Another diagnosis of the disease

"Even the verbal abuse heaped on me during class by students, and the daily glares from the key lady, felt too empty and passionless to be very revelatory. The students weren't militant about their anti-Americanism, or about much of anything. History had rendered them too cynical for any level of fervor. Their antagonism felt vestigial, the persistently acrid smell of the cold war tinged with envy and the bitter odor of half-truth doled out by a sleazy press."

In Central Asia, an American Professor Finds Hostility Spiked With Cynicism

By Elinor Burkett