Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteGoogle Translator renders the third line of the YouTube description as: "Saudi man insults the dignity of the expatriate Bangladeshis and ask him to kiss his hands and feet to turn the force but in God."
Tarek Fatah posted the above to his Facebook wall. I had two responses to it, one noting the DSM IV description associated with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. As mentioned elsewhere in my related section, "Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy", one should not transpose work developed to serve and study the life of the mind of the individual and many related disorders to political or social science contexts without many disclaimers, modifications, and questions. Nonetheless, from the western context, the display of self-aggrandizement in a context involving a demonstration of dominance and submission in human behavior carries with it evidence of a today out-of-bounds narcissism, something most, worldwide, irrespective of location, race, and religion, not only don't admire but more actively reject and revile.
Here is the text of my second post on that same thread:
Just to chime: 1) I agree the example of one or a few should not be made emblemmatic of a larger culture without greater cognizance of the whole of that culture. 2) Cultures, which may be delineated by language x customs x attitudes (and other social norms) may be viewed only at this junction in time as having evolved in comparative isolation in respose to the many exigencies posed by biology (not race -- species wide), geophysical environmental demands, and mind, which may include many accidents involving the invention of language and language concepts. That may included a preferred psychology transmitted culturally -- not biologically -- through language from one generation to the next.
For grounding, I may recommend two books out of left field -- actually: linguistics: Dan Everett's _Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes_ and _Language: The Cutlural Tool_.
My view of the topic-starting video is that it may be representative of cultural ends once more isolated from a wide and varied audience. Why not exercise power in service to one's own greatness, grandeur, potency, etc.? Who's judging? What consequence is there to come of hurting someone else, apart from the experience of greater obedience to one's own self?
The natural universality of any cultural ethos -- I'll gladly include mine -- may be questionable but given some choice between compassion, empathy, and self-containment (!) as cultural values and the want of power over others (whether they like it or not) and the uncontained expression of related impulses, the good in humanity may drift toward the better choice.
Today, that's a global choice. Your choice. Our choice. Most here seem to have found the behavior illustrated by the video repugant. A good sign, I'd say.
It is a mixed fortune for me that the Greater Conversation to which I contribute via Facebook provides both inspiration and material for my blog. For the entertainment and its distraction, I no longer know how or when I will get around to more primary reporting, if ever, and a commentary closer to "breaking news."
Then again, perhaps those journalistic ideals are not so important in light of whatever signal I might be able to send and sustain in the world at this time.
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