Category Archives: Political Psychology

Islam — A Note on Political Topology and Prejudice and Possibility

16 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Iran, Middle East, Political Psychology, Politics, Regions

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And here we are in 2015 choosing to believe the promises made by the leaders of Islamic Iran regarding nuclear proliferation despite the well-known Islamic policy of taqiyya-religious deception. Despite the fact that they have lied about their nuclear programme in the past. From the Qur’an – This verse tells Muslims not to take those outside the faith as friends, unless it is to “guard themselves” against danger, meaning that there are times when a Muslim may appear friendly to non-Muslims, though they should not feel that way.” (Here And here – “And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers.” If Allah is supremely deceitful toward unbelievers, then there is little basis for denying that Muslims are allowed to do the same. (See also 8:30 and 10:21) and here. From the Hadith: Bukhari (84:64-65) – Speaking from a position of power at the time, Ali confirms that lying is permissible in order to deceive an “enemy.” In other words, the word of a Muslim leader is not his bond.

Bederman, Diane Weber.  “Western Arrogance may lead us to Armageddon.”  Canada Free Press, July 16, 2015.

The vast majority of countries on Earth with nuclear programs do not possess sensitive nuclear facilities. Rather the fuel is provided by a more advanced nuclear power, such as Russia, France, or the United States. This eliminates the need for the spread of dangerous enrichment or reprocessing programs to new countries. Countries like Iran that insist on developing their own sensitive technologies for “peaceful purposes,” therefore, are tipping their hand and revealing a likely intention to build the bomb.

Kroenig, Matthew.  “Why is Obama Abandoning 70 Years of U.S. Nonproliferation Policy?”  Tablet, June 15, 2015.

Whether nations or women deceived, Islam and several of the states most representative of it would seem to have a big credibility issue.  For Jews, perhaps others who have taken note, serious betrayal — and signal of the complete absence of compassion, conscience, and empathy — begins with the legend of the mass slaughter of the Banu Qurayza men and the barbaric enslavement of their wives and daughters.

Muslim critic and reformer Tarek Fatah has derided and rejected the authenticity of the Banu Qurayza legend for finding it execrable as any sort of example of morality while the “anti-Jihad”, in general, maintains the same as a potent symbol of the character of Islam.

Today’s skinny brings the tale of the imam who lied to betray his wife and woo another woman (K. M. Lessing) into conversion and marriage.

Same thing, isn’t it?

First, lie; then exploit the lie: to get the woman; to get power over others.

From simple mass slaughter and the abuse of women inveigled into relationships, Islam’s apparently inherent interest in the possession of absolute power — unanswerable, unconscionable (well demonstrated throughout the Syrian theater and the military and political play that has been fashioned as “Assad vs The Terrorists”), and humanly conflated with the presence in concept of God Almighty — extends logically to the possession of nuclear arms and the associated ability and evident intent to threaten the annihilation of others in exchange for their cooperation, loyalty, obedience, subjugation.

Should one take it on faith that not all imam are like K. M. Lessing’s imam?

Similarly, should on take it on faith that not all ayatollah and senior clerics are like Ali Khamenei or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi?  Or the Muhammad who allegedly slaughtered 800 self-surrendered, compliant, and disarmed fathers and sons?

What do the polls say?

Where are the social science measures of attitudes toward others from within Islam?

Here we are back at “Shimmer“.

It’s different today: the question had been, as stated by Daniel Pipes, “How Many Islamists?”  Now we’re being positioned to ask among the despotic and theocratic leaders of Islamic states, who else (in addition to Pakistan) will have nuclear weapons, how soon, and how many?

While it may be understood that the Religion of Peace contains the genuinely peaceful and now an emerged leadership complement of Islamic humanists, social progressives, and reformers, its other faces retain the power and punch of military generals and political autocrats, and those in Iran it appears the west may now be rewarding with increased access to capital and the further encouragement of license exceeding all limits.

Loosely Related Reference

Afshari, Ali.  “Khamenei preaches Shiite-Sunni unity against Islamic State, US.”  Al-Monitor, October 22, 2014: “High-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic have always talked about the importance of Shiite-Sunni unity and even dedicated a week each year to the issue. Their actions, however, have served to deepen the Shiite-Sunni divide, in particular their discrimination against Iranian Sunnis, including limitations on their religious activities, as well as efforts to propagate Shiism in the Middle East.”

Al-Muslimi, Farea.  “Yemen’s Houthis proxy, not ally for Iran.”  Al-Monitor, November 19, 2014.

BackChannels.  “Ali Khamenei and the Letter from Near Mosul — A Speculation.”  January 16, 2015.

Bender, Jeremy.  “Iran’s proxy war in Yemen just got exposed.”  Business Insider, May 1, 2015.

Council on Foreign Relations.  “The Sunni-Shia Divide.”

Daoud, David.  “Iran’s Khamenei Says US is Enemy to Both Sunni and Shia Muslims in the Middle East.”  The Algemeiner, May 18, 2015.

Frantzman, Seth J.  “20 Myths About the Iran Deal.”  Terra Incognita, July 15, 2015: “How a country that hangs people proudly and burns the flags of those it negotiates with has come to be so respected on the international stage is truly extraordinary. It is a testament to the soft racism of low expectations of the West.”

Karami, Arash.  “Iranian supreme leader doubles down on struggle against American ‘arrogance'”.  Al-Monitor, July 13, 2015

In September 2014, the U.S. began airstrikes in Syria that targeted ISIS, allowing Assad to perform an “economy of force“: Assad left the U.S. to attack ISIS in the east and focused on the moderates in the west. Assad has worked very hard to make extremists the face of the insurgency—for example between ISIS’ emergence and late 2014, Assad directed just six percent of his airstrikes against ISIS—and to present this as a binary choice between the dictator or the takfiris; this is a lie, but many believe it and it has worked to make the U.S. effectively Assad’s (Iran’s) air force in Syria.

Orton, Kyle.  “America Not Training Syria’s Rebels Isn’t “Failure”; It’s Policy.”  The Syrian Intifada, July 13, 2015.

Ross, Dennis.  “Iran Will Cheat, Then What?”  Time, July 15, 2015.

Starr, Barbara.  “Sources: Baghdadi may have been in Raqqa.”  CNN Politics, July 15, 2015.  Post includes video, story, and photo panel of “Leaders of deadliest terrorist groups.”

Former U.S. officials and Iran experts say Khamenei has a deep-rooted suspicion of the West and a streak of insecurity – he rose to power due to his loyalty to the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rather than lofty religious credentials.

A sense of inferiority has dogged him over the years and it would be especially important for Khamenei to be seen as not folding under Western pressure to reach an agreement, they said.

Zakaria, Tabassum.  “For Iran talks, trying to divine supreme leader’s intent.”  Reuters, April 13, 2012.

The United States pushed forward with a sanctions-based approach largely because key administration officials believed that sanctions strengthened the credibility and leverage of those who wanted to engage Iran, while preventing more violent actions by Israel. They insisted that such an approach best addressed the myriad long-term mutual interests shared by the United States and Iran. President Obama himself reached the conclusion that there were too few negative incentives to affect Iran’s internal calculus, particularly regarding mutual interests.

Marashi, Reza.  “The Political Psychology of Obama’s Iran Policy.”  Muftah, January 6, 2012.

Khalaji, Mehdi.  “No Voice of Reconciliation: Khamenei Targets the West.”  The Washington Institute, May 21, 2015.

The Soufan Group.  “TSG IntelBrief: Khamenei’s Challenges and Unease in Iran’s Power Structure.”  November 14, 2013.

There’s not much on the web as regards “political psychology, Khamenei.”

Perhaps BackChannel’s approach with “malignant narcissism” aligned with the “Syndicate Red Brown Green” feudalism and associated anti-Semitism / anti-Zionism / anti-westernism will fill the bill: I believe Khamenei’s interests continue to reside with the possession of political “absolute power”, capricious justice, piratical leadership, militarism expressed through “war by proxy” and the cultivation of Daesh as a Sunni-aligned foil for Iraq’s Shiite militia (advised by Revolutionary Guard), and the long-term survival of Sunni vs Shiite teleological rivalry and related hot conflict as stage-managed from Tehran.

World Nuclear Association.  “Nuclear Power in Iran.”  Updated May 2015: “After two years delay due to Iran’s reluctance to agree to returning used fuel to Russia without being paid for it, two agreements were signed early in 2005 covering both supply of fresh fuel for the new Bushehr nuclear reactor and its return to Russia after use. The Russian agreement means that Iran’s nuclear fuel supply is secured for the foreseeable future, removing any justification for enrichment locally.”

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The Imam’s Deceived Woman – K. M. Lessing – On the Most Brazen of Lies

14 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion

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Posted to YouTube June 3, 2015; first viewed as a “Video Greeting” on author K. M. Lessing’s web site.

Reference: Qur’an 3:54

According to the Qur’an, Allah is the “best of deceivers” (3:54; 8:30). The phrase is often translated into English as “best of planners,” “best of schemers,” or “best of plotters,” but the root word (makr) means “deception.” Hence, the following Qur’an verses should be rendered as follows:

Qur’an 3:54—And they (the unbelievers) planned to deceive, and Allah planned to deceive (the unbelievers), and Allah is the best of deceivers.

Qur’an 7:99—Are they then safe from Allah’s deception? No one feels safe from Allah’s deception except those that shall perish.

Qur’an 8:30—And (remember) when the unbelievers plotted deception against you (O Muhammad), to imprison you, or kill you, or expel you. They plotted deception, but Allah also plotted deception; and Allah is the best of deceivers.

Wood, David.  “Is Allah the Best of Deceivers?”  Answering Muslims, March 2, 2014.

With reference to Qur’an 3:54:

The historical background for the verse is that the Jews ‘planned’ evil in order to get Jesus arrested and crucified. And Allah in the verse says as they planned evil, so too Allah planned to thwart their wicked plan. Christian missionaries have an issue with the words used for both the Jews and Allah. They prefer to translate this way:

“and [they] deceived and Allah deceived and Allah is the best of deceivers”

The above translation does not exist. It is only made up by crazy deluded missionaries in order to lead people astray. Arabic word(s) makr, Makara can be used negatively and for good.  So when the Jews planned to get Jesus arrested and crucified, that was evil, whereas when Allah thwarted their evil plan by saving Jesus, this was good.

Discover the Truth.  “Response to Critics Claim ‘Allah is A Deceiver’ – Quran 3:54.”  January 24, 2015.

True, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ;(13) still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures. All should see to it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit of Christ.

Pope Paul VI.  “Nostra Aetate: Declaration on The Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions Proclaimed by His Holiness Pope Paul VI on October 28, 1965.”  Vatican.

Verily methinks the woman was deceived, the Jews were libled — the whole lot, and the post-Holocaust Vatican compelled to clarify the truth of its position in relation to the Jewish People.

Ironically related reference on the Soviet framing of WWII’s Pope Pius XII as “Hitler’s Pope”: Pacepa, Ion Mihai and Rychlak, Ronald J. Disinformation. Washington, D.C.: WND Books, 2013.  (BackChannels readers will find more of similar in “The Russian Section” of the resident library).

Further related and more conveniently accessed: Akin, Jimmy.  “How Pius XII Protected Jews.”  Catholic Answers, n.d.: “Hochhuth’s fictional image of a silent (though active) pope has been transformed by the anti-Catholic rumor mill into the image of a silent and inactive pope—and by some even into an actively pro-Nazi monster. If there were any truth to the charge that Pius XII was silent, the silence would not have been out of moral cowardice in the face of the Nazis, but because the Pope was waging a subversive, clandestine war against them in an attempt to save Jews.”

As people lie — engage in deception — either to hide something or to get something, we know, this according to Ms. Lessing, what the ignoble imam was after; and according to Jimmy Akin as well as the breathtaking revelations of Pacepa and Rychlak (2013), we know what the noble Pope Pius XII was hiding for good cause.

The Discover the Truth blog goes on to note the moral ambiguity involved in the term “makr” this way: “The word, makr in Arabic denotes a subtle and secret move or plan. If this is for a good purpose, it is good; and if this is for a bad purpose, it is bad.”

The argument places the determination of good deed or evil beyond the declaration of Surat 3:54: “And (the unbelievers) plotted and planned, and Allah too planned, and the best of planners is Allah” (Yusuf Ali’s translation).

Again: “The word, makr in Arabic denotes a subtle and secret move or plan. If this is for a good purpose, it is good; and if this is for a bad purpose, it is bad.”

It would appear that “being the best of planners” — being the most proficient among the makers of subtle and secret moves or plans — would be a thing separate from being either good or evil, i.e., the statement is about facility in the making of “subtle and secret moves” and neutral about ethical and moral virtue, plain dealing, and straight talk as behaviors civil, desirable, good, and lawful in and of themselves.

Given so much encouragement and license for the making of “subtle and secret moves”, who then — or what — determines the qualities of good cause?

I’ll leave that question rhetorical.

One might suppose that had Lessing’s imam been honest with her, Lessing may yet be wearing her hijab with pride.

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FTAC – Summation – Syria and Red Brown Green

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Middle East, Political Psychology, Syria

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The schematics I feel I’ve observed over the years:

Post-Soviet –> neo-feudal Russia that has been quietly addressed (by sanctions; by a precipitous drop in oil prices and related revenues) as an extension of the former era.

“Putin-Assad-Khamenei” as an arc of power in the region and “Putin-Khamenei” as a hub for the greater development of political absolute power elsewhere.

“Syndicate Red Brown Green” — Putin’s Russia, KGB-to-FSB; new national socialist movements (Hungary); Islamists.

The cultivation of Daesh, self-generated but perhaps manipulated by Khamenei to serve as a Sunni foil for his regime’s Shiite expansion, serves narrative artifice that has been “Assad vs The Terrorists” — an horrific piece of political “theater of the real”.

All of that may be breaking up through the fragmenting of Syria, but nothing is near over, and, indeed, the anarchy and chaos developed in the space will have to be addressed on multiple levels, from combat and counterterrorism effort to some kind of refugee management and resettlement. Count out “Putin, Assad, Khamenei” as being of any help at all.

I had just seen a group of pictures featuring starved Syrian children, the latest in “war porn”, and it had featured an image of a starving adult man bearing a resemblance to President Obama.

Agitprop?

Not only agitprop, but propaganda from what appeared to me to be an anti-western, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist “news agency” promoting victimization on one hand while isolating itself on the other.

BackChannels has been to this evil place before: “It’s Hard Helping You When You’re Anti-Semitic, Among Other Things” (March 19, 2014).

Written about the “Obamastarvingman” and the more evidently starved youngsters:

I don’t like the top figure’s resemblance to Obama — it smacks of propaganda, an attempt at not quite subliminal suggestion.

While “Syndicate Red Brown Green” put together the political theater that may be titled, “Assad vs The Terrorists”, the children shown, and of course noncombatant adults as well, were the kind of Syrians killed or punished by, in essence, their own feudal lords.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights may have additional information on the casualties of the breathtaking disaster that has taken place in Syria in the post-Soviet and now feudal context managed by Putin, Assad, and Khamenei. Obama watched; NATO watched; we watched. However: the continuing promotion of anti-Semitism, anti-westernism — basically hateful and undemocratic rhetoric (because it’s dishonest and disingenuous speech) — leaves the Syrian victims of Assad’s grandiose play (“Assad vs The Terrorists”) disenfranchised, helpless, and isolated.

No surprise: no one has yet “Liked” the comment.

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Link – MEF – Summer – ” . . . that death is not death . . . .”

18 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Links, Political Psychology, Psychology, Religion

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Suicide terrorism has become so commonplace that it is easy to overlook how relatively new and suddenly popular the phenomenon is. Between the end of World War II and the Iranian revolution, there were no suicide attacks in the world. Yet only months after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini solidified power and formed the Pasdaran and Basij, suicide attacks began to appear in conflicts involving Shiites (Lebanon, the Iran-Iraq war) and then took root among Palestinian Sunni groups.[3] It eventually became the preferred tactic of Islamist terror organizations.

Khomeini selected specific passages from the Qur’an and hadith (canonical collections of Muhammad’s alleged sayings and actions) to craft his suicidal version of radical Islam. His two-part rhetorical plan necessitated convincing Muslims that suicide is not suicide and that death is not death.

Caschetta, A. J.  “Does Islam Have a Role in Suicide Bombings?” Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2015.

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Link – Pakistan – Xenophobic Actions

17 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Politics, Religion

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Condemning the move, a Save the Children official told Reuters that the Pakistan government had been stopping aid shipments entering the country, “blocking aid to millions of children and their families”. It comes after the Pakistani government announced it was tightening the rules for NGOs, revoking several of their licences. An interior ministry official said on Friday it had cancelled agreements with at least 15 foreign charities, including the Norwegian Refugee Council, on the advice of intelligence agencies that said the organisations had been “collecting sensitive data” from Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Foreign charities have complained that they have been treated with increasing hostility and suspicion in Pakistan, with obstacles to their work becoming ever more difficult especially in the last 6 months.

Chowdhry, Wilson.  “Save the Children charity ordered to leave Pakistan.”  Blog.  British Pakistani Christians, June 13, 2015.

Everyone’s against you.

No one likes you.

You have to fight back.

Others who are like you will have to fight back with you.

Gather around: the outlook is not a perspective: it is a religion, a religious obligation; and constitutionally supported.

The truth is as it is made out — The polio vaccine was fake.  ” . . . Interior Minister Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan, said the organisations in question “are operating with support from the United States, Israel and India” (from Wilson Chowdhry’s piece).

Assorted Suggested Lookups: Civilizational Narcissism; Narcissistic Personality Disorder; Paranoid Personality Disorder; Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy; etc.

That Christian missions and press spoil against their Islamic counterparts holds no surprise, but what presumably educated adults in Pakistan are willing to do to children, their own or others, beneath the cover of paranoid conspiracy theories and socially lauded hate, surpasses cruelty.

The greater story — what may be found as one rises above an animosity that is as medieval as it may be parochial — is that other Pakistanis, including other elements in governance, are again struggling to save children from Poliomyelitis.

Related Reference

Beaubien, Jason.  “Taliban in Pakistan Derail World Polio Eradication.”  NPR, July 28, 2014.

Bentz, Leslie.  “CIA policy: Won’t use vaccination programs as part of operations.” CNN, May 20, 2014.

End Polio Pakistan.

Saifi, Sophia and Greg Botelho.  “Over 500 Pakistani parents arrested for children’s failure to get polio vaccine.”  CNN, March 4, 2015.

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Link – Erdogan’s Turkey – Israel’s Image

12 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Anti-Semitism, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Israel, Political Psychology, Politics, Syndicate Red Brown Green, Turkey

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A large number of the citizens of Turkey, a NATO member, see Israel and the United States as enemies.

A survey conducted recently in Turkey found that nearly half the country’s citizens (42.6%) see Israel as the biggest security threat, followed by the United States (35.5%), and only then Syria (22.1%).

How do they visualize Israel, a country with which they have made several military and trade agreements, as being a security threat? Do they think Israel would ever invade Turkey? Bomb Turkey? Nuke Turkey? This view seems to be based on either religion-induced paranoia caused by Islamic anti-Semitism, or else their understanding of reality has been distorted Nazi-style by Turkish leaders and the media.

Bulut, Uzay.  “Turkish Journalist Uzay Bulut — Turkey’s View of Israel.”  IsraelSeen.com, June 10, 2015.

Turkey was the first – and for decades the only – Islamic country to recognize the Jewish state, opening diplomatic relations in 1949. While Turkey became a member of NATO in 1952, and Israel served during the Cold War as a Western ally to counter Soviet alliances in the Arab world, relations between the two states were low-key through the decades of wars fought between Israel and the Arabs. Yet Turkey never severed the relationship despite Arab pressure to do so. With the end of the Cold War, Israel and Turkey emerged as the most democratic and economically dynamic states in the region. Their foreign pro-Western orientation and their self-perception as bastions of democratic and free market values in an unruly neighbourhood placed them, as was the case during the Cold War years, in the same strategic boat.

Inbar, Efraim.  “The Resilience of Israeli-Turkish Relations”.  11:4 (591-607) Israel Affairs, October 2005; reprinted by The Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Mideast Security and Policy Studies No. 63; posted as a PDF online.

Given the neo-feudal and fascist will of Syndicate Red Brown Green, the resilience of Israeli-Turkish relations has not looked good for some years.

What may be looking forward, however, is how well humanity-adverse and anti-Semitic drives and manipulations may be overviewed on the World Wide Web.  Not only may pro-democracy true progressives in the west do the homework on the Putin-Erdogan relationship, brave and independent souls in Turkey (and elsewhere worldwide) may search up “Putin, Erdogan, Democracy”.

Other cool related searches: “Putin, palaces”; “Erdogan, white palace”.

After a while, in the same fashion as the Reuter’s piece on Khamenei, these reports that develop online — and they do add up thematically — create a certain impression and, perhaps, also leave a lasting impression.

Additional Reference

Martel, Frances.  “Erdogan’s Putin-Style Internet Trolls Blamed for Turkish AKP’s Election Losses.”  Breitbart, June 10, 2015.

Sadar, Claire.  “Dreaming of Russia in Ankara: Is Erdogan Following in Putin’s Footsteps?”  Foreign Affairs, February 12, 2015.

Tisdall, Simon.  “Erdogan plan for super-presidency puts Turkey’s democracy at stake.” The Guardian, March 25, 2015.

Relevant on BackChannels: “Anthropolitical Psychology“

I fear to see the term “anthropolitical” take off, but it could happen: in a New Age Strange Way, we’re all going to be part of distinct and meaningful legacy (and ethnolinguistic) cultures, but any will have the option at all times to overview the same rapidly — to see their world mirrored in real time — and inquire into its intellectual arrangements.  From that may come greater discrimination in preferences in values plus an active delineation of “desirable universals” and “critical positive” cultural and intellectual assets.

The English x persons x language shall not rule the world: the worlds of the world must rule themselves differentially even if and while wrapped in a unifying global communications environment.

Addendum – June 15, 2015

Efraim Inbar, a professor of political studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University and director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA), is not optimistic about AKP’s imminent political downfall and does not expect a change in Turkey’s attitude toward Western nations and Israel.

“The struggle over the soul and identity of Turkey continues,” Inbar told JNS.org, explaining that while “the election is definitely a blow to the AKP, [the party] still remains the major political force in Turkey.”

JNS.org via The Algemeiner.  “Will Erdogan’s Election Setback Mean Improved Relations With Israel?”  June 14, 2015.

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FTAC – Not To Judge but To Reason

09 Tuesday Jun 2015

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology, Religion

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Who is whom to judge? Or who is to judge whom?

The psychology, which may be shared in the many subcultures residing beneath the umbrellas of major religions, involves “locus of control”, or in more familiar terms, who or what is the central power and who and what are peripheral to it.

God always wins this one.

🙂

A portion of unfortunate and perhaps misdirected mankind chooses to argue through a figure of human agency.

Judaism — at least contemporary Judaism — most strictly separates its prophets, all of whom are depicted as imperfect and riven with faults from their earliest introduction, from its God.

Critics of Islam, I believe, point to conflation that perhaps inappropriately elevates the human to be as like a god even if not God.

What headaches we have given ourselves with this combination of metaphysical (therefore unprovable by empirical standards) conjectures and their installation into culture. Before drawing rebuke, I may remind that in 12th Century Hungary, laws designed to discriminate against Jews were upon implementation applied equally to Muslims, which is my way of suggesting that whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim (alphabetical ordering guides that method of listing, nothing else), we need together to step down from the bloody merry-go-round and pause to reflect and wonder at legacy with both compassion — I favor ethnolinguistic coevolution in my outlook — and the determination to look forward rather than backward, to become free of the past and more able to embrace a new dawn.

Before Jesus, Paul, and Constantine and not much later Muhammad, the Jewish teacher Hillel the Elder had spent his career shifting Judaic arguments from the defense of rote and ritual to the promotion of derived principle and in doing so had produced a more accessible religion, it’s uptake in a restive Rome being perhaps no accident. However, the politics of power intrude, competition develops, and we are left “full of it”. Becoming or being aware of that as well as more sophisticated about how we’re really put together psychologically and spiritually should help mitigate the adverse effects of the endowments of each.

The atheist’s argument may be specious in that anyone interested in leveraging license to lord over another may claim victimization and the imperatives of defense. As much becomes a transparent ploy — and one that cynical dictators apply by producing “false flag” attacks . . . or more recently, drawing retributive fire and treating the same as unprovoked. As much also becomes a juvenile and dirty way of working. As the same becomes more apparent, it becomes also more shameful.

Inspiration for the above rant:

Jones, Kile.  “ISIS and Radical Islam: An Atheist Examines a Stupid Meme.”  Patheos, June 9, 2015.

What magic Mumbo Jumbo calls an end to conflict seated primarily in the mind?

I wish I knew.

By way of the example of Putin and Khamenei and their common interest in feudal absolute power, we may know more about political criminality than in centuries past.  One may review from “The Russian Section” exactly how a vicious authoritarian system may be made to work to privilege a class of overlords or piratical wealthy.  Of course, the same develop the “realpolitik” in politically repressive power to keep themselves in business (Mugabe’s proof as far as I’m concerned).

Along with locus of control (mentioned above), the taking of license — the power to make others suffer with impunity — should also be viewed as politically and socially problematic.  Dictatorships concentrate power in one entity (person, cabal, junta, party), and that power becomes the power to capriciously visit suffering on others with impunity; authentic democracies distribute power and constrain the powerful in such a way to leave God and the law more powerful than any soul that may chance to be born human and pass beneath both.

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FTAC – Intuitive Statement on Cultural Transmission

03 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Epistemology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Political Psychology, Politics, Psychology

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Our cultural and language differences have a breadth to them defined by the wild nature of nature. From my intuitive perspective, our cultural programming begins when the ears are turned on, if not before, and that’s in the womb. We hear — and we start “taking statistics” on sound. Correlation — with our own chemistry and mood; with the timbre and meaning of noise, so that we may discern what is important in listening and set aside similar data to focus on it — would seem a part of that process. By the time we get around to speaking ourselves or, later, reading, we have learned — or come to believe — an awful lot about cultural and physical aspects of our environment. Most fascinating, albeit again intuited: without language, we cannot suspend our cultures in time by transmitting the same through the tongue.

What’s up there is not such a bold new thought.  Linguists have been long submerged beneath the surface of it and “taking statistics” themselves from observations of behavior in relation to language uptake in infancy.

What may be new given our access here to the Awesome Worldwide Conversation may be our adult ability to become both introspective and observing across language cultures faced with or hosting significant conflict-related violence and querying the sources of development of related psychological contributors.  “Cognitive style”; “listening style”; “manners in speech”; “attitude-behavior correspondence” and its ancillaries in the individual’s interior development of beliefs and their emotional and logical primacy and weight.

Across cultures, do we hear and listen, read, and speak as if the same — or are we differentially programmed?

Down to households and up to high office, cultures support and perpetuate intellectual ecologies familiar to their residents but perhaps alien beyond themselves.  That’s something to think about when launching an app, choosing movie or television program to watch in the “home theater”, or when opening a book or game with which one covertly, privately, interacts, mind-to-mind or mind-to-minds.

Mommy sends – baby receives: what do mothers send?  What do babies get?   Examine x dyad x household x community x region x state?  Are things we may suppose universal actually so?

In the middle east conflict, there seem always to be things “everybody knows” that turn out not in the least true.

Better ask the flat earth believers: what are the effects of social conformance, fear, or anti-authority protest on what may be observed, argued, and measured (and re-observed, measured, and tested) as true?

Is there a difference between “political cant, propaganda, and rhetoric” and plain honest, valid, reliable, and responsible speech?

Addendum – FTAC – June 4, 2015

What’s relevant could be described as global ethnolinguistic survival and self-determination. Baloch, Kurds, Hebrews, Pashtun, and others (the earth’s inventory of living languages stands at around 7,000 speech communities, albeit with far fewer major language groups) share this interest in common. If you’re going to go after the Hebrew soul — as long as we’re confessing: I don’t speak Hebrew: I am solely an English-speaking American, and I am still Jewish — whose soul in being is to be dispensed with next? Arab heritage? Persian?

For various reasons, beginning with the discussion-inducing qualities of the Torah — whatever its injunctions, it sets out the broadest range of ethical and moral dilemmas and puzzles (what if Eve hadn’t eaten the “fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?) — and moving on to figures like Maimonides and Hillel the Elder, the latter deliberately setting out to make Judaism more accessible to converts, what “Jewish” is remains ever arguable (except with simpletons like Hitler who thought it had to do with blood and measured that for murder — and theft — by distance from the legacy of Jewish family). Moreover, the same allows Jewish culture and life to grow and adapt to times over time without losing its essence, despite the occasional complaint from the presumptuously and magically more “authentic, pure, or real” Jew. In place of “Jew” place “Christian” for “Muslim” or “Buddhist” or “Hindu” and the same effects may apply: identity becomes more important than character; ritual supplants principle.

Language cultures may be a little different on the global landscape. Each is a part of our human library and inventory in manners, speech, and thought corresponding to the experience of life in some unique cultural space. While “updating” to access a modern (vs feudal / medieval) worldview and enjoy the benefits of that, we may also appreciate one another’s very different cultural adventure and experience to date — and be careful not to lose any.

Shall the earth’s dominant politics pit all against all?

Or shall we instead drift toward “harmonious relations” and see what might be achieved with “all for all” ascending and predominating?

The remark was prompted by listening to a colloquy on the heritage acquired by (imparted to; experienced by) the Jewish People as a people — but with reference to, I suppose, one might say, less authentic Jews.

Are Jews who don’t speak Hebrew still Jews?

Reference on YouTube (posted May 31, 2015): “BEIT MIDRASH LAVI – What is Israel’s Oral Law?”

Out of our abundant human adaptive and intellectual abilities, metaphysical thought puts up an astounding construction, if you will, in language: beliefs, miracles, legends, myths, fables, homilies, epigram, witticisms . . . all of those words — words, words! — shaping our outlook on existence itself.

Of late, I’ve been asking myself what it means to be an American these days, that as opposed to a hyphenated-American, an American modified by race, color, creed, religion, income, fitness level (“healthy American”), gender, sexual habits and preferences, preferences in housing style (are there “Cape Cod Americans”, “Rancher Americans”?), or location-based Americans (“urban Americans” vs “rural Americans”), not to mention Americans modified by political identity — “Red State Americans” vs “Blue State Americans”.

American.

That’s it.

But put the ring on her finger and make the baby, and no matter what, and one is smothered back in the folds of priestly robes: baptism? Or bris? What church?  Which synagogue?

And oh yeah — “Where did your people come from?”

Best answer to that: passion.

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