They did not talk anymore about isolation. Instead, they talked about incompatibility. About how the extension of rationalization had gone too far. Rationalization might work in the West, the pundits said, but there were countries out there that were not ready for it, the talking heads insisted. The Republic was one of those. This failure had been caused by hastiness, by overreach, by thinking that “we” (and the meaning of that “we” kept shifting) could push our values on a world “not ready” for development.
