Western culture was the first to critically reflect upon itself (beginning in the 18th century). But the effect of this crisis was that it reflected on itself also as a culture in the universal, and thus all other cultures were entered in its museum as vestiges of its own image. It "estheticized" them, reinterpreted them on its own model, and thus precluded the radical interrogation these "different" cultures implied for it.
Jean Baudrillard
