Until recent times, it seemed evident that to study another culture successfully, one was obliged to understand it clearly and accurately, exactly as it understood itself, with all its inherent contradictions. Lately that paradigm has changed to an almost exclusive and unquestioning focus on the grievances of the other culture and the oppression under which it labors. Unfortunately, writes Hillel Fradkin, the superficial perspective that grievances constitute the essence of a people is of no help in understanding why such antagonists as radical Islamists hate us so vehemently.