In this Durkheim’s mechanical society, it is almost impossible to argue and be heard, or to pose a question and escape condemnation. You can never bring forth a new idea, nay, an old idea that marginally swerves away from the norm, and except it to be received by people who think critically and argue objectively. You will have to spend years, thousands of words, sanity and faith in the human race, even blood if you’re so inclined, and they will not listen.

It’s the transition to novel lands that frightens them. Tradition is safe, it’s been explored prior and it’s all predictable and stable and it works to a degree. But these new ideas, shame on you for introducing them. Shame on you for urging them to think and reconsider. You disagree? Who do you think you are? Who are you to defy ages-old, tried and true tradition?

But wasn’t novelty what propelled human advancement? Or was that also decreed by divinity and tradition? Isn’t trial and error the way we express our godliness, without attributing it to a myth? What about the supposed anomalies that add more value to the human experience than do these traditionalists? They mean nothing. Who’s going to hell now, my devil and me, or you?

Cast not your pearls before swine.

The constant pressure to produce something of value and/or novelty could kill you, fellow bloggers. Read more about it here and consider taking a break.

I was just expressing my all-absorbing feelings of boredom and hopelessness to someone. “I am so bored I can kill myself for the fun of it. It’s driving me mad, I am dying slowly, I am bored out of my head, etc. etc.”

What did he say to alleviate my pain?

“Go see the camels.”

…seriously?

I took the Jung Typology Test, and if you’re interested in knowing a little bit more about my personality (if my bio page did not already reveal enough), stick around.

I am of the personality type INTJ, which means that I am 67% introverted, 75% intuitive, 88% thinking, and 1% judging. All this translates to my being a Rational Mastermind. I like that title! It makes me feel like an evil little mad scientist!

Masterminds will adopt ideas only if they are useful, which is to say if they work efficiently toward accomplishing the Mastermind’s well-defined goals. Natural leaders, Masterminds are not at all eager to take command of projects or groups, preferring to stay in the background until others demonstrate their inability to lead. Once in charge, however, Masterminds are the supreme pragmatists, seeing reality as a crucible for refining their strategies for goal-directed action. In a sense, Masterminds approach reality as they would a giant chess board, always seeking strategies that have a high payoff, and always devising contingency plans in case of error or adversity.

That pretty much sounds like me. I am not fond of loud, bossy types who equal nothing but fluff and connections. To me, they are shallow and emotionally unbalanced people who compensate for their lack of quality by being loud and bossy. Quite honestly, I usually find myself annoyed when in the company of said people and even though I don’t normally enjoy confrontation, I find that I continuously clash with these types both verbally and intellectually. I am really loud and obnoxious when irritated, and I like how that surprises these people every time.

I am more on the calculating side of things than on the shove-myself-down-people’s-throats type. I am not boasting when I say that when I assume a position of leadership, the outcome is always stellar. That said, I usually avoid working in groups because I feel that group work usually sucks individualism away and I like to stand out and take credit for my work without associating with less-than-brilliant people. Is that uppish?

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of “definiteness”, of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age.

This practicality that is very much a part of who I am is not always pleasant. I am both practical and passionate about certain people and things, but not enough to lose my balance, which in turn has earned me a reputation of being impersonal, aloof, or heartless. This goes for my position on relationships, work, religion, and basically everything else. It is not easy being an extremely rational person in a society that always asks you to take concepts and practices for granted. My mom calls my attitude “3anjaheyyeh,” while I call it “thinking for myself.”

To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. :-) This sometimes results in a peculiar naivety.

I am not an extremely private person, on the contrary, I am ultra-friendly with people whom I perceive to be on the same “wavelength” as I am. With other people, well, I don’t see why I should be as friendly to them and so I keep my distance. This goes mostly for my behavior in a work environment and in forming new friendships. It’s very functional.

Interestingly, both Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling are INTJs. No wonder I love the Silence of the Lambs trilogy and its characters so much!

You can take the test too and post your results here. For now, this Rational Mastermind bids you adieu.

This must be the strangest building I have seen in Jordan. It is so thin from one side (only fits one room on that side) and then it grows to support two or three rooms on the other side. It is close to the University of Jordan, near the ex-circle of Al Manhal. I guess this is what happens when you want to milk the piece of land you own, and economize on building materials.

القبض على مشعوذين وسحرة

ضبط الامن الوقائي عددا من الاشخاص في الرصيفة يمارسون اعمال السحر والشعوذة وبحوزتهم الأدوات المستخدمة في ذلك إضافة لقطع نقدية وتماثيل تستخدم لإيهام ضحاياهم بأنها أثرية ومرتبطة بأعمال الشعوذة والسحر.

Oy! First we had missionaries, then camels in the city, and now we are cracking down on witches and sorcerers. I have a tip for law enforcement; I heard there is a really good and expensive fortune teller in Bag3a. I’m not kidding.

This is such a kewl country, man!

I took this picture four days ago. There is a group of about 20 camels of all sizes and colors innocently grazing in a patch of land not far from where I live. Every afternoon, cars stop by and let hordes of kids out to look at the camels. The camels have three men watching them, they set up little tents and water tanks on that patch of land.

The whole deal is very bizarre. I always feel strange when I see sheep crossing a street in Amman, although that is an increasingly rare sight. You can imagine how I feel about camels living in the vicinity of a heavily residential area. How did they even get here? It’s just not right.

As promised, I am reporting the response I got from Reset for my complaint explained in a previous post today. Reset changed the title of that article by Courtney C. Radsch from “Blogging in the Arab World” into “Blogging in Egypt” as per my suggestion. Now both the title and the article are in sync and all Arab bloggers are not mistaken for being only Egyptian, at least not in that article.

Anne Applebaum of Slate wrote an article discussing the hijab issue in Turkey and the recent attempt to sue the not-sufficiently-secular government that has unbanned it in public universities. I wrote about this before, arguing that no government has the right to dictate citizens’ fashions, and I was jubilant when hijab was unbanned, and I still am.

If you read Applebaum’s article, and you must in order to understand this post, you will find that she has practiced deliberate picking and choosing for arguments, quotations, and situations to suit her point, all the while neglecting to show counterarguments which are equally, if not more, valid. This sort of calculated coverage is not only biased, but extremely harmful as it leads recipients to form an impression which is on the whole charged with bias and twisted facts.

Then she referred to Muslim women as ‘Islamic‘ women. What is that? Is the English dictionary so vast and diversified so as to equate Muslim with Islamic now, and later with Islamicist with fascist with terrorist? Evidently, these subtle(!) and gradual substitutions serve a political goal to fragment and demonize. Applebaum certainly had an agenda writing her article, and her very choice of words reveals it.

According to the article, the “enduring significance” of the hijab is striking. Really? Is it any more “enduring” than the significance of Jesus or the Holy Trinity, the Yarmulke, or karma in Hinduism? Simply put, people will always carry out parts or all of what their religious beliefs dictate. Other people may feel threatened by that, and that’s the politics of it.

Applebaum laments her “Anglo-American bias” which so naively portrays the veil as a choice, then she proceeds to argue that “Fairly or not, in certain Turkish communities, a head covering in fact marks the wearer not just as faithful but as a believer in a particular version of Islam. Fairly or not, the head scarf carries with it, at least in Turkey, partisan connotations, as well as a suggestion of the wearer’s views of women.” As a woman living in a predominately Muslim country, and who is directly exposed to hijab, I opt for the ‘Not Fairly’ bit in Applebaum’s argument. An outsider may never learn the inner workings of a society as diversified and complex as Turkey, and to blindly support forceful implementation of secularism on the expense of basic human rights is to demolish any ‘liberal’ affiliations one claims to have.

She also hints, not so implicitly, that veiled Turkish women are less achieving than non veiled ones. “Wives of the current Turkish political leadership wear head scarves, that most of them donned the scarves after their marriages, and that most of them never worked or studied again after they wed.You can see why women who want something different might feel threatened.” Hmm. That may be because they were BANNED from studying at public Turkish universities until recently, and what ever happened to Applebaum’s “Anglo-American bias” and “personal choice“?

This polarization of Turkish, and Muslim, women as ‘veiled = uneducated, underachieving’ and ‘not veiled = educated, overachieving’ betrays Applebaum’s attempt to conceal her biases. It is an indication that people who claim to be liberal do make the very mistakes that they try to avoid, they go to extremes to protect concepts like secularism and in doing so, endanger the values and liberties they fight for.

Applebaum’s xenophobia emerges at the very end of her ill-researched article when she says “And if, someday, this argument comes to our shores, let’s not be surprised by that. In the end, the head-scarf debate isn’t about a wisp of fabric but about the viability of secular Islam itself.” This reveals that it is more of a question of Us vs. Them than a question of basic liberties and expression. It is not about secular Islam per se, it is not about oppressed Muslim women forced to wear the veil, it is not about their education and career prospects, it is not even about Turkey, for crying out loud! It is about the blatant fear of this argument coming to “our shores,” and that the free, liberal, advanced, educated, achieving West must be prepared to fight this ambiguous piece of cloth which conceals “The Other.”