FTAC – Metonymy – “Zaani” and “Rape”

05 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philology, Psychology

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language, linguistics, metonymy, weighted symbolic relationships

Is everyone familiar with the term “metonymy”?

I use it in regard to “weighted relationships” between nouns such that the term “rape” calls also to mind “force” and that concept is reinforced in turn by its (potentially statistical) relationship with dominance and humiliation.

IF “Zaani” is intended to reference forced sexual submission (“rape”) but most closely relates to “adultery” and “fornication” (social conditions, not individual experiential concerns), it may then absent — with consequent legal and social realities congruent with this hypothesis — the consideration of humiliation, i.e., the erasure or taking of the victim’s dignity.

From the above, there may open a great conversation about the absence or centrality of the concept “dignity of man” — of each member of family, clan, tribe, and nation — as embedded in each of the world’s separable languages.

“Kavod HaBriyot” seems to be the Hebrew term — it’s new to me — but with the “People of the Book” recognized elsewhere, that too might be worth a visit.

I’ll copy this to my blog as the conversation so perfectly fits “conflict, culture, language, psychology.”

When I reach this point in specialization, the foaming fringe of an ocean featuring for currents engineering and related research interests in artificial intelligence and cybernetics and humanist interest in linguistics and poetry, I find I long for both independent funding and project integration.

🙂

While I may wait to hear the echo on that, possibly forever, as much would seem a critical corner within the intellectual space in which I live.

This is the realm of art, the “glass beads game”, the continuous manipulation of symbols and mind to beautify and ennoble experience and, as a natural behavior, to channel through expression a glimpse of the divine in nature and the universe.

Every human does this a little bit in self-concept and organization; poets may do it a little more and with reach to others.

Not all conflicts live so in the head — some really do have to do with natural and industrial resource allocations — but cultural and religious wars do as they would seem inseparable from “habits of mind” formed of particles drawn in language and repeated and inculcated throughout each culture-and-language system community wide.

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FTAC – On the Rumor of Murder Most Heinous

02 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Journalism, Philology, Philosophy, Politics

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empiricism, journalism, obscurantism

The first job for everyone involves producing a system capable of separating unfounded accusations, innuendo, propaganda, and rumor from responsible reporting. https://conflict-backchannels.com/2013/06/05/when-the-second-row-seat-to-history-aint-so-hot/ Developing information with integrity — in empirical terms, “valid and reliable” data — is an enormous problem wherever social relationships determine what is believed and obscurantism determines what is absent or unknown about subjects (including incidents) of interest.

The subject came up this morning in a Pakistani-oriented Facebook forum in a post motivated by anti-Saudi sentiment. The poster referenced an update or slantwise take on the above referenced story (about a prince who allegedly rapes and murders a woman and dumps her body on the street) and I responded with my findings that first and foremost found no initial congruent local report on the discovery of the body.

Reference

Oppenheim, James. “When the Second Row Seat to History Ain’t So Hot.” BackChannels, June 5, 2013.

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FNS: A Note on Bigotry

14 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by commart in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Politics, Psychology

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attitudes, beliefs, bigotry, expression, language, prejudice, symbolic valence

I do not understand why we are so desperate to exculpate an ideology which, at the very least, lends itself too easily to a messianic authoritarianism and viciousness. There may be much in Islam which is agreeable — a respect for the elderly, a commitment to charity, a certain high seriousness, self-discipline and so on — but many of its tenets are simply antithetical to much that we believe in and cherish.

Liddle, Rod. “To Draw A Line Between Moderate and Extremist Islam is to Miss the Point.” The Spectator, June 15, 2013.

There is such a thing as “intellectual poisoning”, and the above quoted and cited piece tells a part of the process.

I elaborate on “Social Grammar” in the Coins and Terms section here — and probably I will break out topics into separate sections quite soon:

My hypothesis and theory is that a) there is such a thing as the development of “social grammar” accompanying language uptake, b) that it is part of the learning of a language and subsequent navigation of a related language culture, and c) it has gravitational sway on formulations associated with perception and expression.

This goes back to attitude-behavior studies and theories, formulating as the basis for attitude the possession of one more beliefs and their valence (good thing / bad thing) and the intensity of the valence.

Attitude f/ belief x (affect x intensity)

And some beliefs are either more primary or more powerful than others, so multiple aligned and competing beliefs may form a mosaic with a center of gravity: deeply rooted but inexplicable, irretrievable, and indefensible beliefs and belief systems that nonetheless determine subsequent speech and behavior over time.

Jews bad / Christians bad / Muslims bad / Hindus bad / Atheists good — whatever the message, I think the child gets the drift and outline of it before uttering his first sentence: “Not mother’s milk,” I have often said: “Mother’s tongue.”

I’ll have more to say on the formation of attitudes and their expression in language after the Jewish Sabbath.

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President Obama Addresses Terrorism at National Defense University

23 Thursday May 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Philology, Politics

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2013, Islam, May, Obama, speech, terrorism, War College

Nevertheless, this ideology persists, and in an age in which ideas and images can travel the globe in an instant, our response to terrorism cannot depend on military or law enforcement alone. We need all elements of national power to win a battle of wills and ideas. So let me discuss the components of such a comprehensive counter-terrorism strategy.

First, we must finish the work of defeating al Qaeda and its associated forces.

The Huffington Post. “Obama Drone Speech Delivered at National Defense University (FULL TRANSCRIPT).” May 23, 2013.

By narrowing his war to Al Qaeda and related affiliates, Obama may claim some victories.

By seeking to integrate the Muslim Brotherhood into domestic and international governance, in essence enlarging its operating environment, he may also claim progress: the day of the dictator’s free ride, including when the dictator is ours, may be over — as a rule, the peacocks are strutting through more complex, sophisticated, and varied social environments than ever before, and whether scrutinized by such as the Committee to Protect Journalists or merely surprised by FEMEN, those who a decade ago would have capitalized on watching others are, lo and behold, finding themselves watched by an entire world.

Obama goes on to note, “Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless ‘global war on terror’ – but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.”

Unfortunately, the attractive quality promoted in warring on the west is of a boundless quality summoned by such as Quran 9:29:

“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.”

Nonetheless, the fronts are boundless too, from the landing zones of distant mountains to proliferation of Facebook and other forums in Intellectual Battlespace, and, frankly, the more conflict is worked around language, the more quickly language may be evolved away from the many curses of the medieval mind and its straying from humanity.

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FTAC – On Fated Language

22 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Psychology

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humanity, invention, language, personality, poets, wild species

Just another two cents:

“If language is an accident, it is a very bad one overall though in individual (actually guild) terms it may be a miraculous possession.”

Hi, A., — given Everett’s experience, language (in invention) may address perceived concerns of “local” interest within the operating milieu of the culture. At the tribal level, that’s relatively easily defined by geophysical reality and the proclivities of the people resident within them. For a modern engineer in a cubicle working with a head full of professional concepts and jargon, I would think the boundaries social, defined partially by who and what inform the humanity in the office.

The “bad accident” may be the bad poet who masks a level of personal harm — degradation, humiliation, shame — by producing some brand of verbal armor, a facet of narcissistic display.

Those in this category, not necessarily “bad poets”, have some intuitive choices to make about “repairing the world” (in the Jewish influence, the term in use is “Tikkun Olam”) while repairing themselves or — here come the bad boys (and girls) — aggrandizing themselves, becoming untouchable, beyond the harm of human thoughts.

Those, indeed, may play some tricks with language.

Those are just my thoughts, but I feel we see them reflected in the news and, more dangerously, encouraging of a harmed mentality internally programmed for revenge against all.

Reference

Daniel L. Everett — There are several sites, including the author’s own, that may be searched up on the web today, and I expect more will appear as the linguist’s star rises. The link given here features today a video of about twelve minutes on “Recursion and Human Thought”.

Tikkun Olam — The link is to Jill Jacob’s 2007 “The History of ‘Tikkun Olam'”.

Anti-Semitism, Attitudes, and Illness

29 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by commart in Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Philology, Psychology

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Antisemitism has certain specific features which make it a unique form of bigotry. It is founded upon unshakeable beliefs which are in fact total lies; it is deeply irrational and immune to factual evidence; it accuses Jews of atrocities of which they are not only innocent but of which they are in fact the victims; it singles them out for double standards by expecting them to behave in ways expected of no-one else; it holds falsely that they form global conspiracies of manipulative influence; and it is utterly, pathologically obsessive about the Jews and their alleged cosmic misdeeds.

Phillips, Melanie. “Britain’s infernal cocktail of hate.” Melanie Phillips Blog, January 29, 2013.

Acquiring a language includes grasping its “social grammar”, i.e. all of the intuited and unspoken rules about what may be said and what not to whom, about how one is supposed to feel about many things, from ancient warriors to wildfires, about the beliefs one should own. In that regard, a part of self-concept simply reflects what one has internalized from an environment and used as a basis — a forgotten basis, so fundamental and without definite words it may be — for responding to new information, filtering it, and expressing one’s true opinion, however murderous and unfounded.

I’ve been bookmarking articles on anti-Semitism, but it has been a while since I have opened the bin.

Let’s take a look at what’s on deck. Continue reading →

FTAC – A Note on Qadri, Pakistan, and Integrity

16 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by commart in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology

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democracy, integrity, language, Pakistan, political psychology, politics, Qadri

Neither countries or cultures can guaranty the happiness of their people: human lives and particularly the lives of minds in their internal narratives are too complex for that; however, fairness, justice, and respect in how we deal with one another are matters that involve the expression of a place – locality, state, nation, and region — through the collection of laws and customs that create the social environment in which their constituents will experience their lives.

With that in mind, I felt in this passage — and do feel so — that if one word could change the world most beset by conflict, that word would be “integrity”.

Most, if not all, of the conflicts extant in Muslim-majority states revolve around disputes involving integrity. In turn, so I believe, that involves two sides of language-based and conveyed cognitive behavior that may be distilled down to choosing to use (for a while) a clinical, empirical truth — measurable, observed, verifiable — and avoiding the traps set by potential aggrandizement, flattery, and romance.

My first impression of Qadri is that he has on one hand attempted to dull the zealot’s edge as defined by the propensity for violence (2010) and this year has approached government demanding an end to, essentially, nepotism and patronage. At the same time, he has a role as a knight errant of Islam, and that in his interpretation may have yet in it vestiges of the medieval.

The want of integrity in governance — of honest appraisal and measurement in states of affairs; of open public investigations involving corruption and crime — seems to me a most fundamental and legitimate want, and Qadri and his followers are right to demand it — or by marching and making news, bringing this aspect of Pakistan’s predicament to perhaps a more global forum.

We sometimes joke in the west that “democracies elect the governments they deserve” — a wry observation and perhaps today a little painful for Pakistan, but these are new days too, and if you’re here in the “social network” — and it may be regarded as a miracle that I’m here, considering the confluence of personal, cultural, political, and technology variables involved — some may have a little more on which to chew with the idea of “integrity” as a key to getting and putting things right.

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~ Conflict, Culture, Language, Psychology

Category Archives: Philology

FTAC – Metonymy – “Zaani” and “Rape”

FTAC – On the Rumor of Murder Most Heinous

Reference

FNS: A Note on Bigotry

President Obama Addresses Terrorism at National Defense University

FTAC – On Fated Language

Reference

Anti-Semitism, Attitudes, and Illness

FTAC – A Note on Qadri, Pakistan, and Integrity