Saturday, October 21, 2006

Honor Can Not Be Purchased In A Bazaar

Winds of Change is discussing honor/shame cultures and how their clash with our culture of guilt/innocence is coming along.

Given the honor/shame nature of the Palestinian culture I believe they fight because to them negotiations are only a prelude to fighting.

Winning their objectives by negotiations has no honor (or at least not enough). That is one of the reasons that the Palestinians are seen as Cheats and Liars.

They want their honor back. That is won only by fighting and dying for a cause until they are destroyed or Israel decamps. In other words honor can not be purchased in a bazaar. This explains why no amout of negotiations will solve the Palistinian's problems.

The only answer for this is to change the culture or population transfer.

What is going on now is a circle that can not be squared in a decade or two. The time frame required is on the order of a century or two. I do not think the Israelis are willing to wait that long.

7 comments:

Abu Nopal said...

> I do not think the Israelis are willing
> to wait that long.

don't see why not

linearthinker said...

I do not think the Israelis are willing to wait that long.

Nor should they have to in a rational world. In the real world, that leaves Peace Through Superior Firepower and strong fences as common sense survival tools.

Dr. Sanity addressed shame vs. guilt in the context of the Arab psyche, 8/18/05.

"...The purpose of guilt is to stop behavior that violates a self, family or societal standard. Guilt keeps score on excesses or deficits of behavior deemed undesirable and is expressed in regret and remorse.

Eventually for the shame-avoidant person, reality itself must be distorted in order to further protect the self from poor self-esteem. Blaming other individuals or groups for one's own behavior becomes second nature, and this transfer of blame to someone else is an indicator of internal shame.
...
Without the development of guilt there is no development of a real social conscience."

linearthinker said...

I see too late that the Winds of Change article cited the same Dr. Sanity post.

Oh, well.

Can't get too much of a good thing. Seems great minds run on intersecting paths. :-)

linearthinker said...

abu:

don't see why not

Either you're joking or you're a sociopath (or maybe both?).

LT

M. Simon said...

abu says,

don't see why not

Well you know Westerners want a "normal life".

There has to be some prospect of that in the near term or people give up the struggle.

Already there are symptoms. American Jews going back to America for the "good life".

Abu Nopal said...

> There has to be some prospect
> of that in the near term
> or people give up the struggle.

Jews are good at waiting. What's a century or two? nothing. if the alternative is stepping on a landmine, the choice is easy. don't step on the landmine.

Susan's Husband said...

There's also the possibility of setting off the landmine so it destroys itself.