culture

These are the days of Eid… Eid al-Hubb, that is.

However, for many, this is no festival of love.  Yep, the Saudis are banning red again.  Newspapers are featuring ads for flowers and articles on various Muslims worldwide with their panties in a bunch about any holiday not explicitly mentioned in Sahih Bukhari.  But in all the conspicuous consumption and harrumphing, the ones that Muslims should really be focused on get lost in the shuffle as usual.  Many of the trappings of Valentine’s Day have ugly and sometimes bloody pasts that no amount of red satin can hide.  The items we exchange as gifts are often produced by workers who are paid little or nothing, live in wretched conditions, and face cruelty and danger in their work.  Yet in the denouncing of this holiday, even the holier than thou forgot the poor and the oppressed.

continue reading "Valentines Day- the other Eid."

These are the days of Eid… Eid al-Hubb, that is.

However, for many, this is no festival of love.  Yep, the Saudis are banning red again.  Newspapers are featuring ads for flowers and articles on various Muslims worldwide with their panties in a bunch about any holiday not explicitly mentioned in Sahih Bukhari.  But in all the conspicuous consumption and harrumphing, the ones that Muslims should really be focused on get lost in the shuffle as usual.  Many of the trappings of Valentine’s Day have ugly and sometimes bloody pasts that no amount of red satin can hide.  The items we exchange as gifts are often produced by workers who are paid little or nothing, live in wretched conditions, and face cruelty and danger in their work.  Yet in the denouncing of this holiday, even the holier than thou forgot the poor and the oppressed.

continue reading "Valentines Day- the other Eid."

I mentioned to Bill in an earlier post that Thematics seem to be occupying my mind lately.

What I meant by Thematics may be unclear (still is to me, as it is unfolding).  To make it even more confusing I think Thematics is related to Memes...

 A meme, (IPA: /mi:m/) as defined within memetic theory, comprises a unit of cultural information, cultural evolution or diffusion that propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution. Multiple memes may propagate as cooperative groups called memeplexes (meme complexes). (From Wikipedia)

continue reading "Memes and Thematics"

Bill

Visiting the library for Fromm's The Art of Loving (which they have reserved for me), I checked out what looks to be a thorough treatment of the opposite of love.  I really think it will relate to your book, but if not, it already has opened my eyes to some things.  Most notably, Fromm disagrees with the notion that aggression is innate in man.  He points out that much of our thinking has been conditioned to accept that destructiveness is just part of man's nature, much of that concept based on comparisons with animal behavior.

continue reading "Erich Fromm on Destructiveness"