Scopic Regimes of Modernity

It is certainly interesting to observe the (power) dynamics between the dominant and the alternative (or subordinate). In "Scopic Regimes of Modernity", Martin Jay asserts that Cartesian perspectivalism was the dominant--"even totally hegemonic" as he argues--model in modern Western art, to which Baconian empiricism and the Baroque are the alternative ones. In general, alternative models evidently are created in response to the dominant/hegemonic; but what is more fascinating explore are the conditions and circumstances in which they are created, essential in order to formulate possible explanations for which such a dominant model is inadequate. Jay explains that "When the assumed equivalence between scientific observation and the natural world was disputed, so too was the domination of this visual subculture." Here the implication is that such an assumption can only be valid in certain groups (i.e. countries or regions) . He further argues that "there may well have been some link between the absence of [Cartesian perspectivalism and Baconian empiricism] in Eastern cultures, especially the former, and their general lack of indigenous scientific revolutions." Here it is interesting to question why Jay makes the connection between the absence of certain scopic regimes and a lack of 'indigenous scientific revolutions'? Are we to assume that a society's success was contingent upon not just a scientific revolution , but the linear path of 'advancement' 'enjoyed' by Western societies?