East vs West

Check out this article about the differences in East and West. Very informative. He suggests that the basic tension between Eastern and Western culture is not Religious or political as much as it is societal. The differences he points out existed in the days of Alexander the Great, before Islam or Christianity or Democracy.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2384603&page=1

Here is an excerpt:

The tribesman does not operate by a body of civil law but by a code of honor. If he receives a wrong, he does not seek redress. He wants revenge. The taking of revenge is a virtue in tribal eyes, called badal in the Pathan code of nangwali. A man who does not take revenge is not a man. Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and the sectarian militias of Iraq are not in the war business, they are in the revenge business. The revenge-seeker cannot be negotiated with because his intent is bound up with honor. It is an absolute.