Outside the West, virtually in all known cultures . . . , all systematic production of knowledge is associated with a perspective of totality. But in those cultures, the perspective of totality in knowledge includes the acknowledgement of the heterogeneity of all reality; of the irreducible, contradictory character of the latter; of the legitimacy, i.e. desirability of the diverse character of the components of all reality—and therefore, of the social. The [better, alternative] idea of social totality, then, not only does not deny, but depends on the historical diversity and heterogeneity of society, of every society. In other words, it not only does not deny, but it requires the idea of an "other"—diverse, different.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 619