Occidentalism's Cost: War?

Although most commentators on Asia and Africa are familiar with Edward Said's "Orientalism" and its costs, few are familiar with the costs of its converse, "Occidentalism." The term, which refers to ignorant views on the West held by Easterners and even some Westerner "useful idiots," was coined by Ian Buruma in his 2005 collaboration with Avishai Margalit. Occidentalism, a coherent ideology, held by people ranging from Russian anarchists to Islamic terrorists, sees the West as spiritually bankrupt, prone to collapse, and incapable of exerting the sheer force of will to triumph in the cutthroat world of international politics.

Occidentalism is a way of rationalizing civilizational, national, and group failures. It misreads Western nations totally, and those who subscribe to it have often found at the cost of their own lives that when the gloves come off Western Nations can be tougher, more resilient, and more destructive than they realized. Those who hold Occidentalist beliefs also routinely overestimate their own power over world politics. The bizarre thing is that it is originally a Western, Splengerian ideology that came to migrate to the East and has been made into an Eastern one by countless dictators, insurgent, and terrorist groups.

So for all of the talk about America misreading Iran, one potential cause of war is Iran misreading America's domestic politics, Dan Drezner argues in a lengthy post. Saddam Hussein did so utterly, in which he bet (twice) on the idea that the US was so timid and afraid of casualties that it could be easily deterred through bellicose rhetoric and his army of rusting Soviet hulks.

The idea that Iran is ruled by religious fanatics out to sacrifice themselves for the 12th Imam is pure rubbish. But a scenario in which they, like other adversaries of America, might come to believe their own propaganda is a more serious problem in an environment that is starting to look more and more like an early Cold War standoff.

Comments

[Joseph Fouche]

I think various adversaries of the United States have made serious miscalculations because they don't understand that sometimes the wishes of the American people do rise to the surface and "complicate" U.S. foreign relations. A worse problem is that various "leaders" of the United States make the same sort of miscalculations. If a U.S. negotiator is closer in spirit to his foreign counterparts than to his fellow countrymen, the signals such a negotiator sends may fatally mislead foreign leaders who lack cultural understanding of the American people.

[A.E.]

Have you read Robert D. Kaplan's books on Arabists: http://www.amazon.com/Arabists-American-Robert-D-Kaplan/dp/0028740238

[Joseph Fouche]

That's one book by the Kaplan I've never read.

I often slip into the habit of viewing the State Department as nothing more than a hive of ineffectual fellow travelers and useful idiots that ought to be replaced by a diplomatic corps. I probably thought it was merely saying the obvious and skipped over it when I bought a giant pile of cheap paperbacks written by the Kaplan a few years ago.

[Adrienne Redd]

The occidentalist misreading of Western culture and intentions is exacerbated by the fear of having one's cultural and national sovereignty violated. I discuss this in my new book, Fallen Walls and Fallen Towers: The Fate of the Nation in a Global World. ~ Adrienne Redd

[Matthew Doye]

There is a substantial difference.

Orientalism refers to a coherent set of views held by generalised western culture about all those from the 'east', whether they be Egyptians, Japanese or anything in between.

Occidentalism, in contrast is fragmented by country and culture; one can observe different occidentalisms in Turkey Israel Pakistan India China and so on. Even within the 'Arab world' perceptions of the west and it's values vary so much that one realises the phrase Occidentalism is, in fact, invalid and a product of our Orientalism.

[A.E.]

The key phrase in Buruma's book is "viewed by the enemies of the West" i.e it is a coherent set of views that those who consider themselves broadly anti-Western hold. So it is not a product of Orientalism and nor is as necessarily as broad as Orientalism.

What it is, though, like Orientalism, is a product of the West itself, refracted through a various set of differing mirrors.