Even power requires a universalistic code to function in complex societies #contradicts (0.78) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 669
• Orientalist generalization treats every observed detail as confirming preexisting racial categories #complicates (0.75) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 597