Afghanistanism

Afghanistanism is a term, first recorded in the United States,[1] for the practice of concentrating on problems in distant parts of the world while ignoring controversial local issues.

[2][3] In other contexts, the term has referred to "hopelessly arcane and irrelevant scholarship",[4] "fascination with exotic, faraway lands",[5] or "Railing and shaking your fist at an unseen foe who is quite unaware of your existence, much less your fury".

"[7] Robert H. Stopher and James S. Jackson, writing in their April 1948 column "Behind the Front Page", said the "new term" was coined by Jenkin Lloyd Jones of Oklahoma's Tulsa Tribune at that same convention, in Washington, D.C.

Other writers said, though, that Afghanistanism was the tendency of some editors to avoid hard local news by writing opinion pieces about events happening in distant lands.

"[12] Earlier, educator Robert M. Hutchins used the expression in a speech at the California Institute of Technology in 1955: Afghanistanism, as you know, is the practice of referring always to some remote country, place, person or problem when there is something that ought to be taken care of near at home that is very acute.