Nonrational Concern
The individual reared in a Western cultural setting is often at a disadvantage when faced with the problem of learning, because of his preoccupation with the question of "dominate or be dominated," to which he gives intense and undiscriminating emphasis. He is often aware of the "problem" in only a crude form ("dominate of be dominated"), and his literary and philosophical roots give him little ability to realize that the problem is centered around the assumption that there is no more rarefied possibility than "struggle or be struggled against." Some Western observers have noticed this essential crisis. Under the heading of "Nonrational Concern," the editors of a recent symposium refer to this inherent characteristic:
"...the inability to make others fulfill one's wishes; and the reverse, the fear of being controlled by others, with the consequent loss of the autonomy that is believed to be fundamental to the conception of the self. These opposites are inconguously exaggerated in paranoid thinking, one of the most prevalent mental symptoms of Western man."
Shah, Idries, "The Sufis" p.431
.i.