ABSTRACT
To begin, let me say that I have always gained new insights from being communicatively involved with unusual people and groups or by experiencing cultures different from my own.1 I am therefore intrigued by proposals to enrich communication theories through the systematic application of comparative methodologies. But I am also worried, and this essay is largely motivated by fear that the epistemological assumptions built into such comparisons may frustrate the promise of broadened horizons and new insights, fueling instead an intellectual imperialism that privileges human communication theories by denying those theorized therein the ability to construct, understand, and communicate theories of their own. Human communication theories often are embedded in cognitively disabling constructions of reality and unwittingly institute technologies of oppression that are all the more persuasive as their creators feel compelled to reject responsibility for them.
