Yes, they were, but, unlike Ezekiel (who after all was an ancient), they were interested in examining their own capacity to do so as well.
First, an anthropological moment: understanding others on their own terms.
Second, a constructivist moment: e.g.,
"No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. Take an example from our own day. I know that you are fond of Japanese things. Now, do you really imagine that the Japanese people, as they are presented to us in art, have any existence? If you do, you have never understood Japanese art at all. The Japanese people are the deliberate self-conscious creation of certain individual artists. If you set a picture by Hokusai, or Hokkei, or any of the great native painters, beside a real Japanese gentleman or lady, you will see that there is not the slightest resemblance between them. The actual people who live in Japan are not unlike the general run of English people; that is to say, they are extremely commonplace, and have nothing curious or extraordinary about them. In fact the whole of Japan is a pure invention. There is no such country, there are no such people." -- Oscar Wilde
Third, a palimpsest, or a moment of double exposure, which has one hold the first and second moments in mind at the same time.
Voilà, critical gay Orientalism. It's really fun, but few do it nowadays. It's a forgotten art.
Critical gay Orientalists gave us an interesting question: what sexual and political relationship would you like to have with people of the world whose way of life, especially its organization of sex/gender/sexuality, is radically different from that of your world?
> (Goytisolo is still alive by the way).;
Yes -- the last of his kind, probably. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>