understanding of Islamic literature Positive knowledge of languages and history was necessary, but it was never enough, any more than the mechanical athering of facts would constitute an adequate method of grasping what an author like Dante, for example, was all about The main requirement for the kind of philological understanding auerbach and his predecessors were talking about and tried to practice was one that sympathetically and subjectively entered into the life of a written text as seen from the perspective of its time and its author (eingefuhling). Rather than alienation and hostility to another time and different culture, philology as applied to Weltliteratur involved a profound humanistic spirit deployed with generosity and, if I may use the word, hospitality. Thus the interpreters mind actively makes a place in it for a foreign Other. And this creative making of a place for works that are otherwise alien and distant is the most important facet of the interpreter,'s philological mission. All this was obviously undermined and destroyed in Germany by National Socialism. After the war, Auerbach notes mournfully, the standardization of ideas, and greater and greater specialization of knowledge, gradually narrowed the opportunities for the kind of investigative and everlastingly inquiring kind of philological work that he had represented, and alas, it's an even more depressing fact that since auerbachs death in 1957 both the idea and practice of humanistic research ave shrunk in scope as well as in centrality. The ((xx)) book culture based on archival research as well as genera ples of mind that once sustained humanism as a historical discipline have almost disappeared. Instead of reading in the real sense of the word, our students today are often distracted by the fragmented knowledge available on the internet and in the mass media Worse yet, education is threatened by nationalist and religious orthodoxies often disseminated by the mass media as they focus ahistorically and sensationally on the distant electronic wars that give viewers the sense of surgical precision but that in fact obscure the terrible suffering and destruction produced by modern"" warfare. In the demonization of an unknown enemy, for whom the labelterrorist serves the general purpose of keeping people stirred up and angry, media images command too much attention and can be exploited at times of crisis and insecurity of the kind that the post-9/11 period has produced. Speaking both as an American and as an Arab I must ask my reader not to underestimate the kind of simplified view of the world that a relative handful of Pentagon civilian elites have formulated for Us policy in the entire Arab and Islamic worlds, a view in which terror, pre-emptive war, and unilateral regime change--backed up by the most bloated military budget in history-are the main ideas debated endlessly and impoverishingly by a media that assigns itself the role of producing so-called perts"who validate the government's general line Reflection, debate, rational argument, moral principle based on a secular notion that human beings must create their own history, have been replaced by abstract ideas that celebrate American or Western exceptionalism, denigrate the relevance of context, and regard other cultures with derisive contempt 'erhaps you will say that I am making too many abrupt transitions between humanistic interpretation on the one hand and foreign policy on the other, and that a modern technological society which along with unprecedented power possesses the internet and F-16 fighter-jets must in the end be commanded by formidable technical-policy experts like Donald rumsfeld and richard perle. But what has really been lost is a sense of the density and interdependence of human life, which can neither be reduced to a nor be brushed aside as irrelevant. Even the language of the war is dehumanizing in the We'll go in there, take out Saddam, destroy his army with clean surgical strikes, and everyone of th precarious moment we are living through that when vice Cheney made his hard-line speech on August 26, 200 about the imperative to attack Iraq, he quoted as his single east"expert"in support of military intervention against Iraq an Arab academic who as a paid consultant to the mas on a nightly basis keeps repeating his hatred of his own people and the renunciation of his background. Such a des clercs is a sign of how genuine humanism can generate into jingoism and false patriotism That is one side of the global debate. In the arab and muslim countries the situation is scarcely better. As Roula Khalaf in an excellent Financial Times essay(September 4, 2002)argues, the region has slipped into an easy anti-Americanism that shows little understanding of what the Us is really like as a society. Because the governments are relatively powerlessunderstanding of Islamic literature. Positive knowledge of languages and history was necessary, but it was never enough, any more than the mechanical gathering of facts would constitute an adequate method of grasping what an author like Dante, for example, was all about. The main requirement for the kind of philological understanding Auerbach and his predecessors were talking about and tried to practice was one that sympathetically and subjectively entered into the life of a written text as seen from the perspective of its time and its author (eingefuhling). Rather than alienation and hostility to another time and different culture, philology as applied to Weltliteratur involved a profound humanistic spirit deployed with generosity and, if I may use the word, hospitality. Thus the interpreter's mind actively makes a place in it for a foreign Other. And this creative making of a place for works that are otherwise alien and distant is the most important facet of the interpreter's philological mission. All this was obviously undermined and destroyed in Germany by National Socialism. After the war, Auerbach notes mournfully, the standardization of ideas, and greater and greater specialization of knowledge, gradually narrowed the opportunities for the kind of investigative and everlastingly inquiring kind of philological work that he had represented, and, alas, it's an even more depressing fact that since Auerbach's death in 1957 both the idea and practice of humanistic research have shrunk in scope as well as in centrality. The ((xx)) ( book culture based on archival research as well as general principles of mind that once sustained humanism as a historical discipline have almost disappeared. Instead of reading in the real sense of the word, our students today are often distracted by the fragmented knowledge available on the internet and in the mass media. Worse yet, education is threatened by nationalist and religious orthodoxies often disseminated by the mass media as they focus ahistorically and sensationally on the distant electronic wars that give viewers the sense of surgical precision but that in fact obscure the terrible suffering and destruction produced by modern "clean" warfare. In the demonization of an unknown enemy, for whom the label "terrorist" serves the general purpose of keeping people stirred up and angry, media images command too much attention and can be exploited at times of crisis and insecurity of the kind that the post-9/11 period has produced. Speaking both as an American and as an Arab I must ask my reader not to underestimate the kind of simplified view of the world that a relative handful of Pentagon civilian elites have formulated for US policy in the entire Arab and Islamic worlds, a view in which terror, pre-emptive war, and unilateral regime change— backed up by the most bloated military budget in history— are the main ideas debated endlessly and impoverishingly by a media that assigns itself the role of producing so-called "experts" who validate the government's general line. Reflection, debate, rational argument, moral principle based on a secular notion that human beings must create their own history, have been replaced by abstract ideas that celebrate American or Western exceptionalism, denigrate the relevance of context, and regard other cultures with derisive contempt. Perhaps you will say that I am making too many abrupt transitions between humanistic interpretation on the one hand and foreign policy on the other, and that a modern technological society which along with unprecedented power possesses the internet and F-16 fighter-jets must in the end be commanded by formidable technical-policy experts like Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle. But what has really been lost is a sense of the density and interdependence of human life, which can neither be reduced to a formula nor be brushed aside as irrelevant. Even the language of the war is dehumanizing in the extreme: "We'll go in there, take out Saddam, destroy his army with clean surgical strikes, and everyone will think it's great," said a congresswoman on national television. It seems to me entirely symptomatic of the ((XXI)) precarious moment we are living through that when Vice President ('heney made his hard-line speech on August 26, 2002, about the imperative to attack Iraq, he quoted as his single Middle east "expert" in support of military intervention against Iraq an Arab academic who as a paid consultant to the mass media on a nightly basis keeps repeating his hatred of his own people and the renunciation of his background. Such a trahison des clercs is a sign of how genuine humanism can degenerate into jingoism and false patriotism. That is one side of the global debate. In the Arab and Muslim countries the situation is scarcely better. As Roula Khalaf in an excellent Financial Times essay (September 4, 2002) argues, the region has slipped into an easy anti-Americanism that shows little understanding of what the US is really like as a society. Because the governments are relatively powerless