Cultural brilliance can coincide with and mask political and military decadence

Evidence

The “clash of civilizations” rhetoric therefore became dominant in the aftermath of 9/11 and was the ideological basis for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well domestic attacks on Muslims and Arabs. For a while it appeared that the neocons were unstoppable—but they overplayed their hand. During its first term, the Bush administration built a “coalition of the willing” to invade Iraq, rejecting criticisms from allies it derogatorily labeled “old Europe.” The war on Iraq, however, did not go the way the neocons wanted it to. Instead of greeting US forces as liberators, the Iraqi people resisted and rejected US hegemony. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 421 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Confusing a thin literary culture with real popular unity produces political failure; A cultural tradition can substitute for a weak tradition of national political unity; Clash-of-civilizations rhetoric ideologically legitimized both foreign wars and domestic attacks — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 421 (+1 more)

Related

• Grand civilizational rubrics invent false collective identities that enable deadly conflicts (similarity 0.83)
• Juxtaposing contending ideologies lets thrillers move beyond war-on-terror binaries. (similarity 0.82)
• Clash-of-civilizations rhetoric ideologically legitimized both foreign wars and domestic attacks (similarity 0.81)
• The War on Terror was ideologically framed as a civilizational clash (similarity 0.81)
• The Kite Runner’s binary oppositions calcify an America-versus-Afghanistan divide (similarity 0.81)
• Popular ‘us versus them’ discourse can be recoded to support the power bloc (similarity 0.80)
• New crusades are political and cultural wars, not religious conflicts (similarity 0.79)
• Revolutionary rhetoric can mask active counterrevolutionary alliances (similarity 0.79)
• The clash of civilizations narrative is a constructed frame, not a given fact (similarity 0.79)
• Cultural affinity now outweighs shared ideology as a political glue (similarity 0.78)
• Even realist think tanks opposed the clash of civilizations narrative because al-Qaeda weaponized it. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• A cultural tradition can substitute for a weak tradition of national political unity #expands (0.82)
• Cultural legitimacy can be transferred to politics rather than the reverse. #expands (0.78)
• Clash-of-civilizations rhetoric ideologically legitimized both foreign wars and domestic attacks #qualifies (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 421