Happy Halloween and the time to take stock is coming soon

I apologise once again for the dearth of posts. The only writing I've been doing for the past week until now is just that related to work or practice for an exam. I promise I'll have more to say after this weekend (if not during the weekend itself).

Happy Halloween to all those planning to celebrate it. It's going to be November tomorrow, and soon, Christmas and the New Year will have begun. Have you begun to take stock on which direction you want your life to go? For those still cruising along yet getting older, it may be time to ask yourself what do you want, before it is too late. I have been doing a lot of ruminating on that issue that for the past few months, and am still at it even as I prepare for the next big thing that may come my way.

Until the next post.

Groggy

Earn a place in the Hall of Anonymity by writing copies, however clever, exciting, delightful, shocking or attractive, will never earn you any recognition from anyone outside the industry in which you work.

It's Friday and I'm groggy. Being having too much of a life and I think it is time to return to the coconut shell.

Adieu

A sad but thoughtful quote

Do you know what the most important thing is in my life?

Your son?

I thought so too. But as he grows up, I know he'll be leaving me one day. Nothing's important to me now. I thought the words 'I love you' really mattered. I thought they meant a lifetime commitment. But looking back, nothing matters... because everything changes. I thought I was the winner, until one day I looked into the mirror and saw the face of a loser. I failed to have the person I loved most to be with me in my best years. How wonderful it would be if we could forget the past...

"Ashes of Time"


(Excerpted from http://www.mediacircus.net/wkw.html)

Men, women and relationships? Advice from Greg Behrendt

I don't normally read such articles so this is the first time I've heard of this guy. Maybe it is time that I should read relationship articles on a more personal level, and learn something beyond the usual skepticism with which I'd always approached them, although a pinch of salt is still a necessary flavour.

I tend to read this subject matter only when I'm ask to review such publications (or if I'm bored and stuck in some place with nothing to read and the only magazines available feature such articles), a long time ago, but seldom have I read them for any reasons other than for attempting to glean sufficient ideas to stick into a review, now long forgotten. Furthermore, these books don't stay with me after the review is done - and I've only ever reviewed two; one's bagged by an editor and the other is in someone's library.

Here's the article for those of you dealing with breakups and affairs of the heart.Anyone heard of/ know of this guy who is interviewed? Apparently he's got his own show on the same subject.

http://msn.match.com/msn/article.aspx?articleid=6963&menuid=6&lid=428


There is a lot to be said about such stories. If one were to look at blogs with high hits and many comments, they tend to be blogs writing about aspects of life, love, relationships and sex, and are written in an entertaining and occasionally provocative manner.

A report for Malaysia, courtesy of Asli

To quote from their website

"This study was undertaken by a multi-racial group of scholars and consultants as part of work in connection with the Ninth Malaysia Plan. It was submitted to the Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and other government leaders in February 2006. Following initial release of the report to the Government, the report was made widely available to various political, social and economic bodies in the country."


The reports can be downloaded from there


I wanna read Deleuze but have to work on some corporate identity stuff. Grr

TGIF

The tales of two book reviews

This is the edited version of my book review (which means extraneous information was cut off) in the Star
http://www.thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2006/10/6/lifebookshelf/15030136&sec=lifebookshelf

This is my edited but uncut review in an academic website :)
http://rccs.usfca.edu/bookinfo.asp?ReviewID=389&BookID=318

Scrutinising the Pope's speech

First, read this carefully. This is the unedited version, that differ in some ways from the one found in the newspapers. And it is from this version that I will get my quotes here. I am not an expert on thelogy, religious history or philosophy. But I take my own background in critical inquiry, research methodology, philosophical engagement and Christian upbringing and education to help me formulate my thoughts as succinctly as possible in this blog entry.

Now

Once again, I believe that the opportunity for a point-to-point critique of the Pope's speech has been lost as the world at large is more interested (regardless of the religious background, though one can tell which group has the largest fervour) in old-school style of mass-mob revolution rather than critical engagement. This is what should had been done,


Firstly, there are so many points in the speech which would had been very interesting departure point to rethink the historiography of secularism and theology, and I have to agree when the Pope says that the point of his speech is completely missed, even if I might not altogether agree on the same things as he. Even those with more intelligent answers to the Pope's speech had unfortunately completely ignored the gauntlet thrown down by the Pope, which is his framing of reason, his critique of certain philosophers use of reason, his argument against what he considered to be the 'dehellenization' of Christianity, targeted at none other than the Protestant groups and Fundamentalists who seek to return to what they consider to be "the simple word of Faith/God" and his contention with particular others who intend to frame/reduce Christianity into a religion that is scientifically answerable (though he failed to take into account the active debate in the past decade concerning the sociology and epistemology of scientific knowledge that had waged across the two cultures of science and humanities). Hence, I (mis)quote Feyerabend (a anarchic philosopher of science) in saying that not everyone is born of a sublime spirit (though he was actually using this quote to frame his argument against the humanists and philosophers whom he considered as having been so caught up in masturbatory theorising that they've lost credibility and connection with the world at large. I agree with most critics that there is nothing groundbreaking in what he said (a lot of the points he brought up had come in many other forms through the decades, if one were to follow the debate of on the epistemology and culture of knowledge and intellectual history closely, particularly that in the West). From his speech, we gather that he was formerly a theologican and academic at the Universty of Regensburg and his training had acquainted him closely with the secular tradition of the German philosophers, though unfortunately, it has not led to a closer reading. But then, this is just a short speech after all and when one makes oration, one pick and select points to provoke the audience in the way you want them/hope for them to react.


1. Firstly, his sources on Islam were gained from Theodore Khoury, noted for his work on Islam. But, it is possible that he had selectively quote this sources and then turn it around, via his own interpretation and reasoning, to make it seem that there is something pernicious in the way Islam is practiced or preached (though from the actions of the disciples of this faith, it has unfortunately provided live parody to the Pope's misapprehension). He seemed particularly keyed up about Ibnu Hazm intepretation of religion and how the former separates it from reason. I personally do not know much about Hazm and would welcome anyone who know more about the work of this guy (beyond that mentioned in Wikipedia) to please disect more on this matter, by writing to me or adding to the comments in this blog. But I would definitely now be searching for more works by him. Also, I found that R Arnaldez has done some work on Ibn Rusyd and Al Ghazali.I hope to find a translation of his work, failing that, I'll have to wait til next year, or year after when I can read French at a higher level. :/


However, let me state, obviously, that it is not uncommon among even Western philosophers during the age of Enlightenment and after to find themselves divided when it comes to reasoning about faith, and this is shown in Descartes's Meditations, as he ruminates on the reconciliation between the faith he was brought up in and his study of human/natural sciences. I can't quite comment on Kant right now since I've yet to read properly his "Critique of Pure Reason".


2. Here is the part about Islam that I think may have irked some Muslims and other detractors, but I wonder if some had understood the full weight of what is said. "The emperor must have known that sura 2:256 reads: “There is no compulsion in religion.” It is one of the suras of the early period, when Mohammed was still powerless and under [threat]. But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war.

Without descending to details, such as the difference in treatment accorded to those who have the “Book” and the “infidels,” he turns to his interlocutor somewhat brusquely with the central question on the relationship between religion and violence in general, in these words: “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The emperor goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God is not pleased by blood, and not acting reasonably (”syn logo”) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats…. To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death….” [Islam Today actually had a comment on this statement]

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: Not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. The editor, Theodore Khoury, observes: For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality. Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R. Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practice idolatry."

Prior to the above statement, the Pope had qualify by stating that the speech of the Emperor is reported more fully than that of the Persian Muslim, the former's interlocutor. Hence, there is already a biased in that much is assumed of the mostly "silent" educated "Persian" (and could it even be Hazm himself?) and I have not been able to find Muslim sites that rigorously look into the scholarship mentioned and to critique as to why the Pope is wrong in his selective reading (Bearing in mind, selective readings and misappropriation is the common practice among all, whether religious apologists or academics, though the more honest ones will admit to 'purposeful misappropriation'). And the statement made by the Pope on how the statement of the Surah was set at a time when the Muhammad S.A.W. was deemed powerless is not contested. It has to be faced that no religion of the Book is freed from warfare and violence (and the Pope is right in linking the historical continuity between the Old Testament, New Testament and the Quran)and denying it is akin to historical revisionism. But what is needed is a reasoned look at the war, the human actors and the conduct of these human actors during the War and how God is used as justification for war and their subsequent actions during the war and after. And Jihad is a feature in the Quran (violent or not), like it or not, and though Christianity's Crusade has more to do with the political view of the "Christian" government that the advocacy of the New Testament, their role in the play of violence is implicit in any study of religious history. There is a need to address this issue more clearly, especially when it is buried under all the polemic of violence as justification by radical/extremist sects. If one were able to read writings in languages other than English or that of Modern Europe, one can be appall by the amount of invective, hatred and call for violent wars against the Western "Other", even if the other segment of the Muslims decry such acts. This issue has been ongoing since Sept 11 2001 and I believe it is time for a rigorous and clear deconstruction of the concept of Jihad.

3. I find that the Pope's concept of Logos (the Word) to be Hellenic-inspired and this is argued in detail in Jacques Derrida's book "Dissemination", where there is a lot re-examining of the contemporary age and philosophy of Plato, his predecessors and his peers.And the Hellenism of Christianity he talks about is very much a part of the Roman Catholic tradition that has been propaged by the Scholastics, and is the source of contention by many eminent European philosophers between the 17th to the 18th century as being too rigid and subject to falsification (my term) as well as by more conservative elements within the Roman Catholic church such as St Bernard of Clairvaux.
I suspect, to a certain degree, the Pope is possibly attacking the "positions" of Islam and Protestant/Reformed Christianity, as well as that of the adherents of scientism, through methods of Scholasticism.

4. The Pope's understanding of Science has strong Heideggerian (and of course, influences of a number of German philosophers, the positivists among them) who hold science in a high moral ground which is culture/value free, a principle that does not question the sociological and epistemological construction of science, but is based on the a priori belief that scientific theories are based on objective and logico-deductive reasonings that are beyond philosophical interference.

5."The vision of St. Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16:6-10) -- this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between biblical faith and Greek inquiry.". While he is at it, the Pope did not quote the section Acts 17 that give the reader a glimpse into what Paul actually thought of the philosophical culture of the Greeks, even if he did mention what the Greeks thought of the Christians. Of course, you can either do a literal or between the lines reading of this chapter.

Some of you may have read the news on Robert Redekerand how he had to go into hiding ala Salman Rushdie following the publication of his writing on Le Figaro, the French, right-wing, newspaper owned by Serge Dassault, on September 19, that criticises the Quran. There is more about him in Le Figaro itself, provided you can read French. See notes below.

Maybe, when I've time, I'll do the research needed to write a more comprehensive article on the issue of faith and reason in various religions, and how this area is contested by various scholars, as well as the hermeneutical/academic arm twisting employed by intellectuals,pseudo-intellectuals, scholars and theologians on this issue. For now, this is my short dissection on the matter. And as one googles further, one will find more on this. And I challenge my readers to properly dissect the issue at hand rather than employing the general going around the bush condemnation or examination that seeks to actually mask one's ignorance of the matters raised just to sound "credible" or get one's "piece of mind" into the "borderless" cyberspace.

More notes:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1875800,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1886814,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pope/story/0,,1875726,00.html


"Menacing Teachings in the Text Of the Quran" (my translation, corrected as of 11:35pm, 5th Oct)
http://www.lefigaro.fr/france/20060929.FIG000000050_un_enseignant_menace_pour_un_texte_sur_le_coran.html
"Redeker's Affair: On democracy, debate and self-control" (my translation)
http://www.lefigaro.fr/debats/20061005.FIG000000096_affaire_redeker_en_democratie_le_debat_ne_se_controle_pas.html

A good critique of two antifeminist 'tracts'

Strangely, while growing up, I was surrounded by the very sort of role models admired by the two antifeminist writers mentioned in this critique, except that they were not exactly upper-class/upper-middle class women. But they were women who lived for their family and children, and in the process, became very uptight and 'unfun', from the eyes of the child. I used to view my married but working aunt as having more freedom and interests outside the home, family and neighbourhood, compared to the non-working moms I know. And strangely, despite balancing between the home and work outside the home, she seems to have MORE free time than the homemakers I know, who always complain to each other about how busy they are (I overhear such conversations from family and church friends). And her husband, my uncle, helps out with the housework. Here's a married couple practising feminism without even knowing what that word means. I also have an aunt who was never married but she's far from being a bitter, old maid who hates younger women because they reminded her of what she once was but am one no longer. Instead, she took early retirement after saving up quite a bit, and started to travel and do things that she wanted to do instead of subjugating her life to work. ANd speaking of work, I suspect that many of my peers are harbouring dreams of becoming 'home-makers' because they despised the drudgery of their jobs (I understand that feeling because I feel 'tied-to-the-desk' and can't wait for the weekends most of the time but I decided to vent my feeling of frustrations through interests outside work and vivid dreaming ;)). And despite having working mothers, I don't think the children turned out any worse, whatever the anti-feminists/conservatives would like to say. In act, having a working mother provides a role model, and helps the young woman growing up to feel that she can achieve what she wants. For me, it is more about having open communication between parents and child, and teaching the child a sense of responsibility. In fact, having a mother who does everything for the child is bad, because the child is unable to be independent when he/she grows up (i've seen that effect on both men and women). Though my mom used to do literally almost everything for me, she still insisted that I took on some responsibilities, and do the tasks she might do for me if she sees me lounging about. And I have to help out in the garden, with the cleaning, the kitchen (which is difficult as she's very exacting) and whatever if I've time, and I think that was good training for me. Despite being a homemaker and a Christian from a conservative church, she did not actually taught me what the role of a woman is, but instead, help me see that there is no such thing as a separation of sphere (women can do repairs do work outside the house as well as men, if such need arises). In fact, most of my training about a 'woman's work' came from the society most of us live in. And the irony of it all is, the more conservative and insistent a society (be it a religious organisation/institution, a home, workplace, etc)is of gendered roles, the more likely you will see the kind of roles expected of a man or woman to do by nature of their sex, nevermind that the guy who rather be doing the cooking because he just loves to cook, or the woman would rather be teaching theology because it is an area she is passionate about.


The reason why I mentioned the women in my life will become obvious as you read on. And the kind of polemic advocated below were the same advice dished out my Christian missionary wives to my mother and other women of my childhood church (minus the cheesy mills-and-boons and obvious inexperience of one of the young authors. Though like her, I did not have a public school education, and was relatively sheltered from sexual knowledge while growing up (though I did read certain texts on the reproductive system and also a sex manual written by a medical doctor as a teenager), this young author (Shalit) seems rather naive about the ways of the world than I was at that age (and that age was not that far from my current age). Surprising for a woman with a privileged upbringing and early access to things I could only dream about as a kid (and am still dreaming to have, to a certain extent), as well as one of the best education one can buy (if it isn't free) in a first world country, which I envy her for, since I didn't have one, having to go through state schools with mostly indifferent teachers (with the exception of a few) and an underfunded, illiberal state university (this brings me to the subject of education in third world countries, which I'll talk about later)where thinking isn't always allowed (or even understood). For all the good start in life she had had, I expect her to be a lot smarter than I am, and maybe I'll read her book to see if the critique has misread her, since someone else seems to think she makes a lot of sense, though I am a little wary of this "someone's" intellectual capacity from the way the review reads...

So, here you go...

http://www.thenation.com/doc/19990329/phillips-fein