{"id":47367,"date":"2018-03-29T00:37:12","date_gmt":"2018-03-29T06:37:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=47367"},"modified":"2018-04-01T11:53:11","modified_gmt":"2018-04-01T17:53:11","slug":"occidentosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html","title":{"rendered":"“Occidentosis”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Tehran<\/a>
A mural in Tehran. I saw similar expressions all over the city when I was there. \u00a0The Persian at the bottom reads \u201cDeath to America.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0(Wikimedia Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Every day, a bit more:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Needless to say, Marxism could not deliver on its promises, nor give dissatisfied and humiliated residents of the Near East the dig\u00adnity that they craved.\u00a0 But what other answer was available? Well, the Islamic answer was there. It had always been there, but now its rivals were discredited. \u201cWhy,\u201d devout Muslim thinkers asked, \u201cshould the Mus\u00adlims turn to the West for clues on how to be successful?\u201d They hadn\u2019t needed Western assistance in the early days, when they conquered the Mediterranean world. They hadn\u2019t needed the West when they invented algebra. This search for a solution in the West was mis\u00adguided and unnecessary, modern Islamists argued. And, these thinkers pointed out, Marxism was every bit as Western as was liberal democracy and market capitalism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why turn to the West when the Near East had everything that was necessary? Islamic law was every bit as sophisticated as any\u00adthing that the West had to offer. Islamic doctrine presented an entire comprehensive view, not only of how one ought to live as an individual but also of how society ought to be constituted. And so we have seen an outpouring in recent years of works on Islamic economics, the Islamic view of international relations, critiques of mechanistic Western science, and fierce denunciations of Western materialism. Islam, in the hands of many thinkers, has gone on the offensive. One Iranian author, the late Jalal Al-i Ahmad, wrote a best-selling book entitled, in Persian, Gharbzadagi, <\/em>literally \u201cWest-Sickness,\u201d which has appeared in English translation under the clever title of Occidentosis.<\/em>.<\/sup><\/em>[1]<\/a><\/sup> Westernness, in the view of such Muslim thinkers, is a disease. It is something to be thrown off, as one would throw off a fever or, perhaps more to the point, an infection.<\/span><\/p>\n

In recent years, there has been a widespread sense among Mus\u00adlims that Islam might indeed be on the rebound. The Islamic Republic of Iran, for instance, seems to many of the faithful, not only to Iranians, to have stood up to the West. This appears to many a breath of fresh air. Whatever the moral qualifications of the Iranian regime\u2014and even many of its admirers will admit to serious doubts about those\u2014there is something in this that many in the Arab world and elsewhere in the Near East have found undeniably attrac\u00adtive. It is much the same thing that created so much support for Saddam Hussein during the recent crisis in the Persian Gulf. He was standing up to the West\u2014an Arab, looking the presidents of France and the United States and the British prime minister right in the eye as an equal! (To paraphrase a famous remark made about another head of state, and to do so in a manner that will be accept\u00adable to Latter-day Saint readers, the Arabs might have said some\u00adthing like this about Saddam Hussein: \u201cHe may be a @#$&#, but he\u2019s our @#$&#.\u201d And, in fact, many of them did say essentially this to me during the crisis and the war.) Given the managed press that is the only source of news for many of these people, it is not surprising, therefore, that they were proud of how long the war lasted, attributing it to Saddam\u2019s courage rather than to Western restraint.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Jalal Al-i Ahmad, Occidentosis: A Plague from the West, <\/em>translated by R. Campbell (Berkeley: Mizan Press, 1984).<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Every day, a bit more: \u00a0 Needless to say, Marxism could not deliver on its promises, nor give dissatisfied and humiliated residents of the Near East the dig\u00adnity that they craved.\u00a0 But what other answer was available? Well, the Islamic answer was there. It had always been there, but now its rivals were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[437,66,1239,207,1429,1432],"class_list":["post-47367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity-and-islam","tag-islam","tag-islam-and-the-west","tag-islamic-history","tag-occidentosis","tag-westoxification"],"yoast_head":"\n"Occidentosis"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Every day, a bit more:   Needless to say, Marxism could not deliver on its promises, nor give dissatisfied and humiliated residents of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Occidentosis"\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"    Every day, a bit more:   Needless to say, Marxism could not deliver on its promises, nor give dissatisfied and humiliated residents of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sic et Non\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-03-29T06:37:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-04-01T17:53:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/files\/2017\/02\/Down_with_usa_mural.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html\",\"name\":\"\\\"Occidentosis\\\"\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-03-29T06:37:12+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-04-01T17:53:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\"},\"description\":\"    Every day, a bit more:   Needless to say, Marxism could not deliver on its promises, nor give dissatisfied and humiliated residents of\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"“Occidentosis”\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/\",\"name\":\"Sic et Non\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\",\"name\":\"Dan Peterson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dan Peterson\"},\"description\":\"\\\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\\\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"\"Occidentosis\"","description":"    Every day, a bit more:   Needless to say, Marxism could not deliver on its promises, nor give dissatisfied and humiliated residents of","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"\"Occidentosis\"","og_description":"    Every day, a bit more:   Needless to say, Marxism could not deliver on its promises, nor give dissatisfied and humiliated residents of","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html","og_site_name":"Sic et Non","article_published_time":"2018-03-29T06:37:12+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-04-01T17:53:11+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/files\/2017\/02\/Down_with_usa_mural.jpg"}],"author":"Dan Peterson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dan Peterson","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html","name":"\"Occidentosis\"","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website"},"datePublished":"2018-03-29T06:37:12+00:00","dateModified":"2018-04-01T17:53:11+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045"},"description":"    Every day, a bit more:   Needless to say, Marxism could not deliver on its promises, nor give dissatisfied and humiliated residents of","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/03\/occidentosis.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"“Occidentosis”"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/","name":"Sic et Non","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045","name":"Dan Peterson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5ed1a72d26805e35a503e3167599df7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Dan Peterson"},"description":"\"Life was very unsatisfying until I discovered Dan's blog, which gave me a reason to live.\" (gemli, 7 November 2019)","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/author\/danpeterson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}