"Introductory books and teaching materials on missiology or anthropology or the history of some non-Western area of the world never fail to make me laugh. There will be a few introductory paragraphs, describing the general features of the country or people-group to be discussed--and then there will be an earnest, po-faced explanation to the student or initiate that 'family is very important to the Mbongo people' or that 'Chinese culture is highly collectivist' or that the 'swamp dwelling Mudscratchers put the needs of their community above personal preferences'. Such facts are presented in a way that implies that this is somehow a noteworthy distinctive of the people about to be studied. Perhaps it is less painful to the audience to speak this way, and to allow the truly shocking realization, namely that only one culture has ever thought or acted in any other fashion, to remain, like the truth about Father Christmas, an undiscovered, dreadful secret...
"When did we Westerners start to change into individualists and why?"

--Meic Pearse, Why the Rest Hates the West