An unlikely place for a confrontation between universalism and complexity

I found a very sensitive illustration of the confrontation between universalism/reductionism and complexity/relativism in a quite unlikely place. André Gorz writes in Lettre à D., Histoire d'un amour about the different way his wife, an englishwoman, and himself, influenced by French universalism, used to think:

"J'avais besoin de théorie pour structurer ma pensée et t'objectais qu'une pensée non structurée menace toujours de sombrer dans l'empirisme et l'insignifiance. Tu répondais que la théorie menace toujours de devenir un carcan qui interdit de percevoir la complexité mouvante du réel."

How lucid this statement is!

See also this post about the same confrontation.