OCCIDENTALISM
(Wednesday) I briefly caught some comments by Ian Buruma on Talk of the Nation today. He describes the current conflicts as "a war against a particular idea of the West, which is neither new nor unique to Islamist extremism. The current jihadis see the West as something less than human, to be destroyed, as though it were a cancer. This idea has historical roots that long precede any form of 'U.S. imperialism.' Similar hostility, though not always as lethal, has been directed in the past against Britain and France as much as against America." This he explains is Occidentalism, a movement fed by the humiliation of the East by Western modernity and the dogmatic rationalism of the Enlightenment.

Fascinating notion. I did a Google search on him and came up with a good article summarizing the thesis of his book Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies, which he wrote with Avishai Margalit. I'm adding the book to my reading list. It is due out next month.