Iran's most prominent Heideggerian philosopher Ahmad Fardid coined the term Gharbzadegi after he read Heidegger's existential philosophy and adapted Heidegger's concept of the authentic. Gharbzadegi or being struck-by-the-West was widely discussed within Iranian intellectual circles that formed against the despotic Shah. Al-e-Ahmad popularized this term with his treatise that outlined a disease, that is to say, Gharbzadegi that also gets translated as "Westoxification." Al-e-Ahmad's thesis reads "we've [Iranians] not been able to retain our own cultural/historical personality during our encounter with machines and in the face of their inevitable assault." Weststruckness ignited a crucial debate on modernism and Iran's national identity and is generally regarded as the initiation of an intellectual movement that opposed monarchic Iran and its Western influences.

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