Why some cultures respond violently to modernization

“The vocabulary of the rejectionist movements varies with the country and the time — the Koran in today’s Saudi Arabia, Kim Il Sung ideology in today’s North Korea, and a mix of Confucianism and secular xenophobia in the Japan, China and Korea of the 17th through 19th centuries. But these religions and ideologies seem to reflect something deeper: frustration at the humiliating choice faced by once-great civilizations heartsick at the pressure to discard bits of their own cultures to catch up with the nouveaux riches in the West.”
–Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times, January 8, 2002