The Marxian emphasis upon relations and contradictions within a totality yields, when property executed, a unity of analysis and synthesis. The initial response of the social scientist trained in the bourgeois framework of thought is to misinterpret this simply because of the difficulty posed by the relational and dialectical way of proceeding… In the first place, disciplinary boundaries make no sense whatsoever from the Marxian standpoint. The technical division of labor is obviously necessary but its social representation is to be rejected. But at this point the Marxian challengers encounter a peculiar difficulty. We live in a world in which the bourgeois framework for organizing knowledge is hegemonic. Individually, we must appear expert in some discipline and to some degree conform to its rules if we are to be listened to or even to gain employment. 1 The Marxian challenge has therefore to be mounted within the existing framework for knowledge which makes it appear that there is a
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51