Daryush Shayegan ; translated from the French by John Howe.
1st Syracuse University Press ed.
Syracuse, N.Y. :
Syracuse University Press,
1997.
x, 188 pages ;
23 cm.
Modern intellectual and political history of the Middle East
Originally published: Le regard mutilé : Schizophrénie culturelle. Paris : Albin Michel, 1989.
Reprint of 1992 ed. published by Sāqī Books.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 175-183) and index.
Bk. I. The Split. 1. Postponing the End, so Unable to Begin. 2. On Holiday from History. 3. Some Examples: China and the Islamic World. 4. The Fear of Losing Identity -- Bk. II. The Ontological Displacement. 1. Reality is Always Somewhere Else. 2. Hardening of the Scholastic Arteries. 3. The Change of Paradigm. 4. The Struggle between the Paradigms -- Bk. III. The Field of Distortions. 1. A Consciousness 'Trailing Behind' the Idea. 2. Two Aspects of Grafting: Westernization and Islamization. 3. A World which is Nowhere -- Bk. IV. The Social Foundations of the Distortions. 1. Intellectuals. 2. Ideologues. 3. Technocrats. 4. Strategists of God.
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Professor Daryush Shayegan's book is a major contribution to what is perhaps the most critical debate within the Muslim world today: the relationship between its own culture and the influence of Western modernity. Based on examples ranging from Iran to Morocco, the author portrays a society he defines as peripheral - bound by a slavish adherence to its own glorified history, its "Tradition" - yet facing an external reality that derives from the West. The meeting of these two incompatible worlds leads to a profound distortion not only in how the Muslim world sees the West but, more importantly, in how it sees itself. Shayegan draws on a vast range of cultural experiences (from China and Japan to India and Latin America) in analyzing the type of mentality that is chained to its history. Sources as diverse as Jung and Octavio Paz widen the scope of this illuminating text.