New Westoxication: Retrieving Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s Cultural Critique

Abstract

Jalal Al-e Ahmad was an Iranian public intellectual and writer, best known for his concise, modern prose and bold critique. One of his works was a famous monograph on what he termed westoxication. This article addresses the question: can this concept be narrowed down to a more specific sociological phenomenon? I argue that it can be used to describe a distinct Southern mode of cultural consumption rooted in a collective disregard for the legacy of colonialism. That is a peculiar form of cultural consumption that mimics Western lifestyles as a means of withdrawing to an imagined Western lifeworld, in response to governance failures in the Southern societies. It entails the creation of a web of collective confabulations, or fabrication of false memories, wherein the colonised imagine themselves as having shared in the colonisers’ privileged position of superiority. The purpose of this article is to situate the new concept of westoxication within the vocabulary of postcolonial social theory.