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To: quant5

The terrorists are not much different then say, the Japanese of WWII in their ruthless fanatiscm.

If I may suggest
"Occidentalism"
(the west in the eyes of its enemies)
Ian Buruma Avishai Margalit

From Booklist
Four characterizations of the West contribute to the anti-Western stance Buruma and Margalit call Occidentalism and are used to justify attacking individual Westerners as less-than-human beings. The West prefers the sinful city to the virtuous countryside; the West destroys heroism and replaces it with trading; the West thinks only of matter and not of spirit; the West worships evil. Buruma and Margalit argue that the first two of those conceptions, typical of secular Occidentalism, are themselves Western, products of European romanticism that early-twentieth-century Japan and Germany exploited to their own ruin. The third idea informs Russia's long struggle with the West but stems from German romanticism, in particular, with its sense of the wounded national soul. The fourth, peculiar to religious Occidentalism, animates radical Islamism but derives from the good-evil polarities of Persian Manichaeism that the young Augustine embraced. Buruma and Margalit conclude that these ideas' lives are "a tale of cross-contamination" that cannot be ended by answering anti-Western intolerance with more intolerance. A timely tract, brilliantly though broadly argued. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1594200084/002-6204662-4964865?v=glance


7 posted on 08/09/2004 9:41:23 PM PDT by Valin (John Kerry: Dumber than Gore, more exciting than Mondale)
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To: Valin

Very interesting. Thank you for your reply!


15 posted on 08/12/2004 10:30:54 AM PDT by quant5
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