{"id":2472,"date":"2022-11-13T15:53:43","date_gmt":"2022-11-13T15:53:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/axsonjohnsonfoundation.org\/?post_type=seminar&p=2472"},"modified":"2022-11-25T13:16:35","modified_gmt":"2022-11-25T13:16:35","slug":"2007-what-is-the-west","status":"publish","type":"seminar","link":"https:\/\/axsonjohnsonfoundation.org\/sv\/seminarier\/2007-what-is-the-west\/","title":{"rendered":"2007: What is the West?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n After a life lived in India, Rudyard Kipling famously remarked that East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. But now they do: through immigration, through travel, through globalisation. But are the terms West and East merely a mental map that creates boundaries where none should exist? <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Can the distinction be meaningful when it is used to explain everything from the division of the Roman Empire to the Cold War and now the fight against jihadism? Japan, Brazil, Israel and Australia all defy geography to claim to be \u201cWest\u201d. Despite Russia\u2019s European Christian roots it still counts as \u201cEast\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Substantive or not, the terms determine our cultural self-awareness and the way we make sense of the world. Since Oswald Spengler\u2019s Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Westerners (and others) have been discussing its future. More recently, Samuel Huntington has cautioned of a clash of civilisations in which the West will lose its pre-eminent place.<\/p>\n

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Is the defining feature of the West hostility to the East? Edward Said\u2019s critique of Orientalism, once fashionable, is now discredited. The new theory is that Westerners have been bewitched by the riches and civilisations of the East: close observation and awe have been the hallmarks of that, not ignorant belittlement. Maybe the real prejudice today is not the idea of the \u201cnoble savage\u201d but the outsider\u2019s \u201cOccidentalist\u201d stereotypes about \u201cdepraved Westerners\u201d and their dehumanised culture and society.<\/p>\n

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So how and where did ideas about the Western world arise? And how far are they accurate? How far is technological innovation and industrialisation a \u201cWestern\u201d phenomenon? What are the spiritual characteristics and features that define the West today? Answers to these raise new questions. How do non-Westerners in modernised settings perceive the West? Are old national identities giving way to a new common Western identity at least, or at first, in Europe? Can the Euro-Atlantic West survive the decline of Atlanticism? If Western values are at least potentially universal is it practical or desirable to spread them across the world?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Medverkande<\/h3>\n\n
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\n Roger Scruton: The West and the Rest from a Historical Perspective <\/p>\n

\n Writer and Philosopher, UK <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Philippe Nemo: The Invention of Western Values <\/p>\n

\n Professor, Economics, Law and Social Sciences Department, ESCP Europe, Paris, France <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Georgios Varouxakis: The Origins of the Idea of \u201cthe West\u201d <\/p>\n

\n Doctoral Student, Queen Mary University of London, UK <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n David Landes: Cornerstones in Western Development <\/p>\n

\n Professor, Harvard University, USA <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Robert Irwin: The Orientalists and Their Enemies <\/p>\n

\n Historian, Novelist and Writer on Arabic Literature, UK <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Larry Siedentop: Democracy in Europe <\/p>\n

\n Dr, University of Oxford, UK <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n T\u00f8ger Seidenfaden: Western Values, National Identities <\/p>\n

\n Editor-in-Chief at Danish Daily Politiken, Denmark <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Robert Shapiro: Democracy in America <\/p>\n

\n Dr, Chairman and Co-Founder, Sonecon, USA <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Sahin Alpay: Turkey and Westernization <\/p>\n

\n Professor, Bahcesehir University, Istanbul, Turkey <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Nadezhda Mihaylova: The West Viewed from the Balkans <\/p>\n

\n Former Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Institute for Democracy and Stability in South-East Europe <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Marina Warner: The Compass of Story: Eastern Bearings in Western Literature <\/p>\n

\n Writer, UK <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Avishai Margalit: The West by the Rest <\/p>\n

\n Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Co-author with Ian Buruma of Occidentalism (2004), Jerusalem, Israel <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Pankaj Mishra: The Legacy of Muslim Immigration <\/p>\n

\n Writer, UK\/India <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Ibn Warraq: Self\u00ad-Criticism: The Redemptive Grace of Western Civilisation <\/p>\n

\n Writer, Founder of ISIS (Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society), USA <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Hans Kollhoff: Go West: Welcome in Europe <\/p>\n

\n Architect, Germany <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Philip Bobbitt: The Wars on Terror <\/p>\n

\n Professor, Texas University School of Law, USA <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n David Frum: The Universality of Western Values <\/p>\n

\n American Enterprise Institute, USA <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n G\u00f6ran Rosenberg: The Future of the European Gemeinschaft <\/p>\n

\n Journalist, Sweden <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Rolf Ek\u00e9us: Threats to European Integration <\/p>\n

\n Ambassador, OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, Sweden <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

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\n Bo Huldt: The Future of Transatlantic Relations <\/p>\n

\n Swedish Defence College, Sweden <\/p>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n\n

\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n <\/section>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-2472","seminar","type-seminar","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n2007: What is the West? - Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for public benefit<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/axsonjohnsonfoundation.org\/sv\/seminarier\/2007-what-is-the-west\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"sv_SE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2007: What is the West? - Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for public benefit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/axsonjohnsonfoundation.org\/sv\/seminarier\/2007-what-is-the-west\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for public benefit\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-11-25T13:16:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/axsonjohnsonfoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/big-placeholder-people-1.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1088\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"612\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/axsonjohnsonfoundation.org\\\/sv\\\/seminarier\\\/2007-what-is-the-west\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/axsonjohnsonfoundation.org\\\/sv\\\/seminarier\\\/2007-what-is-the-west\\\/\",\"name\":\"2007: What is the West? 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