The interview revolves around the idea that Al Qaeda is a distinctively modern phenomenon dependent upon modern and Western ideas of transformation of the human condition through mass violence. Meanwhile, the USA and Europe are deeply superstitious about their own unique position in the world. Professor John Gray outlines a clash of modernisms, the one not less ambitious or global in nature than the other. He applies an analysis of modernity upon present phenomena such as the war in Iraq, the (...) failed EU constitution, the debate about Muslims and more broadly religion in secular societies, etc., and sketches an alternative path for the West than the present liberal revolutionary; a path informed by an awareness of limitations. (shrink)