Daily Archives: July 11, 2002

Ephemera

Time to lighten up a bit. I can’t be an angst-ridden intellectual 24/7, after all.

I promised myself I would stop wasting space on these, but I found this and I just had to share it in light of how amusing my life can be:

Disney Princesses
Which of the Disney Princesses are you?

Apparently, You are a true bookworm and dream of a life better than the simple, quiet one you lead now. Your good looks can attract the town jerks, but you manage to ignore them most of the time. Sometimes you feel like you’re surrounded by idiots. So what are you waiting for? You don’t need your father to be kidnapped to get out and see the world. Although you can be stubborn, you’re also very compassionate and see beyond people’s fa�ades.

And I thought this would lighten things up? “Sometimes you feel like you’re surrounded by idiots” is just a colloquial way of paraphrasing my last two days’ worth of blogging on the devaluing of the intellectual in today’s society. My life, I tell you, is a comedy.

Also amusing: in flipping through the other princess descriptions, I found this in Esmeralda’s paragraph: Luckily you don’t die at the end of the Disney movie, although in the book you’re hanged.

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Gods, I love random blog links – through the Pepys project I just discovered a site called Wealth Bondage that touches on what I was trying to work out yesterday about art and capitalism, the role of the artist and philosopher in today’s increasingly inhospitable anti-intellectual society:

I think sometimes that we define altruism or philanthropy or charity too narrowly.We think that first you make money and then, if you are charitable, you give it away for a good cause. But, we all know that many people live lives of service, in which they voluntarily forego making much money: Saints, poets, teachers, artists, priests, activists, soldiers, firemen, stay at home Moms: All of these people are doing something other than profit-maximizing. Some have what used to be called a vocation or a calling, as opposed to a trade. They give of themselves, rather than accumulating what A. Bartlett Giamatti used to call “mucky pelf.”

The most generous and philanthropic guys are not Gates, but some poor schnooks who have devoted their lives to other people, accepting low pay and hard and often dangerous work on behalf of something larger and more important than themselves.

All of us have to make a living, but in setting up a business, or making career choices, or making choices outside of work, we can contribute to the social fabric, re-weaving as best we can what profit maximizing sometimes inadvertently and unintentionally tears asunder — the environment, economic justice, and the quality of our media and our culture.

You can profit maximize profit and give away some money, or you can simply devote your life[…] to something more important than money, or you can strike some kind of a balance.

We live in the world of economics, but […] we dwell in civil society. – from Nichomachean Ethics for Dummies

Whoa. Yeah, that. What he said.

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I tripped across a blog called Veiled 4 Allah this morning, and the young woman, Al-Muhajabah, who keeps it has a wonderful set of articles and essays on being a Muslim woman in American society. Many of them revolve around the visible, physical recognition of a Muslim woman, mainly the wearing of the hijab, the full body covering, and the niquab, the face veil. She is intelligent, highly articulate, and has impressed me to no end by writing plainly and thoughtfully about her faith, rather than using it as a club like so many others do. This is a woman who has thought through her beliefs, and has made a personal choice rather than being a sheep.

Second, we can look a little at psychology. Sometimes the observance of outward things, like dress, seems trivial. Surely it’s more important to work on the inner things and on becoming a good person. Yet the outward things can often help us improve the inner things. There are several ways this is true. A woman may struggle with herself over the decision to wear hijab. It may be that she’s nervous about it, or that perhaps she likes to take pride in her attractiveness. Finding the courage to overcome fear is a positive character development, and subduing pride is a positive character development. Thus, the process of coming to wear hijab can be beneficial to a woman’s inner self. Also, when a woman wears hijab on a regular basis, she makes a decision each day to put it on before she goes out, and she sees it every time she looks at her reflection. She may often think, “Why do I bother with this?” And she may answer herself, “Because God commanded it, and I know that He watches what I do.” Or it may be that her awareness that her dress makes her a walking symbol of her religion reminds her not to do things that would bring her or her religion into disrepute. All of these are ways that the act of undertaking an outward observance can promote inner development. A woman may come to have a greater consciousness of God because she chooses to wear hijab for His sake, and this can only improve her character. – from On Veiling

If only everyone who wore a symbol which identified them as belonging to one religion or another considered each of their actions as reflecting upon their faith! We are all ambassadors for our faiths, cultures, educational institutions, families. So often in this society we are determined to be seen as individuals, and yet we judge by appearance and association, pigeonhole people into groups, and make generalisations. Until we learn to treat others as we wish to be treated, how can we have a society that respects the rich and varied tapestry of life this planet has to offer?

Insh’Allah, Al-Muhajabah will go on being a quiet inspiration to those who come across her site, portraying her faith as a thing of beauty.