notions of dignity
What Motivates Suicide Bombers?There are many ways to achieve dignity. You can invent things and take pride in your inventions. Or you can dominate others by force and feel temporarily superior. Which of these ways is most glorified by our culture
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Sent: Monday, July 18, 2005 3:03 PM
Subject: NY Times
In response to your letter in the Times today, I might comment that
a fair share of the loot was not what dignity was in the Iliad;
rather the story hinged upon Achilles' relinquishing of material
pleasure for dignity. Hannah Arendt speaks to this more complex
Greek notion of dignity.
This isn't simply a trivial point, but, really, a lot has changed
since then. The material and the moral were not so divided. Today,
increasingly, dignity seems to come into contradiction with the
material.
Perhaps, if you look at it this way, terrorism is an attempt to
bridge the two. In any case, the screwed up workings of the
ideology of terror are far more complicated than a man like
Friedman will/can acknowledge; it serves us little to underestimate
our enemy. If you are interested, some stuff has been written on
Arendt and terrorism, not that I necessarily subscribe to it.
Oren Ziv
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recognition of his contribution", and it's that
recognition that meant a lot -- not the material
goods. still, it struck me how they're taking it as
self-evident that conquest is the highest calling;
sure, what do you expect of warriors, but the greeks
chose to subscribe to the warriors' values by making
this particular tale central. and it just seems that
today, there should be so many more avenues for
self-expression, and yet so many people still take it
as an axiom that finding an enemy and dominating them
is the highest calling.
how is terrorism "an attempt to bridge the two"?
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I googled your name after reading your letter
to the editor in the NYTimes on 7/18/05 (after you
sent it 7/15/05). The letter resonated with me and I
felt its message communicated an idea of peace (your
focus on creativity not king of the hill-ness).
I would like to quote and mount it on a 12x16
wall mounting for the Epidemic Peace Imagery
project. Would this be ok with you?
The webpage giving history and progress of the
project is http://www.geocities.com/epidemicpeaceimagery/
Best wishes,
Russell Gardner
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I mounted it using Photoshop on a 12x16 inch print
that features an Assyrian bull picture that I took at
the Louvre in June. It's not an Iliad reference but
testifies independently to the aggressive social rank
hierarchies of the just-prehistory era in the near
east.
The paragraphs are arranged in two columns on either
side of the bull which is center position. Can send a
jpg of what it looks like if you wish. It was printed
on an Epson 2200 using Velvet Art Paper. I plan to put
it under glass.
Best wishes, Russ
and here is the result:
( ... )
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I sat at a swank rooftop restaurant the other night with some young Syrian writers and listened to a discussion between a young woman dressed in trendy clothes, talking about how she would prefer to see Israel disappear, another writer who argued that Nasrallah was an Arab disaster, and an Arab journalist who described the “pride” and “dignity” every Arab felt at seeing Hezbollah fight Israel to a standstill.
When will the Arab-Muslim world stop getting its “pride” from fighting Israel and start getting it from constructing a society that others would envy, an economy others would respect, and inventions and medical breakthroughs from which others would benefit?
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