OCCidENtALiSM:THe WESt in the Eyes of its ENemies

The book was interesting because it detailed the history of the West and how the East came to associate it as a "soul-less" and "machine-like" society. The West represents modernity and colonialism and those two terms have severely threatened Eastern societies that value tradition and religion. The book mentions that the basic distinction between the modern West and Islamic world is the separation of the state and church. America especially prides itself on separating the church from the state and not allowing religion to impede the progress of the nation. It is an important point that the author's stress because basically the West has constructed itself against tradition, religion, and "old" values and have named secularism and individualism as "progressive" and modern. The book also mentions that in 1942, the Japanese intellects railed against Americanism because its metropolitan civilization was shallow, materialistic, rootless, and it did not have the spiritual culture they wanted to uphold. The problem is that "we" have no tolerance for co-existence, instead the West divided the world into tradition and modernity, religious and secular and the battle for survival continues.

Americans are defined as "soul-less," "decadent," "money grubbing," "rootless," and "faithless" but the difference between American stereotypes is that those are the characteristics that are valued and needed to succeed in the American dream world. Americans are proud to be individualistic and will do whatever it takes to protect their liberty and money. The stereotype not only has truth, but those traits are valued in America because we are socialized into thinking that we have to compete with everyone, "they" are taking our spot, "they" want our money, and we become "faithless" and "rootless" in order to achieve (or in hopes of achieving) the "good life." The author refers to Engels who criticized Manchester and London city dwellers because of their loss of solidarity, everyone was an individual indifferent to one another going after his "Selfish" interests. 

My favorite line from the book was from a terrorist who was referring to America when he said, "They love Pepsi Cola, but we love death." It is the cultural driven idea that Americans delight and indulge in pleasure, while other people worship evil and killing. Americans are taught to indulge and to believe that we have a right to luxury and excess. Surely not all Americans live that way or can afford to imagine it, but it is imprinted in our media, movies, television and it is difficult to avoid that mentality. The main point of the book is that instead of fighting fire with fire, the world needs to learn to open the door to cooperation and tolerance. People need to realize that we live in a global community and we should be receptive and working towards peace, despite fear and terror of the Other.