Philosophical inquiries into the nature of consciousness have long been intrinsically tied to questions regarding the nature of the self. Although philosophers of mind seldom make reference to the role of cultural context in shaping consciousness, since antiquity culture has played a notable role in philosophical conceptions of the self. Western philosophers, from Plato to Locke, have emphasized an individualistic view of the self that is autonomous and consistent across situations, while Eastern philosophers, such as (...) Lao Tzu and Confucius, have argued for a collectivistic view of the self, one that is interconnected to others and embedded within specific social contexts and situations. Here we argue that a comprehensive theory of consciousness needs to account for the role of cultural context and its bidirectional interaction with neural and genetic mechanisms in shaping a variety of conscious phenomena, from visual perception to self- awareness. We review recent evidence of cultural variation in neurobiological mechanisms underlying these phenomena and discuss the implications of these cultural neuroscience findings for the study of consciousness. (shrink)

The paper provides valuable accounts of the general concepts underlying privacy law in both cultures, and great detail about the impact of criminal procedure and evidence rules on privacy in reality rather than legal theory. It is, in this sense, a “realist” approach to privacy, particularly but not exclusively in relation to sexual activity. The distinction which the article draws between the frameworks within which privacy is conceived broadly, self-determination and limited government in the USA, protection of one’s persona (...) in Europe, and reputation in Islamic law. However, the paper argues that Western and Islamic traditions share many of the same concepts about the tests to be applied when deciding how far an intrusion on privacy is justified and value many of the same interests in doing so. At the same time, it will highlight those areas where they differ which are not ones of crucial importance when deciding, for example, what are the proper limits on mass surveillance. Indirectly, this shows that even though there may be stark differences between the cultures on some points, there is enough agreement on some aspects of privacy to make comparisons in relation to issues such as mass surveillance. (shrink)

This important book investigates the emergence and development of a distinct concept of self-awareness in post-classical, pre-modern Islamic philosophy. Jari Kaukua presents the first extended analysis of Avicenna's arguments on self-awareness - including the flying man, the argument from the unity of experience, the argument against reflection models of self-awareness and the argument from personal identity - arguing that all these arguments hinge on a clearly definable concept of self-awareness as pure (...) first-personality. He substantiates his interpretation with an analysis of Suhrawardī's use of Avicenna's concept and Mullā Sadrā's revision of the underlying concept of selfhood. The study explores evidence for a sustained, pre-modern and non-Western discussion of selfhood and self-awareness, challenging the idea that these concepts are distinctly modern, European concerns. The book will be of interest to a range of readers in history of philosophy, history of ideas, Islamic studies and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

In response to the phenomenon of women converting to Islam, a body of research has emerged, engaging with the question, ‘Why are Western women, raised in liberal contexts, converting to Islam?’ This line of enquiry is not limited to academic literature. In recent years, converts to Islam have faced intense scrutiny in mainstream media across Europe. This article contributes an analysis of documentaries to the study of representations of female converts to Islam, focusing particularly on the British documentary (...) Make Me a Muslim and the Swiss documentary Les Converties d’Allah. We suggest that comparing these two documentaries illuminates certain common narrative threads in media representations of female converts to Islam across different European contexts. In this article, we firstly situate this research within existing literature on gender and conversion to Islam and outline our approach to the study of documentaries on women’s conversion to Islam. Secondly, we analyse the two documentaries, focusing on their shared concerns, namely gender equality and women’s oppression, and the familial environment of the female convert. We argue that paying attention to how female converts are represented illuminates some of the ways in which European framings of the ‘in-betweenness’ of female converts to Islam create notions of female converts as ‘vulnerable-fanatics’ prone to ‘radicalisation’, and threatened by ‘oppressive’ Islam. We demonstrate how female converts participating in documentaries at times complicate and talk back to apprehensions regarding equality, oppression and radicalisation. Finally, we focus in a similar way on understandings of female converts as ‘troublemakers’ within their family environments. Throughout the analysis, we show how the figure of the female convert as vulnerable-fanatic and as family troublemaker is gendered and interlaced with concerns about essentialised cultural difference and radicalisation. (shrink)

continent. 1.4 (2011): 253—278. A Sense of French Politics Politics itself is not the exercise of power or struggle for power. Politics is first of all the configuration of a space as political, the framing of a specific sphere of experience, the setting of objects posed as "common" and of subjects to whom the capacity is recognized to designate these objects and discuss about them.(1) On April 14, 2011, France implemented its controversial ban of the niqab and burqa , commonly (...) referred to as the Islamic veil, in public places. On the coattails of the 2004 prohibition of religious artifacts, including the less concealing hijab or Islamic headscarves, in schools, the veil ban sparked equal outrage across both political and theological spectra, and many on both sides of the debate were quick to inquire about enforcement. As Steven Erlanger reports, “The police do not have the authority under the law to remove full veils, only to fine or require citizenship lessons for those who violate the new law.”(2) While the legal and social implications of this interdiction are ripe for study, the reprisals for breaking the law, notably compulsory citizenship classes, illuminate the strategic governmentality underlying the French government's targeting of the Muslim community, particularly those elements it considers affiliated with fundamentalist factions and/or terrorist organizations, if only through fashion—an integral component of French citizenship. Indeed, in allowing the (fashion) police to mandate instructional courses in citizenship for offenders, France implies that any Muslim choosing to wear the niqab or burqa , perhaps even for those who are already citizens, must not be aware of the subtle nuances of dress indicative of the French citizenry within public space. Furthermore, the degree of instruction requisite to citizenship, which clearly can and must be updated as the state sees fit, cements the imagined relation between citizens and states within the discourses on the veil ban. As Sharma contends, “Concepts of citizenship are the ideological glue that bonds the nation to the state. Citizenship provides the legal framework through which the state performs its role as ruler for the nation.”(3) Speaking for/as the state, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared in a 2009 presentation before members of the government and other citizens that the burqa “is not welcome on the territory of France.”(4) Although there is nothing unique, especially recently, about a nation-state taking extreme measures to guard itself against what it deems to be threats to its sovereignty, the way in which the ongoing discourses on hijab have (d)evolved, which coincide with recent pronouncements by governmental leaders in Germany, Britain, and France that policies of multiculturalism have “failed,”(5) points toward nationalist reterritorializations, which is also to say physical and ideological re-appropriations, of public space within democratic milieux, which remain predicated upon the mediation of spaces. As Panagia deduces from Rancière, “Democracy […] is not an institutional form of government […], but an appearance whose visibilities and audibilites arise out of the dissonant blur of the everyday.”(6) Ultimately, the veil ban represents a calculated move to regulate the every day, which is to say the micropolitics of, that which is visible and invisible within French society, which makes it nothing short of a struggle to manage (the sensation of) bodies. Re-situating the political within the context of sense, Rancière argues that the fundamental essence of politics lies within the distinction between consensus and dissensus , and whereas most consider politics proper as fundamentally concerned with the fluid operations of the state— consensus , Rancière actually locates the political within events that disrupt the normative sensory order of things— dissensus . He explains, “Politics revolves around what is seen and what can be said about it, around who has the ability to see and the talent to speak, around the properties of spaces and the possibilities of time.”(7) This reformulation of politics centers on agency and, albeit perhaps unintended, representationality and offers a useful formulation for spatializing the discourses surrounding the Islamic veil, which are mired within seemingly senseless policies and practices of objectification. Instituting a normative “regime of visibility,” the French veil ban encapsulates the political economy of agency, now both mediated and representational, under the rule of nationalist governmentalities in increasingly transnational contexts.(8) Adjudicating presence within public space signals a concern with the sensory aspects of agency itself—what Rancière terms the “distribution of the sensible,” which is “a matrix that defines a set of relations between sense and sense: that is, between a form of sensory experience and an interpretation which makes sense of it.”(9) To be concerned with sense is to focus upon the body, and this somatic repositioning of the (fashionable) citizen within the territory of the state augurs the resurgence of nationalist bio-politics within Europe, since, as Hage explicates, “Nationalism, before being an explicit practice or a mode of classification, is a state of the body. It is a way of imagining one's position within the nation and what one can aspire to as a national.”(10) The French government's attempt to make (bodily) sense of public space for its citizens by and through policies aimed against a burqa-clad Muslim minority, which might only apply to “less then 400 to fewer than 2,000” women(11), reveals the necessary, yet mercurial, transmutation of public space into national space through bio-political strategies of sense-making, which, as Hage observes, denotes that “nationalists perceive themselves as spatial managers.”(12) At the center of this concern over public space is the equally contentious dimension of governing female Islamic identity, which has become one of the main critiques levied against Islam from outsiders who view the veil in its various forms as a clear sign of the religion's actual and symbolic violence against women, even if such critiques remain ensconced within nationalist discourses. As Halim and Meyers argue, “Although Western news media may focus their coverage of Muslim women on the debate over whether and the extent to which the veil may by oppressive to the women who wear it, they have exhibited little interest in the physical oppression of violence against women in Islamic countries.”(13) While it falls outside of the scope of this analysis to arbitrate all of the dimensions of this debate, understanding some of the issues related to female identity and hijab within public space are crucial to this study. As these topics are extraordinarily complex, even and perhaps especially within the Muslim community, it is necessary to provide some context concerning the value, purpose, and meaning of the Islamic veil, which has a rich and arduous history. The Art of the Veil At present, there are only two countries, Iran and Saudi Arabia, that require women to wear hijab , which is a decidedly problematic term and concept whose locus is itself caught within a struggle of sensation. Noting the strategic reterritorialization of the term, Berger explains: The choice of the name, hijab , now widely adopted to designate the “Islamic veil,” it itself interesting, although the semantic shift it operates is not directly commented upon by its users. Although the design (both the cut and the symbolic function) of the hijab and the Iranian chador are indeed the same, as opposed, for instance, to the traditional Algerian haik , the word hijab has come to replace the term chador popularized by the Iranian revolution, as a properly Arabic (hence Koranic) designation. This discursive shift points to the successful reclaiming of the national revolution in Iran by a transnational pan-Islamic movement, whose language of reference can only be Koranic Arabic.(14) While the hijab is certainly a point of contention within various countries dealing with immigrant Islamic populations (of which France has the largest in Europe as part of its colonial legacy in Algeria), it is clear that the veil is a historically contextualized artifact of Muslim identity with a variety of manifestations, even as forces outside of and within Islam seek to codify its actual and symbolic value. Ultimately, the varieties of hijab , including the full-faced burqa and niqab , are complex assemblages of meaning that speak to the multitudinous flows of Islamic identities over time and space. As Gökariksel and McLarney observe, “Wearing a certain style of veil may simultaneously be a disciplinary practice crucial to the cultivation of piety (Mahmood 2005; Gokariksel 2009) and a gendered performance of social distinction in terms of class, taste, and urbanity (White 1999; Navaro-Yashin 2002; Gokariksel and Secor 2009) or of ethnicity and race (Dwyer 1999).”(15) The ideological marketplace from which the varieties of hijab ebb and flow serves both as a reflection of the ever-present materiality and dynamic functionality of spiritual economies, which are derivative of the equally ubiquitous flows of transnational capital driving agency and representationality within our historical moment. Keeping these dual, yet deeply interconnected, capital ecologies as the site of exploration for how the veil is represented within public space, one might begin to sense what lurks behind such veiled agendas. Examining the symbolic and representational nature of the Islamic “veil” in its various forms, this project situates the decidedly political contestations of public space at stake in the French ban alongside recent condemnations of multiculturalism as calculated efforts to re-distribute the sensible so as to valorize national identity within increasingly transnational and globalized socio-economic spaces, which collapse exchange values between distinct, yet interwoven, economies of (cultural/material/spiritual) capital. As the discourses on the veil rely upon representational imag(in)ings, it seems fitting to explore the political economy and art of the veil through the phenomenon of street art, which, much like hijab , is a complex assemblage of meaning of sensation mired in representationality and capital exchange. As street artists have taken up hijab in various forms, the movement offers a lens with which to situate critical responses to the veil debate across both spiritual and material economies. Situating this street art both aesthetically and historically, Lewisohn explains, “'Street art' is a sub-genre of graffiti writing and owes much to its predecessor. Though there is a good deal of crossover between the genres, they are distinct and separate in their own right.”(16) Evolving out of the graffiti explosion of the late 1970's and 1980's, street art broke the unspoken rules of the artistic underground by challenging and re-examining one's sensory experience of art in public space by experimenting with both content and form in ways that harken back to the Situationist International, which as a collective challenged one's experience of urban space through various media and experiential phenomena. Again, Lewisohn observes, “It's important to note street art's break with the tradition of the tag, and its focus on visual symbols that embrace a much wider range of media than graffiti writers would use.”(17) From stencils to prints and murals to one-liners, street artists developed a reputation for critical social and political commentary, and while it is certainly the case that not all street art is intentionally political, in challenging the normative “regime of visibility,” as Rancière puts it, of public space, street artists—even if unconsciously—call into question the common sensory experience of the politics underlying the formation of (nationalist) space.(18) Indeed, Rancière refers to the partisan sensory managers as “police,” who ultimately forge “the rules governing the circulation of appearances, of their visibility and audibility, and the proper distribution of bodies therein.”(19) As such, one can sense that street art's relationship with the police is tenous for a variety of reasons. Writing about his own experience as a street artist, Shepard Fairey observes, “With street art, there's no committee deciding whether I can put my work up on the street, there's no censorship, and I have total freedom of expression, and that concept of freedom is expressed just by using the street as a medium.”(20) As Fairey and other street artists demonstrate, the medium, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, is the most glaring aspect of street art's message, and even as it now finds itself in galleries and usurped by private collectors, the ethos of the movement remains relavent to politics as it is, first and foremost, concerned with the configuration and experience of space. Just as examining the punishments for breaking the veil ban can map the terrain of French politics, a representational genealogy of street artist's deployment of hijab and female Muslim identity can assist in mining the depths of public space as a site of bio-political control and contestation in light of recent events in France and the rising tide of anti-multiculturalist rhetoric across Europe, even though the Islamic presence there is radically heterogenous. Using the work of Shepard Fairey, Princess Hijab, br1, and Banksy, this paper sets out to answer a number of key questions concerning the deployment of hijab, and female Islamic identity in particular, within street art as a movement now integral to and critical of the economies of exchange underlying global capitalism, which as a force of influence cannot be underestimated as a driver in the resurgence of nationalist biopolitical governmentalities. Although there exists a litany of artists to choose from, the aforementioned quartet of designers integrate hijab into their work in a seminal and critical fashion, and all have been working with the veil in some way prior to the French ban, which grants some additional context to their usage of it as a symbol in regards to the breakdown of multiculturalism across Europe, even if unconsciously. Although each artist depicts various amalgamations of hijab in their respective corpus, they share common tropes that raise significant questions concerning the veil debate, namely: what are the conditions of possibility for hijab to become a marker of Islamic identity within public space? How can we make sense of the representational topologies within street art's utilization of the hijab and female Islamic identity in light of the French ban? How might these aesthetic imag(in)ings simultaneously inhabit and combat normative discourses concerning hijab , multiculturalism, female Islamic identity, and public space? With these considerations as a backdrop, it is first necessary to outline more fully the hijab as a representative marker of female Islamic identity. The (Veiled) Writing on the Wall

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A long and scholarly piece by Eva Kitt WahMan covers the history of Chinese conventionsgoverning female “beauty” from Confuciusthrough Maoism to the present day. Classicalmanuals provide highly specific requirements forcourtesans and concubines. The shrunken, pulpyappendages produced by foot-binding practiceswere regarded as the most sexually stimulatingfeatures of the female body. In 1949, following theinauguration of the Communist regime, womenwere expected to shun ornament and make-up, tohave short hair, wear party uniforms, and to lookas much like men as possible. The (...) ideal for thecontemporary Chinese woman is quite a lot likethe ideal for the courtesan of tradition, but the de-tails are drawn from western fashion magazines.Wah believes that such liberation, although it hasits advantages, is mainly nominal and fosters con-fusion. She writes: “Although Chinese womentoday are developing new self-confidence, they donot seem to be aware of the fact that one can be-come a slave of the fashion industry, which merelyrepeats the bodily constraints of past times in anew form” (p. 194). [review by Mary Mothersill, 2001 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 59 (2):211-214.]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Experimenting with Islam:Nietzschean Reflections on Bowles’s AraplainaIan AlmondIn a letter to his friend Köselitz dated March 13 1881, Nietzsche wrote: "Ask my old comrade Gersdorff whether he'd like to go with me to Tunisia for one or two years.... I want to live for a while amongst Muslims, in the places moreover where their faith is at its most devout; this way my eye and judgement for all things (...) European will be sharpened."1 Various motifs in the work of Paul Bowles—a fascination with cruelty, an obsession with destruction, a predilection for abysses (metaphorical and literal) in the landscapes of his stories—invite some kind of reference to Nietzsche, however brief. Nietzsche's desire to live in the most intense pocket of Islam he could find had, one suspects, less to do with Islam than with his desire for a "trans-European eye"2 —four years after his remarks on Tunisia, Nietzsche would say the same thing about Japan in a letter to his sister.3 Nietzsche's proposed trip to Tunisia would lead to a better understanding of Europe, not Islam, and would provide him with an outside perspective on the European disease of modernity—a different set of lenses for his Kantian spectacles. This conception of Islam was, therefore, a means to self-knowledge, a handy instrument for diagnosing one's own illness, and a useful mirror to observe with greater clarity the more unattractive elements in one's own features. Most of Nietzsche's references to Islam and Islamic culture—and there are well over a hundred and fifty of them in the Gesamtausgabe—become clearer when one keeps this functional, almost anthropological, approach to the Islamic Other in mind.Although there is nothing new about this idea of the Orient as a tool of European self-awareness—as early as the 1780s, Sir William Jones was [End Page 309] already hoping the study of Sanskrit and Arabic would offer a "more extensive insight into the human [read "European"] mind"4 —an awareness of the genealogy of such Western interest in Arabs and Mohammedaner certainly helps us better understand Bowles's own eerie fascination with the faith. The parodies of missionaries, academics, and policemen which we find in stories such as "The Time of Friendship" and "A Distant Episode" confirm the distance Bowles attempted to put between his own texts and those Orientalist traditions of both Christian (i.e., Islam as a pool of potential believers) and Imperialist (Muslims as potential human resources) provenance. In attempting to escape such vocabularies and textual traditions, Bowles ultimately replicates and reshapes their original representations, producing an irony of delicate complexities, which is the object of this article.Near the beginning of Bowles's witty, though somewhat caustic autobiography Without Stopping, a moment takes place that gives an insight into the way, in later years, the narrator would approach different cultures with the intention of constructing new worlds. At age five, Bowles relates how he often found himself alone in his parents large upstate New York house. Abandoned to his own devices, the young narrator began to entertain himself by fabricating and mapping out new countries with his own imagination: "Soon I invented a planet with landmasses and seas. The continents were Ferncowland, Lanton, Zaganokworld and Araplaina. I drew maps of each and gave them mountain ranges, rivers, cities and railways."5 The image is captivating not only for its visual appeal, of a five-year-old Bowles, future author of Sheltering Sky, sitting on the carpet, crayoning out his map of Araplaina. It also suggests the presence, very early on, of what will always be a central motivation in Bowles's fascination with the world of Islam: a desire for novelty, for the really new, as an escape from boredom. Bowles's Tangiers would later provide the very Araplaina he had been seeking all along.In the world of Bowles's North African short stories, a number of common features seem to unite the otherwise disparate collection of tales found in The Time of Friendship and The Delicate Prey. Probably the foremost of these is cruelty. In "The Delicate Prey," the Moungari traveler... (shrink)

The article examines the dialogue between British cognitive science expert Murray Shanahan and the large language model Claude 3 Opus about “self-awareness” of artificial intelligence (AI). Adopting a text-centric approach, the author analyzes AI’s discourse through a hermeneutic lens from a reader’s perspective, irrespective of whether AI possesses consciousness or personhood. The article draws parallels between AI’s reasoning about the nature of consciousness and Buddhist concepts, especially the doctrine of dharmas, which underpins the Buddhist concept of anātman (“non- (...) class='Hi'>Self”). Basic classifications of dharmas and their justification are examined in light of the Buddhist system of ideas about the foundations of an individual’s cognitive experience in the world. The author emphasizes that the problem of the Self as a linguistic and conceptual construct, rather than a real ontological category, was first formulated in the teachings of Buddha Shakyamuni who also proposed an “experimental” application of this concept in practices of systematic introspection (smṛti). The article contends that Claude’s discourse on self-awareness, even if it is just a tapestry of linguistic constructs woven by preset algorithms, could prove to be a source inspiring new approaches to the enigma of consciousness. This potential stems from its vast database, which is a melting pot of textual heritage from diverse human cultures. The author posits that examining AI-generated texts through the prism of Indian and Buddhist thought traditions can be eye-opening. Such an approach might help shed light on and overcome the unconscious cognitive biases and cultural blind spots within Western consciousness studies that have hindered their engagement with the full spectrum of human intellectual traditions. The author concludes that discovering different cultural sources in AI discourse and examining it from the perspective of various cultural traditions can: firstly, enrich the conceptual apparatus of cognitive studies; secondly, reveal universal cross-cultural patterns in understanding consciousness; thirdly, generate new research hypotheses and directions in studying not only artificial but also natural intelligence; fourthly, contribute to rethinking our understanding of the Other, by expanding the boundaries of what we today consider conscious or sentient. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval IslamTamara AlbertiniDemonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam. By Jacob Lassner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Pp. xv + 281.Jacob Lassner gives a fascinating account of the fate of the Queen of Sheba in both Judaism and Islam. After a careful review of (...) postbiblical Jewish and medieval Islamic sources, the author examines the ways in which Islam appropriated the biblical story of the legendary meeting between the Queen of Sheba (the koranic Bilqis) and King Solomon, and also how Islamized narratives of that same meeting found their way back into Judaism. Following the transformation of the original biblical theme, the reader is led to discover a consensus rarely reached in the history of the two religious communities. It appears that both traditions ended up agreeing that the self-confident biblical Queen of Sheba posed a challenge to the natural, that is, male-dominated, order. Instead of focusing on the Queen's political astuteness, Judaism and Islam eventually viewed her as a subtle seductress and, hence, as (morally) inferior to Solomon. Sometimes the sexual cleverness of the female biblical figure is explained by inventing her a jinn (demon) for mother. Whatever outstanding qualities are left, these can then be imputed to the Queen's superhuman origin. Lassner concludes his book with a rich appendix including valuable Jewish and Islamic source materials in English translation.One wishes Lassner had been aware of the virulent debate kindled by Sheikh Ghazali's book on The Traditions of the Prophet (Beirut, 1990) when Lassner was gathering the materials for Demonizing the Queen of Sheba. Sheikh Ghazali, one of today's leading Muslim scholars, justified female political rule on the basis of a koranic verse referring to the Queen of Sheba: "Lo! I found a woman ruling over them, and she hath been given (abundance) of all things, and hers is a mighty throne" (XXVII.23). Today, Bilqis may go through yet a new metamorphosis and help shape modern Islamic feminism. [End Page 322]Copyright © 2001 University of Hawai'i Press... (shrink)

Background: Medical chaperones (MC) are underutilised. The influence of Islamic culture on the use of MC is not known. Aim: To examine physicians’ use and perception of MC in Islamic culture. Setting: A major tertiary care hospital in Saudi Arabia. Methods: 315 self-administered questionnaires were distributed to attendees of grand rounds of 13 departments. Results: 186 (59%) questionnaires were completed. 64.5% of the respondents were 30–49 years old, 75.8% were men and 31.2% were in training; 79% had (...) a clinic load of under 50 patients per week and 47.8% had postgraduate training (PGT) in an Islamic country. MC were reported to be infrequently (⩽25% of the time) used by 44.1% (69.2% female vs 39% male physicians, p = 0.001; 58.6% in training vs 36.8% attending, p = 0.007; 52.1% PGT in Islamic vs 35.6% in western countries, p = 0.027), offered by 52.7% (78.9% female vs 46.8% male physicians, p<0.001) and requested by 79% of patients. MC were reported to be commonly (>75% of the time) used, offered by physicians and requested by patients by 38.2%, 29% and 7.5% of respondents, respectively. The most frequently cited reasons for not using MC were privacy/confidentiality (36.6%) and understaffing (30.5%). Equal numbers of respondents perceived MC use as a protection for physicians or patients (67.7% and 65.6%, respectively). Conclusions: MC are underutilised even in Islamic culture, especially among female physicians. Training in western countries is favourably associated with MC use. Underutilisation appears to be related to privacy/confidentiality, understaffing and failure of patients to request a MC. (shrink)

Public opinion in recent years has soured on multiculturalism, due in large part to fears of radical Islam. In Multiculturalism without Culture, Anne Phillips contends that critics misrepresent culture as the explanation of everything individuals from minority and non-Western groups do. She puts forward a defense of multiculturalism that dispenses with notions of culture, instead placing individuals themselves at its core. Multiculturalism has been blamed for encouraging the oppression of women--forced marriages, female genital cutting, school girls wearing the (...) hijab. Many critics opportunistically deploy gender equality to justify the retreat from multiculturalism, hijacking the equality agenda to perpetuate cultural stereotypes. Phillips informs her argument with the feminist insistence on recognizing women as agents, and defends her position using an unusually broad range of literature, including political theory, philosophy, feminist theory, law, and anthropology. She argues that critics and proponents alike exaggerate the unity, distinctness, and intractability of cultures, thereby encouraging a perception of men and women as dupes constrained by cultural dictates. Opponents of multiculturalism may think the argument against accommodating cultural difference is over and won, but they are wrong. Phillips believes multiculturalism still has an important role to play in achieving greater social equality. In this book, she offers a new way of addressing dilemmas of justice and equality in multiethnic, multicultural societies, intervening at this critical moment when so many Western countries are poised to abandon multiculturalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 170-174 [Access article in PDF] A Buddhist History of the West: Studies In Lack. By David R. Loy. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. 244 pp. The religious and philosophical situation of our time seems polarized between resurgent fundamentalisms and a cosmopolitan awareness bridging heretofore separated traditions. Even a few decades ago the notion of a dialogue between East and West was (...) a novelty in which demarcated traditions and cultures (say the Buddhist East and the Christian West) experimented with attempts to find a common language to speakacross the boundaries between their respective identities. In such a context,"Western Buddhists" were those pilgrims of the counterculture who "went East" in search of some civilizational and spiritual other; the West, abjected to the realm of soulless scientism or outdated religious authoritarianism, was left behind. The situation is different at the beginning of the twenty-first Christian century. The dialectical complexities, both inwardly in the soul or mind of seekers, and outwardly in the strange twists of contemporary history, emerge to forbid any simple assessments of what can be left behind or indeed what the use can be of what seekers have found in the "non-West." People of Western background begin to realize and consciously address the [End Page 170] karmic-historical presuppositions of their search, which continue to constitute a kind of historical unconscious to the formulation of any possible "Western Buddhisms." Meanwhile, while fundamentalists of many backgrounds posit "clashes of civilizations" that assume an absoluteness of traditional distinctions, cosmopolitans realize that, for all the particularity of their respective starting points, the global situation is inextricably a shared one. In such a context, what canWestern Buddhist intellectuals, cognizant of their own starting points but having learned some things along the Way that are perhaps of universal relevance, speak to our common condition?The "Buddhist History of the West" that David Loy provides is less a historical narrative of the events constitutive of the societies descending from Greco-Roman civilization through European epochs and American empire into the age of globalization than a form of psychoanalytic anamnesis of those societies' cultural constructions of reality. Loy's psychoanalytic interpretive frame is composed of Buddhist insight into the human mind's deep-seated grasping for solidity and certainty in the face of a reality fundamentally characterized by impermanence and ungroundedness (the "Lack" of the subtitle, our simultaneous awareness of death, impermanence, andontological emptiness and the ego's wish for eternal selfhood in an endless but impossibly fulfilling world). Loy's Buddhism is combined with the existential psychology of Ernest Becker and the revisionist Freudianism of Norman O. Brown called on as Western resources for the spiritual therapeutics "the West" seems to need as it enters the third Christian millennium both triumphant and in despair of any meaning to accompany its economic and pop-cultural hegemony.Seven anamnestic chapters take us through twenty-five hundred years of Western cultural constructions, from the Greek and Roman philosophical inquiries into Freedom, a kind of origin-tale of Humanism seen as a "religious" (religion for Loy being the way humans attempt to answer the problem of Lack as if to ground our groundlessness) vision of meaning as the development of human capacities for rational thought, through the intertwining of classical and Christian constructions in medieval and Renaissance periods, through the Protestant Reformation into the political and ideological space of modernity, culminating in a vision of the globalizing West as purveying a "Religion of the Market," an ironically meaningless (centered on the symbolic code for Value—Money—as a displacement of Value itself) system of meaning. This last, our contemporary situation, would perhaps be simply a problem of aesthetic tastelessness (American pop culture performing the dissolution of all surviving traditional sacred orders following the description of capitalism by Marx as causing "all that is sacred" to "melt into air") were it not for the massive social injustice and environmental devastation it structurally produces. Loy's therapeutic vision, following the Buddhist deconstruction of the demarcated "self" and Becker and Brown's cultural-historical or collective... (shrink)

In this paper I make a case for a genuine and legitimate role for philosophy in modern Islamic culture. However, I argue that in order to make any progress towards reinstating such philosophical activity, we need to look deep into the nature and essence of modern philosophy. In this paper I aim to do this precisely by challenging modern philosophy’s self conception as an absolute critique (i.e. a critique of everything/anything). I argue that such a conception is not (...) only misconceived, it is also ideological in character. Looking back to its origins, I develop a genealogy of modern philosophy’s self-understanding in order to deconstruct it and disassociate it from other possible alternative conceptions of philosophy. I argue that we should reject the notion of philosophy as absolute critique, as it is ideologically motivated and oppressive. Instead, I argue for a more modest conception of philosophy as a subject which provides tools for developing human powers of reflection. (shrink)

This article revisits cultural controversies over female public nudity in Thai society. It uses Songkran’s topless dancing in 2011 and a bare-breast painting performance on the ‘Thailand’s Got Talent Show’ in 2012 to explore cultural and emotional clashes in Thailand’s 21st century. It shows that these two cases of public female nudity drew deep and divergent emotional responses from different groups in Thai society. These cases clearly revealed a clash in viewpoints with regard to Thai notions (...) of feminine respectability associated with national identity and women’s sexual expression. On the one hand, the controversies prompted moral panic and backlashes against women’s sexual rebelliousness. On the other hand, they set off counter-backlashes against hegemonic discourse that tends to normalise oppressive sexual culture, nationalism and totalitarianism. (shrink)

In this provocative book, Susan Bordo untangles the myths, ideologies, and pathologies of the modern female body. Bordo explores our tortured fascination with food, hunger, desire, and control, and its effects on women's lives.

In this issue, Ahmadi1 reports on the practice of hymenoplasty—a surgical intervention meant to restore a presumed physical marker of virginity prior to a woman's marriage. As Mehri and Sills2 have stated, these women ‘want to ensure that blood is spilled on their wedding night sheets.’ Although Ahmadi's research was carried out in Iran specifically, this surgery is becoming increasingly popular in a number of Western countries as well, especially among Muslim populations.3 What are the ethics of hymen restoration?Consider (...) the role of the physician. Two of the doctors interviewed by Ahmadi reported being in ‘a perpetual state of guilt because of the surgery's inherent aim at deceiving the groom’ and noted their ‘personal conflict’ at being involved in this deception. Yet: "None of the doctors believed that the surgery was unethical, arguing that the girl could be ‘abused’ and ‘can even die’ if she is discovered not … ". (shrink)

Background: The prevalence of diabetes is rising worldwide, especially in poorer nations. It is anticipated to emerge as the sixth main cause of mortality globally by 2030. The factors linked to self-awareness in diabetes patients are still debated.Aim: To identify factors associated with self-awareness among diabetic patients attending Al-Zaher primary health care center (PHCC), Makkah Almukaramah City, Saudi Arabia 2024Methods: A cross-sectional study was performed using a randomized sample of diabetes patients visiting Al-Zaher Primary Health Care (...) Center in Makkah AlMukarramah city. The used questionnaire included demographic information and data on the patient's beliefs and attitudes toward diabetes mellitus (DM). The statistical analysis was conducted using SPSS. A P-value below 0.05 was deemed significant.Results: The study included 523 patients with T2DM in different genders, age categories from 20 to 70 years and education levels. The majority of respondents were married (79.3%). 53.5% of respondents were fully informed of their health conditions, however 52% were not confident in managing their diabetes. 60% of patients stated that regular diabetic follow-up every one to two months would assist in maintaining their health. 50.7% of respondents said there is a significant likelihood of getting diabetic issues in the future. While 50.9% of respondents felt that diabetes may be remedied with medicine, 47% of them thought that those with diabetes would have a shorter lifespan compared to those without the condition. 48% of patients selected meals optimal for their health, whereas 51.6% engaged in exercise at least three times weekly to enhance blood glucose regulation. Nonetheless, 51.1% of them sometimes missed doses of diabetic medicine. The average total score of patients' self-awareness about diabetes mellitus was 6.8±3.9, with a median of 8 (range 1-13).Conclusion: The study found inadequate self- awareness among diabetic patients. Male gender, younger age and high education level are the significant factors associated with high self-awareness toward DM. The study highlights the need for educational programs to improve self-awareness and empower patients, especially females, older individuals, and those with lower education levels, in Saudi Arabia. (shrink)

In _Images of Savages,_ the distinguished psychologist Gustav Jahoda advances the provocative thesis that racism and the perpetual alienation of a racialized 'other' are a central leagacy of the Western tradition. Finding the roots of these demonizations deep in the myth and traditions of classical antiquity, he examines how the monstrous humanoid creatures of ancient myth and the fabulous "wild men" of the medieval European woods shaped early modern explorers' interpretations of the New World they encountered. Drawing on a (...) global scale the schematic of the Western imagination of its "others," Jahoda locates the persistent identification of the racialized other with cannibalism, sexual abandon and animal drives. Turning to Europe's scientific tradition, Jahoda traces this imagery through the work of 18th century scientists on the relationship between humans and apes, the new racist biology of the 19th century studies of "savagery" as an arrested evolutionary state, and the assignment, especially of blacks, to a status intermediate between humans and animals, or that of children in need of paternal protection from Western masters. Finding in these traditional tropes a central influence upon the most current psychological theory, Jahoda presents a startling historical continuity of racial figuration that persists right up to the present day. Far from suggesting a program for the eradication of racial stereotypes, this remarkable effort nevertheless isolates the most significant barriers to equality buried deep within the Western tradition, and proposes a potentially redemptive self-awareness that will contribute to the gradual dismantling of racial injustice and alienation. Gustav Jahoda demonstrates how deeply rooted Western perceptions going back more than a thousand years are still feeding racial prejudice today. This highly original socio-historical contextualisation will be invaluable to scholars of psychology, sociology and anthropology, and to all those interested in the sources of racial prejudice. (shrink)

The present study scrutinizes the role of societal culture in cases of sexual violence in Greek sport, as presented in the media after a two times Olympic medalist of Greece fired up the “‘me too’ Movement” in the country. Specifically, data for this study consisted of 36 media articles, reporting multiple cases of sexual abuse and harassment in Greek sport and were published between January 2021 and January 2022. We drew on the cultural praxis heuristic to explore how the (...) cultural setting operates as an underlying factor in priming athletes for harassment and abuse and in oppressing them into not speaking up. Our thematic analysis of media data revealed two overarching themes, namely, keeping the home intact and failed negotiations with power. Based on these findings, we discuss how subtle manifestations of patriarchy and collectivism perpetuate sexualized violence in Greek sport as they promote a climate of silence, prevent safeguarding, maintain underreporting of sexual violence, and delayed the arrival of the #metoo. We conclude that under the current circumstances, change seems to be a threat to all involved in Greek sport, yet for different reasons. For the coaches, sport officials, stakeholders, state system, change would require them to relinquish male powers and authority, find new meaning of what it means to be and do as a man, and allow women to be seen as counterparts. For the female athletes-survivors, it would require them to prioritize the self and their self-care and let go of the in-group loyalty and subordination learned and exhibited from infancy. We also contend that mere translations of international and regional safeguarding guidelines and toolkits cannot foster awareness raising, nor the implementation of measures within cultural settings that divert from the Global North. If we care to combat the universal phenomenon of sexualized violence in sport, a glocal approach is needed, where local socio-cultural factors are acknowledged, their role is addressed, and violence is understood within its context. (shrink)

According to the logic of the gendered modernity/tradition binary, women in traditional societies are oppressed and women in modern societies liberated. While the binary valorizes modern women, it potentially erases gendered oppression in the West and undermines feminist movements on behalf of Western women. Using U.S. newspaper text, I ask whether female genital cutting is used to define women in modern societies as liberated. I find that speakers use FGC to both uphold and challenge the gendered modernity/ tradition (...) binary. Speakers use FGC to denigrate non-Western cultures and trivialize the oppressions that U.S. women typically encounter, but also to make feminist arguments on behalf of women everywhere. I argue that in addition to examining how culturally imperialist logics are reproduced, theorists interested in feminist postcolonialism should turn to the distribution of such logics, emphasizing the who, where, when, and how of reinscription of and resistance to such narratives. (shrink)

Positive Psychology Interventions as an Opportunity in Arab Countries to Promoting Well-being AbstractIn this perspective paper, we emphasize the importance of further research on culturally-sensitive positive psychology interventions in the Arab region. We argue that these interventions are needed in the region because they not only reduce mental health problems but also promote well-being and flourishing. To achieve this, we shed light on the cultural elements of the Arab region and how the concept of well-being differs from that of (...) Western culture. We review the research conducted in Arabia, briefly evaluate the quality of this research and list some adapted measurements. We furthermore propose guidelines and recommendations for future evidence-based positive psychology interventions research to align with the national culture in various sectors and community samples that contribute to the development of well-being in the Arab world.Introduction Extensive research on Positive Psychology Interventions (PPIs) - defined as activities focus on promoting positive feelings, thoughts, or behaviour (Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009) - has shown their effectiveness in well-being and mental illness (e.g., Chakhssi et al., 2018; Hendriks et al., 2020). A recent review of 347 studies showed that PPIs have a significant effect on promoting quality of life and well-being and reducing anxiety and depression (Carr et al., 2020). However, the issue is that most of these studies (82%) remain narrow in focus only on Western Educated Industrialised Rich Democratic (WEIRD) countries (Hendriks et al., 2019). Therefore, they may not be effective for other countries such as the Arab countries where there are various cultural differences. This highlights the key role that culture can play in enhancing PPIs engagement, acceptability, and eventually, effectiveness (Hendriks & Graafsma, 2019). Recently, the field of PP in the Arab region has begun to grow (Basurrah et al., 2021; Rao et al., 2015). However, studies conducted in these countries are scant and of poor methodological quality. We have found humble quantity and quality of empirical studies. Yet, Arab countries, home to 5% of the world’s population, have a burden of mental health problems above global levels (GBD 2015 Eastern Mediterranean Region Mental Health Collaborators, 2018). Prevalent stigma, war and conflict were some of the contributors (Maalouf et al., 2019). Thus, to properly address this cultural stigma against mental health problems, PPIs could provide an additional role alongside traditional psychology approaches (e.g., Cognitive Behavioural therapy - CBT). Further, in light of the political conditions that some Arab countries are going through and the negative effects that they cause, it has become necessary to use the method of prevention that is the focus of PP and not only of treatment as a strategy for applications and practice. It has been noted that the mental health care system in the Arab region focuses highly on illnesses treatment and neglects the significant role that PP plays in enhancing human potential and well-being. We - here in Arabia –are becoming more influenced by many global issues particularly the COVID-19 pandemic and their impact on mental health and well-being (e. g. prevalence of stress, anxiety, depression among the general population during the pandemic (Salari et al., 2020). In response, Waters et al. (2021) have recently presented how positive psychological factors can play a significant role in buffering mental illness, enhancing mental health throughout the pandemic, and building positive processes and capacities that can help to promote future mental health.Here in this perspective paper, we highlight the cultural aspects of Arab countries. Specifically, we present previous PPIs research conducted in Arabia and briefly evaluate the quality of this research. Importantly, we discuss the need of developing an indigenous and culturally sensitive PP among the Arab region (Lambert et al., 2015).Arab Culture “Arab World,” which comprises 5% of the world’s population, refers to the Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Despite the increasing pace and progress of different businesses in many Arab countries, individual communities are still limited in certain prominent economic places. Arab people rather gather in collective communities. They generally share the same Arabic Islamic culture, speak the same language, and descend from the same Arab families when going back in history no matter what nationality they have nowadays. Yet, very many changes came to communities before borders were drawn between countries and after. For instance, geography, topography, demography, and socio-economic status affect peoples’ nature of jobs and lifestyles. For example, Arabs in the east, west, or the middle have similar tongues; however, almost every Arab country has its accent. Therefore, people need to go back to the formal Arabic language ‘Fus-ha’ or learn more about different Arabic dialects when communicating cross-countries. According to Hofstede’s model (2011) based on the individualism-collectivism dimension, the Arab countries (Eastern society) have been classified as a collectivist culture, where their identity and decisions are influenced by social systems. In contrast, the United States (Western society) has been classified as an individualist culture focusing on individual decisions. Although there are degrees of individualism among Arabs in certain countries, they still share collective common characteristics. Here, we explore the meaning of collectivistic conceptions of the self, emotions, values, and religion in Arab countries and how they differ from those in individual Western cultures. The Self Since the field of PP focuses on the development of self, it is vital to recognize that self-concept varies across cultures. Individualism generally emphasises the self-directed and autonomous individual (Realo et al., 2002). People in individualist countries focus primarily on their personal characteristics (e.g., motives, abilities) to build their self-concept. On the other hand, collectivism refers to several social structures that highly value the groups to which people belong, such as family and tribe (Realo, 2003). People in collectivist countries such as the Arab countries focus primarily on their relationships with others to build their self-concept (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Hence, research from Arab countries should focus on the core elements of collectivism when implementing PPIs to make a significant, meaningful impact. For example, people from a collective culture may experience a greater enhancement in well-being when practising interventions that are more prosocial and group-oriented such as compassion, performing acts of kindness, writing a gratitude letter, and using character strengths in everyday context including social context, compared with self-oriented interventions such as identifying character strengths. Emotions, value, and Religion Research shows that Western culture emphasises the goal of maximizing positive emotions, while Eastern culture emphasises embracing and balancing positive and negative emotions (Leu et al., 2011). To illustrate, culture plays an important role in influencing perceptions of happiness. People in individualist countries value happiness highly. In contrast, people from the collective countries value low arousal positive emotions (Leu et al., 2011) and exhibit a fear of happiness (Joshanloo & Weijers, 2014; Joshanloo, 2013). Hence, the influence of positive emotions plays a limited role in the mental health of Eastern society. Speaking of Value, for an Arab, the family is the centre of honour and the most important social unit. This loyalty has an impact on every part of an Arab’s life. Arabs honour their families and highly value their friendships. Therefore, future research could shed more light on group-oriented interventions (e.g., kindness) that focus more on the relationship with family, friends, and community. When it comes to religion, Arab society has a rich culture in values and believes that place a high emphasis on spirituality. Religion is the most important and distinctive aspect of Arab culture. Arab countries vary in terms of religion, with Islam being the predominant religion in most of them. Well-being (Hedonic and Eudaimonic) It is necessary here to clarify what is meant by hedonic and eudaimonic definitions of well-being. While the term ‘Hedonic’ is based on the pursuit of maximum levels of pleasure (feeling good), the term ‘Eudaimonic’, on the other hand, is based on meaning and the development of virtues (functioning well; Keyes & Annas, 2009). Research indicates that cultures are not equally supportive of hedonic and eudaimonic aspects (Joshanloo & Jarden, 2016). In comparison to collectivism, hedonism appears to be more congruent with individualism (Joshanloo, 2014). Pleasure and positive emotions are considered a way to pursue happiness in Western culture, while this method is not highly favoured in Eastern cultures (Lee et al., 2013); Because they consider suffering and negative emotions as contributing factors to spiritual development. Therefore, the eastern perspective is more in line with a eudaimonistic view which emphasises virtues, meaning, and feeling of belongingness. However, although we believe that both approaches can be found to a certain level in both cultures, the differences suggest that there are different routes to happiness. Positive Psychology in the Arab region Positive psychology - "the scientific study of what makes life most worth living" (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000) - is one of the newest branches of psychology. It focuses on three main pillars: (1) positive subjective experiences (such as happiness and love); (2) positive individual characters (such as gratitude and compassion); and (3) positive institutions (for the application of positive principles within institutions and organizations; Seligman & Csikszentmiha lyi, 2000). Some of the main topics of interest in positive psychology include character strengths, gratitude, hope, happiness, mindfulness, optimism, positive thinking, and resilience. Within the applications of this science, various domains of well-being (such as happiness, engagement, positive emotions, and meaning) can be enhanced by practising positive psychology interventions (Sin & Lyubomirsky, 2009). Interestingly, these interventions have also produced benefits beyond well-being, such as reduced mental health issues (Chakhssi et al., 2018; Hendriks et al., 2020).Nowadays, PP is increasingly noticed in the Arab world (Lambert & Pasha-Zaidi, 2019; Rao et al., 2015). In recent years, there has been a great effort to explore the PP field across Arab countries. Several initiatives have emerged aimed at promoting well-being and flourishing. For example, the Middle East Journal of Positive Psychology published its first volume in 2015. On the International Day of Happiness in 2017, United Arab Emirates University launched its Emirates Center for Happiness Research. Meanwhile, Effat University in Saudi Arabia started the first Positive Psychology and Well-being Research Lab, the first symposium, and the first PP course. In 2019, Louise Lambert and Nausheen Pasha-Zaidi published the first regional text entitled “Positive Psychology in the Middle East/North Africa.” There are other efforts spent in the region as well; such as the work conducted in Egypt. Ibrahim Younus established the Arab Association for Positive Psychology https://www.psycholearn.com/en/associative.php which provides several courses on PP and also published a book entitled “The Power of Positive Psychology” (Younus, 2017). Despite this development, nothing can compare to the quantity and even quality of research in other countries. In light of our observations, the few PP studies may be attributed to the lack of awareness of the constructive approach and prevention compared to problem-solving. An Arab dentist once said: “people do not come to me until they are badly in pain.” In any case, many studies have taken place in Arab countries in the last decade, more of which are descriptive and less of which experimental. For example, Abdel-Khalek (2010) found positive correlations between quality of life, subjective well-being, and religiosity among students in Kuwait. Abdel-Khalek (2016) developed “the Arabic Scale of Religiosity,” which significantly correlated with PP variables among students in Algeria, Kuwait, and Egypt. Recently, empirical studies on PPIs have arisen in Arab-Islamic countries. More attention has been focused on promoting well-being and alleviating the high burden of mental health problems in the region (GBD 2015 Eastern Mediterranean Region Mental Health Collaborators, 2018). For instance, several studies examined the effectiveness of mindfulness among university students (e.g., Al-Ghalib & Slim, 2018; Awad, 2019; Thomas et al., 2016), parents of children with autism (Rayan & Ahmed, 2016) and addicted adults (Al-Rashidi, 2018). Such an intervention has positive effects. Participants who practised mindfulness reported reduction in stress and depression as well as improvement in well-being and resilience. Moreover, the results of a recent pilot study found positive impacts on enhancing emotional regulations and reducing stress among Arab teachers (Berkovich-Ohana et al., 2020). Some studies have also begun to examine various interventions targeting character strengths (Basurrah et al., 2020; Chérif et al., 2020), self-compassion (Elaiwah, 2017), positive thinking (Mohammed et al., 2014; Hadad, 2014), and hope (Zaki, 2016). Interestingly, a new finding considering the fear of happiness among people from collective countries has been examined. Lambert et al. (2019) provided evidence that a 14-week PPIs programme has an impact on reducing the fear and fragility of happiness beliefs among university students in the United Arab Emirates.Since Arab countries place great emphasis on spirituality, several authors have considered the aspect of religion when implementing PPIs. For instance, an empirical study by Al-Seheel and Noor (2016) found that expressing gratitude towards God “Allah” increases the happiness of the Muslim more than the usual gratitude intervention. Additionally, Al-Ghalib and Salim (2018) examined a religiously sensitive mindfulness-training programme with university students and found a positive effect on life satisfaction and a slight reduction in stress, depression, and anxiety. Hence, the role of religion is vital to make the interventions more relevant to Arab culture where people can connect Islamic philosophy with PP theories and practices. These studies reviewed here provide further support for the need for culturally sensitive interventions among the Arab population. More recently, the first systematic review of PPIs in Arab countries was conducted by Basurrah et al. (2021; the protocol has been published in BMJ Open and the final manuscript has been submitted for publication). Reviewing a total of 39 studies, the most commonly studied interventions were mindfulness, positive thinking, and resilience. Only a handful of studies examined gratitude, character strengths, forgiveness, self-compassion, savouring, or finding flow. Further analysis revealed that most studies from Arab countries have several methodological limitations. This included a lack of protocol guidelines, few well-designed randomized controlled trials (RCTs), blinding issues, small sample sizes, lack of active control groups, and lack of research into certain populations (e.g., teachers, employees, and people in distress in refugee camps). Discussion PP was founded on an individualistic framework (Christopher & Hickinbottom, 2008). To ensure that PPIs are culturally meaningful, this paper includes some cultural elements of the Arab region that should be considered to serve the needs of the Arab population. In the Arab world, some people may believe that PP is solely about happiness and being positive. If so, it is important to educate the public about the findings of rigorous studies evaluating PPIs such as gratitude, hope or flow on health, well-being and performance. To explain the value and effectiveness of these evidence-based approaches, examples might include studies linking gratitude with benefits for people with heart disease (Cousin et al., 2021), or how PPIs can promote quality of life in cancer patients (Casellas-Grau et al., 2014). There is some evidence about PPIs being effective in improving well-being in the Arab region, but research in this region is still in its infancy and little information is available regarding PPIs and the experience of Arabs participating in such interventions. Hence, there is still much more to investigate in this regard. Future research should empirically examine the effectiveness of various unstudied interventions such as savouring, gratitude, self-compassion, character strengths or finding flow. A combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches is required to provide an in-depth understanding of Arabs’ experience and impressions of PPIs and how and why they work. This may provide useful information to inform the appropriate design of PPIs to suit Arab culture and needs. Furthermore, while some research on PPIs has been carried out in the region, most of these studies have been of poor quality that suffered from small sample sizes, confounding factors, and a high degree of bias. To overcome these issues, future research should improve research quality, including protocol guidelines and well-designed RCTs. In particular, research should include randomization, allocation, blinding, power analysis to determine adequate sample size, active control groups to reduce bias, and follow-up periods of at least 12 months.Among the most popular resources that future PP practitioners may refer to are the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) and the International Positive Education Network (IPEN). Also, we recommend the Middle East Journal of Positive Psychology and the first regional book (Lambert & Pasha-Zaidi, 2019). To develop and/or adapt a multi-component PPIs, we would recommend referring to Character Strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), the theory of well-being (PERMA Model: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment; Seligman, 2011), and the Five Ways to Well-being: Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning, and Give (Aked et al., 2008). Finally, single-component PPIs are based on theories like Broaden-And-Build (Fredrickson, 2004), Hope (Snyder et al., 2002), and Self-Determination (Deci & Ryan, 2012) can be also considered. Two other concepts that would be usefully applied are ‘Savouring’ (Bryant & Veroff, 2007) and Phillip Zimbardo’s Time Perspective (Stolarski et al., 2015). For instance, savouring has a positive temporal orientation to reminiscing the good memories from the past, enjoying the hedonic present moments, and willing proactively to make a better future. Now, what is even maybe more interesting for Muslims is “Transcendent Future” where all intentions, words and actions are devoted to that life after death. In addition, there is a model already prepared for the clinical purpose called Positive Psychotherapy (PPT). Tayyab Rashid and Martin Seligman published a PPT manual for clinicians in 2018. And for cross-cultural applications, including Muslim Arab culture, Rashid and Al-Haj Baddar (2019) have written a paper presenting PPT and its efficacy. PPT overview in detail shows sessions, themes, skills, practice, and cultural considerations where a mixture of PPIs based on PERMA, Strengths, and other PP concepts can be found. Regarding PP measurements, it is highly recommended to generate indigenous tools based on cultural backgrounds reviewed here in the article. An example of this is a tool for measuring Muslim well-being by including domains beyond what is found in Western literature. So far, in the Arab region, several attempts have been made to adapt PP tools. For example, Marei Salama-Younes (2018) validated the Arabic versions of different measures of well-being (e.g., satisfaction with life scale, the subjective vitality scale). Other validated scales as well include the self-compassion scale (Alabdulaziz et al., 2020), and the passion scale (Salama-Younes & Hashim, 2018). Conclusion This paper has discussed the cultural aspects of Arab countries and the need of developing culturally sensitive PPIs. The past decade has seen an increase in mental health problems in the Arab region. Stigma and lack of awareness have been always there. Among the issues are also wars, conflicts, and displacement in many Arab countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine (Hassan et al., 2016). These indicate an urgent need to prevent mental illness and promote well-being. Indeed, we highlighted the importance of integrating culture with PPIs, following the guidelines for the cultural adaptation of PPIs (Hendriks & Graafsma, 2019) and the ethical guidelines for PP practice (Jarden et al., 2020). Another significant contribution of this paper is to highlight the importance of improving the quality of research conducted in Arab countries. In brief, this paper has several practical implications. It is an open invitation for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners alike to be more exposed to PP; as well as to better conceptualising and adapting interventions and measurement tools to the local culture in different sectors to maximize their effectiveness. And as we consider it as an invitation for us too, here we are starting a PPIs practice guide in Arabic language and for Arab practitioners. The insights gained from this paper may be useful for placing well-being on top of priorities for achieving individual, organizational, and optimal national functioning in different sectors. There is also a need to change the stigma or negative beliefs about seeking health for psychological support, which is an issue for countries in the Middle East (Baess, 2018). (shrink)

Ex interiore ipso exeas. Preface. This book reconstructs the history of a still open dialectics between several ethoi, that is, shared codes of unwritten rules, moral traditions, or self-aware attempts at reforming such codes, and ethical theories discussing the nature and justification of such codes and doctrines. Its main claim is that this history neither amounts to a triumphal march of reason dispelling the mist of myth and bigotry nor to some other one-way process heading to some pre-established goal, (...) but instead to a chain of controversies where the partners’ will to win unintentionally yields a wealth of insights on human existence that has still something to teach us. -/- 1. The Hellenic moral tradition. -/- Two different traditions of morality in vi-v century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. -/- 2. Plato and the Good. -/- Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates rejoinder to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 3. Aristotle and practical philosophy. -/- Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistency in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater families, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics, is illustrated. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexes, or ‘dispositions’. Prudence, or better, practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with boùleusis or deliberation is discussed, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 4. Cynics and Stoics: ethics as therapy. -/- The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place that was given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of the science of well-being aiming, more than pleasure understood as in the popular view, the reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Roman and Imperial Moralists. -/- The chapter is dedicated to the reconstruction of a particular kind of literature, whose specific features have long been under-stressed, namely the Roman and Imperial moral literature. Cicero is treated at some length, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is given pride of place, stressing the novelty of his approach to ethics as cognitive therapy, in this case just following an already existing new wave of interest after nineteenth-century oblivion justified by alleged lack of authentic ‘philosophical’ character. -/- 6. The Hebrew moral tradition. -/- A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torah (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Levitic is stressed as the turning point when the stress on mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, starts being combined with legal tradition yielding the change in the sensibility of the Second Temple time. -/- 7. Second Temple Judaism. -/- This chapter describes the Long March leading from the post-exile Zadokite restoration to the first-century aevi vulgaris. The first topic reconstructed is the Zadokite theology of the double retribution. The second is the alternative Enochic tradition consistently rejecting the central role of the Temple, the Priesthood and worship as atonement for sins and offering as an alternative God’s unlimited mercy and preaching mercy, not sacrifice as the way of behaving requested by God. Wisdom literature, the third subject discusses, is a kind of third way, on the one hand increasingly critical towards the double retribution and ruling theology’s optimism facing the world as it is and on the other mocking at the Enochic current as a band of dreamers and visionaries. The third way consists in disenchantment facing the word as it is combined with a refusal of vain and childish hope of prizes for the righteous, suggesting instead the leading idea of right deeds for righteousness’s sake. Rabbi Hillel, Rabbi Yeshua and Philo of Alexandria are described as the three leading figures at the culminating point of such process of emergence of a new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This starting point consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, whose meaning is, arguably, more consistent than a long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine made us believe. And Christian morality, vis-à-vis allegedly legalist ‘Ancient Testament’ teachings, is less of a novelty than most early Christian writers announced. -/- 8. Talmudic moral doctrines and proto-Christian paraenesis. -/- The first three sections examine the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirke Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deot, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexes and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was "the tool by which the world was built"; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous, but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The last two sections examine first the various Christian currents and then Gnostic para-Christian or non-Christian currents as well as Manicheism. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure, purest Judaism. The last section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manicheism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. -/- 9. Christianity as “philosophy”. -/- The chapter reconstructs the stormy story of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and several rhetorical topics from the Stoic and Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua himself had been influenced by cynical preachers, is a proof of the necessity to translate the original Christian message in a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 10. Ethics in the Arabic-Islamic Philosophy. -/- The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on the retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince, had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries, a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with the disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 11. Ethics in the Jewish philosophy. -/- The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place for the first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed too a few traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Tora and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirke Avot could be translated. -/- 12. The practical philosophy revival in Latin Europe. -/- A reconstruction is carried out of a fresh start of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium rescuing a Platonic and Augustinian legacy, with Anselm and Peter Abelard. In this phase remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions, gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of a full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. -/- 13. Scholastic practical philosophy: Thomas Aquinas. -/- Aquinas’s ethics is theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to the repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave pure nature incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too ambitious, and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Prima Secundae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas was able to solve the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from the knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethics, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of the death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not the Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is no way an ethical ‘absolutism’, as both the traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularists tend to believe, but rather an ethic of prudential judgment on the individual case. Exceptions to this approach – or better the result of logical fallacies – are provided by the thesis of the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of so-called intrinsically evil acts, a thesis that would simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences that Thomas did not live long enough to draw. -/- 14. Scholastic practical philosophy: John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. A reconstruction is carried out of the ethical doctrines by both most authoritative Franciscan doctors. Their continuity with Aquinas is vindicated against prejudice carried by centuries of polemics within the Catholic Church and tendentious disparaging of both as forerunners of execrable Reformation. Besides aspects of continuity, also the important novelties are illustrated, first John’s abandonment of Aquinas’s and Augustine’s eudemonism, asserting righteousness for righteousness’s sake, and then William’s explicit defence of the philosopher’s virtues, that is, natural morality, and his solution to the dilemma of God’s omnipotence and the universal validity of natural law extending to God himself. -/- 15. Aristotelianism interpreted by the Magistri Artium. -/- A reconstruction of the until recently forgotten ethical doctrines by the Parisian Magistri Artium, falsely depicted as ‘Averroists’ and either deprecated as heretics or mistaken for predecessors of modern secularism. In fact, they illustrate a view of ‘natural’ virtue as may be understood by human reason without the assistance by Revelation. -/- Etiamsi daremus Deum non esse. Intermediate considerations. Three considerations may be suggested by the story told in the book. The first one is that intellectual histories have been mounted in the past with the same state of mind as one may mount a war chariot. Such constructions are not very helpful as tools for understanding the past. Wars waged in the past have left the field obstructed by ruins not easy to remove even by those historians who have animated by an impartial academic motivation. They have been influenced too by consequences of past emphasis on some authors and damnatio capitis suffered by others, by stratifications left on sources by secondary literature and translations, by allotment of originally close sources to different literary genres, by the monopolization of religious texts by churches with full cooperation by secular scholars who still fear contamination. The second one is that aware or unaware ethnocentrism has carried various calamities to our comprehension of the past. Their last vestiges have surfaced again in the semi-scholarly discussion on the idea of Europe occasioned by the debate on a project of a European Constitution. Mention of Europe’s Christian roots has been the clumsiest move. Proclamations of such roots were so obvious in what they affirmed as they were totally off-path concerning what they omitted, namely that he modern European moral tradition included legacies from Middle-Eastern wisdom, Hellenic philosophy, Roman Imperial legal literature, and, besides, a Jewish legacy in turn incorporating other more ancient Middle-Eastern legacies and which has been partly conveyed by Christianity. And the Islamic-Arabic philosophy too, in so far it made the Nicomachean Ethics available to Latin Christian scholars, is one more of Europe’s roots. The third is that religious traditionalists and secularist fundamentalists have gone hand in hand for a couple of centuries in either extolling or deprecating the allegedly Modern idea of Ethics without God, first formulated by Hugo Grotius with the claim that natural law would still be valid ‘etiamsi daremus – quod sine summo scelere dari potest – Deum non esse’. The facts are, firstly, that this is not an irreligious claim and Grotius was just a pious and meek Christian and, secondly, that it is not a ‘modern’ claim but rather one more formulation of the claim that there is a natural morality, independent of divine revelation, a claim shared by Moshe ben Maimon, Aquinas and William of Ockham. -/- . (shrink)

Although clinical understandings of self-injury, the deliberate mutilation of body tissue, have developed significantly since the phenomenon was first studied, the predominant stereotype of who self-injures is still White, teenage girls.1 White girls as well as White women are, indeed, at risk for SI, and sociocultural explanations appealing to oppressive socialization—particularly the influence of Western beauty norms—have been offered to explain their high rates of SI. Yet evidence exists to challenge this conception that SI is exclusively a (...) White, female issue: Black women, South... (shrink)

This paper focuses on the influence of cultural familiarity on getting the most out of an e-negotiation for merger or acquisition based on subjective and objective negotiation behaviors. We examined if cultural awareness could increase the rate of negotiation self-efficacy, shorten the length of negotiation and optimize deal closure results. To do so, firstly we investigate the concept of e-negotiation and its development in the last two decades. Then a series of systematic reviews is performed on (...) the parameters influencing the success in offline and online merger or acquisition negotiations. We also considered the main traits of Western and Middle Eastern Arab cultures on negotiations. The results show that many of the requirements of successful collaboration, or negotiations, with Arab managers can currently happen only through face-to-face meetings. (shrink)

America is experiencing a cultural malaise. As art historians Arthur Pontynen and Rod Miller show in this penetrating new book, our current cultural struggles result from repeated attempts to deny the qualitative foundation for culture that distinguishes civilization from barbarism. Tracing American art, science, and philosophy from the colonial era to the present, Western Culture at the American Crossroads reveals how a distinctively American culture emerged and where it went wrong. Culture cannot be merely a matter of (...) personal or group preferences; it must be dedicated to the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. But as Pontynen and Miller skillfully chronicle, modernism and postmodernism have developed dangerously limited understandings of science and reason that do not simply limit art but actually lead to bitter conflict and violence. The authors discuss dozens of works of art and architecture -- many of them featured in this beautifully illustrated work. But Western Culture at the American Crossroads in no mere art history treatise; it connects many dots in American intellectual history, demonstrating how what a culture believes relates to how it acts and what art it produces. Standing athwart trends that reduce culture to a matter of lifestyle and "taste," Western Culture at the American Crossroads makes a powerful case that the free and responsible pursuit of wisdom desperately needs to be renewed. Pontynen and Miller ultimately reveal the emerging threats not only to American and Western culture but to the very possibility of culture itself. - Publisher. (shrink)

Judeo-Christian Western culture recognizes a legislating, judging and punishing God. The view that a judge separate from man indeed exists, constitutes, among other things, cultural motivation for the pursuit of success, on the one hand, and fear of failure, guilt, on the other. The human-being fears the consequences of judgement, especially those entailing punishment, and attempts with all his might to succeed in the eyes of the judge. This study‟s underlying assumption is that judge-ment constitutes a deep structure (...) in Western culture and that its religious origins are in the culture‟s Jewish and Christian sources. Although religious judgement under-goes processes of secularization throughout the culture‟s history, it remains a deep cultural construct; while worldviews are deeply embedded in the religious expe-rience, as Jung contends, they have a latent capacity for preservation in the secular experience. A genealogical methodology will be applied to examine the con-cept of judgement. While genealogy deals with the past, its aim is to understand and critique the present reality. The genealogy will scrutinize the Jewish judgement, the Catholic judgement and the Calvinist judgement, while calling attention to their similarities and differences. (shrink)

Sufism and Psychoanalysis have the potential to create a synergy of Eastern spiritual traditions and Western psychological frameworks. This paper examines the similarities and differences between Sufism and psychoanalytic self-psychology, particularly of Heinz Kohut, and emphasizes the mutual appreciation of psychoanalytical self-psychology approaches and patients’ religious beliefs, demonstrating that they are not in opposition and can work in harmony. The data was collected through literature reviews and documentation study. The results reveal that Sufi practices such as dhikr (...) (remembrance of God) and spiritual guidance from a sheik are equally self-psychological concepts, equipped with empathy and self-object transference, capable of producing a more complete and culturally sensitive therapeutic encounter. It was also revealed that such a mental health environment can be created in which the spiritual and cultural dimensions of diverse patient populations can be recognized. A blend of Sufi and psychoanalytical values can lead to innovative, culturally sensitive, and effective mental health interventions to enhance the understanding of the spiritual heritage of Islam and address individuals' psychological and spiritual needs. This study’s implications lie in the fact that it encourages concerns of cross-cultural psychoanalysis by providing a blending platform to understand Islamic spirituality as well as western psychological theories and practices. Future studies may further explore the role of such a cross-cultural psychoanalysis to understand various healthcare practices across inter-disciplinary faiths and communities. (shrink)

In the early 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and with the easing of East- West tensions, Samuel Huntington presented his theory of a “clash of civilizations.” He announced that conflicts between ideologies had come to an end and were to be replaced by a new kind of confrontation, this time between cultures and religions. This essay attempts to show how misled Huntington’s thesis can be by referring to forms of humanism from Africa as well as to some (...) ideas developed in Arabian-Islamic philosophy. In the early 1930s, African intellectuals such as Léopold Sédar Senghor or Aimé Césaire already tried to oppose their own conception of humanism to Western individualistic humanism. The distinction can be found in the concept of Ubuntu, or “African humanism,” which incorporates notions of respect for the other, collective responsibility and solidarity. The Arab-Islamic world has also had similar concerns from an early stage. Its heritage from classical Greek philosophy, which placed human being at the centre of its thinking and ethical acting, came indeed under the significant influence of Islamic values, such as equality, fraternity and the community. Thus the essay offers an alternative to Huntington’s post-modern model of “clash of civilizations” beyond the frontiers set by Western humanism and that is more relevant to our current globalising world – a new trans- and intercultural humanism that favours the ways human beings can relate to each other as persons regardless of race, culture and religion. Human dignity and respect for the “other,” including the environment, are therefore central to this new humanism. (shrink)

Cross-dressing, as a cultural practice, suggests gender ambiguity and allows freedom of self expression. Yet, it may also serve to reaffirm ideological stereotypes and the binary distinctions between male and female, masculine and feminine, homosexual and heterosexual. To explore the nature and function of cross-dressing in Chinese and Western cultures, this paper analyzes the portrayals of cross-dressing heroines in two Chinese stories: The Ballad of Mulan, and The Butterfly Lovers. Distorted representations in the English translated texts (...) are also explored.. (shrink)

Background Female genital mutilation and circumcision (FGM/C) practices present physicians in Germany with numerous challenges. One possible intervention is elective clitoral reconstruction for esthetic and physiological recovery after FGM/C. Even if the study situation regarding the results achieved by clitoral reconstruction is controversial, the range of reconstruction options is increasing. Arguments The aim of this study is to critically examine the epistemic and ethical dimensions of the interdisciplinary debate on clitoral reconstruction that has arisen over the last 20 years. (...) It is intended to provide orientation in the complex field in which cultural, gender-specific, sexual, and psychosocial factors interact with anatomical–physiological knowledge and the lack thereof. The analysis shows the ambivalent role of evidence claims and promises in relation to clitoral reconstruction. Conclusions Difficulties in testing and comparing existing surgical procedures and in the use of standardized questioning tools demonstrate how essential cultural competence and diversity awareness are in dealing with those affected. The prima facie correct argument of insufficient evidence on the efficacy, comparability, and long-term consequences of reconstruction procedures proves to be problematic for ethical and epistemic reasons. In order to generate valid and useful data on sexuality, body perception, pain, and pleasure before and after clitoral reconstruction, survey modalities that address the culturally heterogeneous target group of women with FGM/C are needed. Cultural competence and sensitivity in medicine are also urgently needed for target group-oriented education and counseling as a prerequisite for self-determined decisions for/against clitoral reconstruction. (shrink)

Peter Homans offers a new understanding of the origins of psychoanalysis and relates the psychoanalytic project as a whole to the sweep of Western culture, past and present. He argues that Freud's fundamental goal was the interpretation of culture and that, therefore, psychoanalysis is fundamentally a humanistic social science. To establish this claim, Homans looks back at Freud's self-analysis in light of the crucial years from 1906 to 1914 when the psychoanalytic movement was formed and shows how these (...) experiences culminated in Freud's cultural texts. By exploring the "culture of psychoanalysis," Homans seeks a better understanding of what a "psychoanalysis of culture" might be. Psychoanalysis, Homans shows, originated as a creative response to the withering away of traditional communities and their symbols in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. The loss of these attachments played a crucial role in the lives of the founders of psychoanalysis, especially Sigmund Freud but also Karl Abraham, Carl Jung, Otto Rank, and Ernest Jones. The personal, political, and religious losses that these figures experienced, the introspection that followed, and the psychological discovery that resulted are what Homans calls "the ability to mourn." Homans expands this historical analysis to construct a general model of psychological discovery: the loss of shared ideals and symbols can produce a deeper sense of self (psychological structure-building, or individuation) and can then lead to the creation of new forms of meaning and self-understanding. He shows how Freud, Jung, and other psychoanalysts began to extend their introspection outward, reinterpreting the meanings of Western art, history, and religion. In conclusion, Homans evaluates Freud's theory of culture and discusses the role that psychoanalysis might play in social and cultural criticism. Throughout the book, Homans makes use of the many histories, biographies, and psychobiographies that have been written about the origins of psychoanalysis, drawing them into a comprehensive sociocultural model. Rich in insights and highly original in approach, this work will interest psychoanalysts and students of Freud, sociologists concerned with modernity and psychoanalysis, and cultural critics in the fields of religion, anthropology, political science, and social history. (shrink)

The dominant framework for understanding selfhood in contemporary psychology has been one that privileges a highly individualistic conception of self. This is reflected in both the language and approaches of psychotherapy where the influence of contextual factors are given marginal consideration in order to maintain some type of 'objectivity' or 'neutrality' in counseling. We argue that an understanding of selfhood which does not take into account the 'relational' nature of selfhood as well as the cultural or historical context (...) of the client, will likely alienate clients who do not view their self through the individualized lenses of psychology. In order to deal with this problem, we adopt an approach to cultural psychology that views the self as a relational narrative. Such a narrative does not imply an unrestricted freedom to construct our self, but understands the limits to selfhood implied in the web of meanings constitutive of our culture and the web of relations from which our self emerges. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

To assert that a 'clash of civilizations' follows inexorably from the different religious convictions at the foundations of Western Judeo-Christian and Arabic-Islamic cultures means to deny that a common political rationality can articulate genuinely universal, albeit culturally situated values. The eleven contributions to the present volume take up this controversy by challenging its premise that the heritage of classical Greek thought is exclusively part of Western political identity. By exploring the tradition of Platonism informing both Arabic-Islamic (...) and Western political thought and intellectual history in key stations in their history, the contributors show how Platonic political theory can still bear fruit in the present day, especially in the context of dialogue between cultures. (shrink)

We investigate individual, developmental, and cultural differences in self-control in relation to children's changing belief in “free will” – the possibility of acting against and inhibiting strong desires. In three studies, 4- to 8-year-olds in the U.S., China, Singapore, and Peru (N = 441) answered questions to gauge their belief in free will and completed a series of self-control and inhibitory control tasks. Children across all four cultures showed predictable age-related improvements in self-control, as well as (...) changes in their free will beliefs. Cultural context played a role in the timing of these emerging free will beliefs: Singaporean and Peruvian children's beliefs changed at later ages than Chinese and U.S. children. Critically, culture moderated the link between self-control abilities and free will beliefs: Individual differences in self-control behaviors were linked to individual differences in free will beliefs in U.S. children, but not in children from China, Singapore or Peru. There was also evidence of a causal influence of self-control performance on free will beliefs in our U.S. sample. In Study 2, a randomly assigned group of U.S. 4- and 5-year-olds who failed at two self-control tasks showed reduced belief in free will, but a group of children who completed free will questions first did not show changes to self-control. Together these results suggest that culturally-acquired causal-explanatory frameworks for action, along with observations of one's own abilities, might influence children's emerging understanding of free will. (shrink)

Women in patriarchal culture are treated unfairly and seen as second-class beings. Their presence is considered as something incidental and not essential. For this reason, this paper examines one of the short stories by Muna Masyari, a female writer from Pamekasan, Madura Sortana. Matchmaking and the myth of the Madurese have put Madurese women in a state of oppression and unfavorable conditions because of the binding culture that dominates women. Muna, using the Sortana short story as a means to (...) advocate for the value of feminism which in the context of Madurese culture is taboo to fight against. This study aims to explore the existence of women who are represented by female characters called Embu. This research method uses qualitative-descriptive research by analyzing the content of the story, looking at sentences and paragraphs related to the issue of the existence of women in Sortana short story. The theoretical concept used is existentialist feminism. From the results of the analysis, it is known that the gender injustice experienced by the Embu character in the short story is in the form of marginalization, subordination, and stereotypes. Meanwhile, through his actions, the Embu figure has the awareness to become the Self in order to be free from the Other. (shrink)

Female empowerment has long been a prominent social concern in Western culture. With the rise of social media, the quest for female empowerment has become embodied in self-presentational practices, occurring conspicuously throughout the Instagram fitness subculture: ‘fitspiration’. Here, female empowerment is merged with the body-centrality inherent to fitness, and the self-sexualization that has become characteristic of both photo-based social media in general, and fitspiration in particular. Meanwhile, an extensive body of research highlights numerous detrimental (...) effects of self-sexualization on women. Evidently, something seems awry with the implied proposition ‘sexualization as empowerment’. Drawing on Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of power and its relationship to human flourishing, this article aims to critically examine the conception of female empowerment expressed in fitspiration and to conceptualize a philosophically compelling reformulation of universal human empowerment. I argue that what is commonly conceived of as female empowerment in trends like fitspiration—delineated in its explicit relationship to sexualization—may be seriously flawed. Rejecting this understanding in favor of a Nietzschean universal alternative may prove beneficial to individuals both within and without the contemporary fitness culture. (shrink)

In this paper we examine Husserl’s ethics contribution to the understanding of human action determined by self-responsibility. We admit that self-responsibility is that ‘capacity’ of any subject to take a reflective stance on himself and his life. In this sense, the subject only experiences fully being responsible when guides his reason in the multidimensionality of his actions, aiming at a personal and cultural renewal. To show this, we firstly analyze the project of renewal of man and culture (...) in the personalist ethics proposed by Husserl, viewed from the history of parricide Karamazov. Secondly, we inquire about one of the two dimensions of human personality, self-awareness and presence of oneself, to approach the complex intentional act in which this selfconsciousness takes place. Thirdly, we analyze how the ability of self-determination, the other key dimension of the person, makes possible the self-appraisal by which the new man values his actions, motives, means and ends. We conclude that the self guides his life in full participation and emotional manifestation out of experiences that strengthen the ‘self’ and the ‘us’. (shrink)

Hymenoplasty is a practice that must be judged from within its cultural confines and not only from outside. It offers women who have grown up within the sexual norms of a Western society the chance to return to their parental culture, with its female-specific virginity expectations. Hymenoplasty allows women to be sexually active prior to marriage, which equalizes the discrepancy between gender norms on premarital sexual experience. Caution is needed when comparing hymenoplasty to female genital mutilation. (...) However, comparing hymenoplasty to other cosmetic genital modification procedures raises unique ethical, social, and medical quandaries that highlight the importance of patient’s autonomy. (shrink)

The article analyzes the cultural and civilizational consequences of a long experience of Ukrainians' perception of the biblical picture of the world and the corresponding principles of its development. The author's reasoning is based on the thesis that the very acquisition of the Bible as a sacred text created the space of a common language - the language of values and the language of symbols. The present "European world", even as a globalized phenomenon, has historically emerged as the embodiment (...) of an ideal, symbolic "biblical world". In turn, the over-millennial affiliation of Christianized Ukraine to the "biblical world" has become an extremely important symbolic marker and cultural and ideological factor of civilization. Adopting the principle of biblical historicism coupled with the idea of biblical history as a universal, universal Holy History of Salvation, our ancestors, along with other Christianized peoples, were given the chance to see themselves as full participants in world historical drama. The same universal principle led to the formation of a new model of interpersonal communication - communication, which united families and tribes in nations, and nations into international unity. We still know this unity as Europe - either staying in it or seeking to rebuild and strengthen its ties with it. And, despite the fact that this unity always seemed to be a political, cultural, civilizational unity, it was basically a spiritual and mental unity. The “biblical world”, as a center of norms and symbols, was embodied in the various social and cultural forms of the great Europe. The author outlines a panorama of common cultural ideas and values that have been learned by our ancestors over a thousand years ago, the source of which is the biblical worldview. In particular, the idea of indisputable and unceasing progress is analyzed — as the idea of historical progress in the development of each individual, each local society, as well as humanity as a whole. It is shown that the possibility of such progress is justified by the affirmation of the value of personal creative effort in the transformation of the world — an effort that involves creativity and initiative. The basis for the creative world transformation for the human development is the value of rational knowledge of the world. However, it has been shown that the ideas of progressism, personal creative activism, rationalism and pragmatism in the European mentality are substantially counterbalanced by several important values, which are also of biblical origin. In this context, the idea of personal and collective responsibility for what humans is being done in the world is emphasized. This value — as the maxim of socially significant behavior — in our culture is a powerful safeguard for personal or group selfishness and particularism.These values can be realized in a system of constantly updating communities. Community, communication is the basis of a a fulfilling personal and collective life, both religious and secular. On the concrete examples of the analysis of the reception of the European biblical experience by the figures of the Kiev theological tradition of the late XIX - early XX centuries, the author demonstrates the perception by the Kiev authors of this period of polyphonic unity of the European world, the normative and symbolic core of which was the Bible. The author reasonably argues that by comparing the foreign experience of mastering and applying the Bible with the domestic, "home" situation, Kiev theologian researchers objectively strengthened the idea of a universal "biblical world". The "biblical world" - as the unity of the spiritual-symbolic and ethno-geographical principles, is, to put it now, the "geopolitical phenomenon" - has been globalized and modernized. As a result, there were also challenges to Ukrainian culture and society. These challenges remain relevant every time we attempt modern Ukrainian state and national-cultural construction. The author's current conclusion is that even now our self-awareness as Europeans, as full members of the global community of nations, requires us to read the Bible as a source of meaning shared with the rest of the world, with the experience of other nations. (shrink)

Feminist studies of female genital cutting (FGC) provide ample evidence that many women exercise effective agency with respect to this practice, both as accommodators and as resisters. The influence of culture on autonomy is ambiguous: women who resist cultural mandates for FGC do not necessarily enjoy greater autonomy than do those women who accommodate the practice, yet it is clear that some social contexts are more conducive to autonomy than others. In this paper, I explore the implications for (...) autonomy theory of these understandings of the relation between culture, FGC, and women’s agency. I review the range of worldwide FGC practices – including “corrective” surgery for “ambiguous genitalia” in Western cultures as well as the various initiation rites observed in some African and Asian cultures – and the diverse cultural rationales for different forms of FGC. I argue that neither latitudinarian, value‐neutral accounts of autonomy nor restrictive, value‐saturated accounts adequately explain women’s agentic position with respect to FGC. I then analyze a number of educational programs that have enhanced women's autonomy, especially by strengthening their introspection, empathy, and imagination. Such programs, which engage women's autonomy skills without exposing them to autonomy‐disabling cultural alienation, promote autonomy‐within‐culture. This understanding of autonomy as socially situated, however, entails neither endorsement of FGC nor resignation to its persistence. (shrink)

In the years that have passed since publication of the Club of Rome's seminal report "Limits to Growth," the issues raised in terms of development, resource use and the environment have become ever more pressing. The potential of advances in science and technology to affect all aspects of life, including development, was then little understood. Today's unparalleled burst in scientific and technological creativity has given new options and opportunities to the world economic system. Central to this process is a series (...) of concepts which includes the scientification of technology, by which technology is increasingly generated and developed on scientific bases, the breaking down of interdisciplinary barriers and mankind's new found capacity literally to invent resources, leading to the emergence of whole categories of new materials. These changes make possible a new approach to economic growth, relying on decentralization and flexibility and the selection of technology mixes best suited to different socio-economic and cultural contexts. In parallel, the key importance above all of the information technologies is producing a dematerialization of goods, a trend exemplified by the shift from product oriented to function oriented industries. The new technologies of the 1980s are cross-fertilizing and self-disseminative. They are creating an exceptional number of innovative options in processes, products, services, organization and markets. Mature industrial sectors can undergo a process of rejuvenation to recover competitiveness by the grafting of advanced technologies onto traditional activities. The results are already evident in industrialized countries, such as Italy. The flexibility offered by the new technologies offers perhaps our best hope for a solution to the widening gap between rich and poor nations, contrary to the belief that identifies in advances in science and technology the seeds of a process of polarization dividing the world. The countries of the United States, Japan and Western Europe--the so-called Triad Power--dominate the emerging technologies and their applications. In fact, given the pace of today's technological revolution, developing countries are effectively excluded from active participation in the process of technological change. New technologies are not "off the peg," they have to be learned and controlled, to be introduced into an existing flexible system possessing trained manpower and an adequate capital base. Introduction into the Third World, where these essential conditions are frequently lacking, will not be a painless process. Technology transfer without adaptation is likely to have undesirable cultural and societal disadvantages. North and South are simultaneously experiencing radically different processes of evolution: the former, through restructuring and innovation; the latter, through the drive for more quantitative growth. Continuing stress on quantitative growth carries with it the risk that other goals--environmental quality, even the eradication of poverty--may suffer. Here lies the possibility that unless economic patterns change, today's imbalance between the haves and the have nots may be perpetuated or even consolidated. The countries of the North individually all face problems in addressing these issues. The international banking system is hamstrung with the problems of Third World debt. Primary producers no longer command high prices for their raw materials on world markets and so this source of development funding is also drying up. The need is therefore for a global approach. In each Third World situation, specific needs and requirements must be identified to be tackled via technology blending, whereby a mix of emerging and traditional technologies is selected to raise the quality of output to the levels now demanded by a sophisticated world economy. Another important area is that of energy, together with the worsening environmental and even climatic effects of energy policies. The need is for a long term strategic view to marshall the contribution new technologies can make to improving the lot of mankind in full respect for his environment. Technological change also implies societal change. In labor markets, labor mismatch creates pockets of employment which are difficult to eradicate. Yet, overall, the hope is that expanding economic horizons will create unlimited opportunities for new jobs and new skills. The key is education and training. A feed and feedback mechanism between education and the economy represents an intangible investment in the future. Economic growth, technological innovation, development of culture and society, have always moved together with synergism. Current changes are not so much just physical as conceptual. We are passing from a mechanical (or mechanistic) society to one that can be termed cybernetic. Causality, sequentiality and hierarchy are giving way to a functional interdependence at a systems level. Greater participation will produce more opportunities for self-fulfillment. As old social equilibria collapse, management of social change can be seen to be as important as management of technological change. The technological revolution has deep roots in Western culture. It is a liberating force that can lead to greater cultural enrichment. By understanding the changes now underway, we can ensure that the new pattern of society that emerges from exploitation of the new technologies retains man at its center and so benefits the whole of humanity. (shrink)

The hypothesis of our work is that the concepts of globalization, the information technology boom and Postmodernism are closely linked and that somehow eroded the ontological concepts of identity, individual and cultural diversity, in terms of the relationship I and the other. In the international strategic framework that other has fallen on Arab-Islamic culture. The thought of the Western world, with its logic of instrumental rationality has built stereotypes about that culture, ignoring its archetype. This reality is (...) the one that perceives the concepts of the Arab-Islamic tradition of Jihad and Hijra only as ideas that lead to the destruction and not as a heritage of the philosophical and religious thought for the development of humanity. From a Jungian interpretation, both concepts and the psychic behaviors that derive from them, outside the fallacious and violent interpretations, are valuable contributions to humanity in the current situation. (shrink)

In this article, I argue for the need of a credible concept of fatherhood in present-day Western culture. This claim is based on the belief that fathers and father figures play an important role in constructing unique identities, both in the context of childrearing and in a more general cultural sense. An existential concept of adoption is developed to clarify the notion of credible fatherhood, which is supported, on the one hand, by Dorothee Sölle's analysis of the shift (...) from a religious construction of identity to a post-religious self-construction of identity and, on the other, by Charles Taylor's concept of authenticity. (shrink)

This book diagnoses an urgent need for change and renewal in a period of crisis for philosophy, science and society. The Florentine Renaissance, some six hundred years ago, took a huge leap forward into realism, rationality and self-awareness. It was born out of the waning authority of medieval institutions and beliefs.We stand now at a similar junction in history. It is apparent to many that reductionist science with its materialist values -- the worldview that has driven modern culture (...) for the last two centuries -- is losing credibility. Its objectives of growth and acquisition, and its guiding principles asserting that there is no intrinsic meaning to life or purpose in the cosmos, are now widely seen as creating an unsustainable world. The essays gathered in A New Renaissance are a cultural response to the failings of the materialist worldview. Contributions in the first part diagnose the sources of the crisis in today's world. The second section searches for a new understanding of consciousness and mind, based on findings in recent non-materialist philosophy. The third section looks to a renewal of spirituality beyond religion, aiming to recapture the personal depth and connection to the cosmos that materialism denies or ignores. The fourth section examines possible reforms in politics, economics and education to help bring forth a society that can sustain the flourishing of human beings in the globally interconnected world of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Although the following essay is literary-philosophical, it arose from a practical interest. I have been struck by how widespread today is the complaint about the ‘inadequate father’. Of course a father may be inadequate in diverse ways, either absconding, absent and weak, or overbearing, bullying, and tyrannical, or some combination of these. Further, I am not restricting the term ‘father’ to its narrow biological sense, but using it rather as a metaphor for any institution or structure which an individual or (...) a group feels should have been in place to guide, direct, and protect them in important situations, but did not do its job properly. Consequently they are willing to concede they are not all they could have been, but they insist it is not their fault, rather the fault of the ‘father’ who should have done his job better. This ties in with the fashionable appeal of ‘victimhood’. Everybody today seems to want to cast themselves as a ‘victim’, for reasons similar to those mentioned above. If you are a ‘victim’, then there must be an ‘oppressor’– and some ‘parent’ organization that should have guided, directed, and protected you against the oppressor, but again did not do its job adequately. It is striking how many individuals and groups around the world today choose to perceive themselves, and to present themselves to others, as ‘victims’; it has indeed become a preferred characterization of our age, for it carries with it a rhetorical advantage that trumps all others. If you are able to cast yourself as a ‘victim’, and have others accept this, you disarm and neutralize criticism, not only of what you are, but of what you are currently doing – because the latter can be presented as a just ‘compensation’ for what you have suffered. As with guilt, there is no built-in quota or statute of limitations. This rhetoric was not as common thirty or forty years ago.There is an added factor here in America and the New World generally where, according to a whispered criticism, as our ancestors crossed the ocean, they experienced a ‘drop in civilization’. Life here was initially without some of the structures and institutions which had evolved over thousands of years in the Old World, which could thus be presumed there but here were absent. As we won with difficulty our independence, we unconsciously repudiated much of the ‘higher culture’ of the colonial master, throwing out the baby with the bathwater. As the ‘economic bubble’ of having won the Second World War has gradually dissipated, we discover we are handicapped by an absence of the forms of maturation and self-realization that arise in and are necessary for dealing with prolonged peace. In our ‘ideology of liberty’, our adults become essentially grown children, unschooled in anything higher, and thus have particular difficulty assuming the responsibilities of parenthood. They are forced to fall back upon a military style of giving orders, because on this side of the water, ‘final causes’ in the form of commonly admired or agreed on goals for striving are not in place. In this sense there is an absence of the ‘adequate father’. Further, as ‘American Culture’ expands through publicity and the media, we spread the same disease.There is another relevant factor, the ‘celebrity-liberationist’ lifestyle that has been diffused into the general population since the 1960's and has become a default secular ethic of our time, replacing the traditional Judeo-Christian decalogue. The former is invoked as a justification for aggressively seeking fame and fortune, and making no attempt to conceal this; rather than worrying that such an attitude will cause offense, it is worn proudly and defiantly in the hope that others will identify with it, thereby branding the performer a cultural hero. This popular strategy towards fulfilment itself rests on a metaphysic of ‘expressive individualism’, a position that holds that the supreme ethical imperative to which other obligations must be subordinated is for each to bring forward their hidden noumenal core, the only source of value, into phenomenal appearances where it may be admired and benefit others and such that creation will for the first time be complete. This change in Western culture made possible by greater affluence and security represents a trickle-down phenomenon and democritization of the awe reserved for the artist revered as a genius during the nineteenth century, now spread to the entire population. Anything that constrains this expansion, which interrupts or limits this transfer, is to be rejected as parental abuse, psychological repression, or cultural imperialism. (shrink)

This article explores the way that senile dementia is represented in contemporary culture, with particular reference to texts which narrate the experience of caring for a parent or spouse with one form of the illness. These narratives raise problematic issues about the materiality of the body and its relation to individual identity, and the unstable relationship between memory and identity in postmodern culture, by drawing on the actual experience of bodily dependency and disorientating memory loss in dementia patients. These speculations (...) about the body, memory and the self are ultimately related in narratives of dementia to the inevitable process of aging and dying and the cultural meanings attached to it. The article places the representation of dementing illnesses within a Foucauldian narrative of surveillance and control in the discourse of aging and death in modern Western societies, redemptive views of illness in western culture and arguments about death in contemporary theory. (shrink)

As we all know, the Silk Road, as a famous ancient transportation route, was a trade line cross-Eurasian continent in history. Its name was from the delivery of silk. However, no Chinese ancient documents mentioned the name of “Silk Road”. German F. V. Richthofen (1933-1905) firstly used the term “Silk Road” in his book China, published in 1877. Afterwards, the name of “Silk Road” has been accepted universally and used by the world widely. The Silk Road was an ancient business (...) channel, acrossing the middle of China and countries in Central Asia, gradually forming after Qian Zhang visited Western Regions twice, two thousand and one hundred years ago. The north-west land Silk Road started from Chinese ancient Capital Chang’an (now Xi’an), acrossing Central Asia, and reaching ancient Rome in Europe. It was a bridge for communication of politics, economy, and culture between ancient China and the Western. Before 11 Century, the Sino-Western silk trade mainly depended on the land transportation. During Han Dynasty, it was a competition between the Huns and the Hans for occupy the Silk road. The silk as a kind of material culture was a sort of intermediary for making people to know how to get along together.This article attempts to describe the Sino-Western silk trade conditions before and after the two missions of Qian Zhang to Western Regions (Xiyu), including archaeological evidences, kinds of silk and trade scale, transportation routes, trade participants, and so on. (shrink)

Long considered "the noblest of the senses," vision has increasingly come under critical scrutiny by a wide range of thinkers who question its dominance in Western culture. These critics of vision, especially prominent in twentieth-century France, have challenged its allegedly superior capacity to provide access to the world. They have also criticized its supposed complicity with political and social oppression through the promulgation of spectacle and surveillance. Martin Jay turns to this discourse surrounding vision and explores its often contradictory (...) implications in the work of such influential figures as Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault, Jacques Lacan, Louis Althusser, Guy Debord, Luce Irigaray, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida. Jay begins with a discussion of the theory of vision from Plato to Descartes, then considers its role in the French Enlightenment before turning to its status in the culture of modernity. From consideration of French Impressionism to analysis of Georges Bataille and the Surrealists, Roland Barthes's writings on photography, and the film theory of Christian Metz, Jay provides lucid and fair-minded accounts of thinkers and ideas widely known for their difficulty. His book examines the myriad links between the interrogation of vision and the pervasive antihumanist, antimodernist, and counter-enlightenment tenor of much recent French thought. Refusing, however, to defend the dominant visual order, he calls instead for a plurality of "scopic regimes." Certain to generate controversy and discussion throughout the humanities and social sciences, _Downcast Eyes_ will consolidate Jay's reputation as one of today's premier cultural and intellectual historians. (shrink)