Gharbzadegi

Gharbzadagi or Gharbzadegi (Persian: غرب‌زدگی, romanized: ġarb-zadagī, pronounced [ˈɣarb.ˈzadaˈɡiː]) or Occidentosis is a Persian-origin term translated among other ways as 'Westoxification' or 'West-struck-ness'. The concept describes an unquestioned imitation by Eastern cultures of Western appearance, behaviour (particularly consumerism and materialism), modes of reasoning and expression with an insufficient intellectual understanding thereof. This would lead the ruling classes to reason and behave in ways inconsistent with their environment, and to apply Western solutions to Eastern problems. The term implies both that Iran is "intoxicated" (زده -zada) with the West, but also a victim of the West's "toxins" or disease. The "intoxication or infatuation... impairs rational judgment" so that Iran is prevented from perceiving the danger of the object of its infatuation — the toxins of the West — "moral laxity, social injustice, secularism, devaluation of religion, and obsession with money, all of which are fueled by capitalism" and result in "cultural alienation." The term is used to refer to the loss of Iranian cultural identity through the adoption and imitation of Western models and Western criteria in education, the arts, and culture; through the transformation of Iran into a passive market for Western goods and a pawn in Western geopolitics. The phrase was first coined in the 1940s by Ahmad Fardid, a professor of philosophy at the University of Tehran, to refer to the hegemony of ancient Greek philosophy — a different meaning from that later popularised by Jalal Al-e-Ahmad. It gained common usage following the clandestine publication in 1962 of the book Occidentosis: A Plague from the West by Jalal Al-e-Ahmad.