#wanted to ask my old islam teacher about this but hes on vacation

[aynl]

Gehenna, the greek name for the Valley of Himmon, is a valley surrounding Jerusalem and is often referred to as a place of divine punishment.

In the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Joshua states in 28:3 that King Azah “burnt incense and children in the valley.” 33:6 mentions that his grandson continued this ritual. The children were sacrificed to the god Moloch. In 7:31Jeremiah(prophet) says to end the practice and all the shrines for it. So King Josiah answers this call and destroys the shrines to prevent the sacrifices. Important to add that this was never proven in any sense. The name Moloch only appears 8 times in the hebrew bible, so its not 100 percent confirmed that its even a god. A lot of theologists think that this ritual wasn’t actually a sacrifice but more like a rite of passage for a child. Plus that its actually just anti-pagan propaganda of that time.

In Aramaic translations of the hebrew bible, Gehenna is used for verses about resurrection, judgement and fate of the wicked.

In the christian Bible, Jesus refers to it as a dump where the habitants burn their trash and criminals. He calls it the pit of eternal fire which never burns out. Jesus uses Gehenna to symbolise the eternal suffering of the second death(The second death here refers to the punishment of sinners after death.). Its not the same as the eternal lake of fire as in the Book of Revelation but it corresponds to it. So gehenna is not Hell itself but more a symbol of it.

The reason why a lot of people call it hell is because 16th century translaters translated hades and gehenna both as hell. In Islam, the islamic name for hell, Jahannam derives from the word Gehenna!

So originally, Gehenna was just a valley but then became a place of sacrifice BUT this may be misinformation and it actually was used for rite of passages. It then became a dumping place, where the wicked were burned. It was never referred to as Hell but became synonymous with it after 16th century translations and the concept being analogous to the eternal lake of fire in BoR. The word Gehenna itself is referred to in verses about resurrection.

But how does this correspond to The summer Hikaru died?

A lot of those points fit the story very well! Like how they sacrificed their own people to a pagan god and how the village sacrificed heads to Unuki-sama. Im not entirely sure about this one point about the misinformation aspect. We know that the village believes that Nounuki-sama is some inherently evil spirit. But it’s not actually true, it’s more a man made thing. The villagers came to Nounuki-Sama. Like how Gehenna wasn’t inherently associated with hell but more so over the years. It also fits How Gehenna is often used in verses about resurrection, which kind of is what happened to Hikaru after being taken over by Nounuki-sama. AND how Josiah abolished the shrines and therefore the rituals may be what will happen in the story, how Yoshiki (and Hikaru) will overcome the village tradition and kind of put an end to what the elders and everyone before them have been doing. Maybe maybe idk these r just my thoughts would love more thoughts on this

[eirian-houpe]

I’d love to hear about your experience teaching in Cairo. How did you come to do that? What were your favorite and least favorite parts of it? And anything else you want to share!

Oh my goodness, where would I even start? It's quite the story, and it was quite the experience.  Let's start at the beginning... that seems sensible.

Before I was able to immigrate to the USA (another long story, perhaps for another time), I used to live in England. Through a long series of circumstances, which can basically be summed up by "US immigration rules," I ended up resigning from my full time UK teaching position. Finding a new job when the promised immigration did not happen was nigh on impossible. Then, one day I received a phone call from an agency who had seen my resume online and wondered if I would be interested in a teaching position that had just become vacant in Cairo, Egypt. After much deliberation - quite angsty deliberation as it turned out, I said I would be interested, and here's where everything gets head-spinningly fast.

As near as I can remember the details, I interviewed with the headmaster of the school via skype on a Tuesday. I was offered the position on the Thursday, and accepted the day after, following more soul searching. Later that day I received the E-ticket for the flight to Cairo, which was for the following Tuesday. I basically had the weekend to pack, and prepare myself to move.

The arrangements were that I would be met by a driver at Cairo airport, and driven to the hotel where I would be living for the first few days, until the school provided accommodation. So, I arrived in Cairo close to midnight, expecting to see a little guy holding up a board with my name on.

Nope!

After much wandering around, and with fewer people at the airport, I FINALLY found a dude wearing a CES shirt. (Cairo English School). He spoke no English. I spoke no Arabic. He called someone from the school and we were finally able to communicate via the third party... and I was at last taken to the hotel.  I remember thinking as we drove along that this could all be a ruse, and I could be taken away for human trafficking or murder or whatever. So arriving at the hotel was a HUGE relief.

The following morning, I was picked up by the school bus and driven to the school, quick chat with the Headmaster, and then introduced to the team I'd be a part of. There was a British ex-pat who had married a local, converted to Islam, and was quite the whirlwind. Her name was Sarah. An older gent on the team, think... grumpy old man, and you'd be right.  (Brian) and a guy called Mark who I bonded with almost right away. Turns out that I was replacing a guy who had been fired because of parents complaints about his conduct with the kids.

Literally, I was dropped in at the deep end. Met my class and was expected to teach. Teaching was through English language. On the whole they were good kids.  There are always one or two trouble makers in any class, but it wasn't bad.  They were lively though... a lot of them wouldn't stop talking, one kid in particular, who, after a few days I grew impatient with, and just told him to "Zip it!"  After school that day, my friend Mark took me to one side and suggested that I find a different way to get the kid to shut up. He explained that (close as makes no different), in Egyptian Arabic Zip-it meant 'Penis'  Mortified.  Yes!  After that, I adopted 'Button it!' Much safer. I also decided that learning some Egyptian Arabic might be an idea, and soon!

The next problem came when it was time for me to move out of the hotel into the school provided apartment... except there WAS no apartment. Apparently someone had missed the memo and nothing had been arranged - and now there were no remaining apartments. They said I could stay at the hotel, but I'd have to pay.

Nope!  Enter whirlwind Sarah to the rescue.  She lived in an apartment in a gated community called El ReHab. (Yes, we had fun with that one.  I ended up living in Rehab). She knew a guy that had an apartment. She took me under her wing... had the guy meet us at the place, which wasn't quite ready (needed a good clean) for me to move in, but which was affordable (i.e. would be covered by the housing allowance paid by the school), was in a relatively safe area, (being a gated community and all), and wasn't bad. I have some pictures somewhere, I'll have to see if I can find them.  It had a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchen/lounge separated by 'breakfast bar' It also had a washing machine - lifesaver. There was a balcony outside of the bedroom, and while we were there looking around, there was a tiny mewling sound. Turns out a kitten was stuck on the balcony. I would have loved to keep it, but I didn't because, what would I do after a year?  (Contract with the school was for 1 year). Sarah rehomed the little tyke.

The supermarket, and the Souk were within walking distance, although there was a (free) bus service within the city, and the number 5 bus went to and from the shopping district to my apartment area. (five is 0 in Arabic). I pretty quickly learned numbers. A must, because most of the shop keepers chose not to use English - and I guess why should they - even though they knew it. So, unless you could see the display on the register when you were shopping, it was hard to know how much the total was.  However, the cost of living, (in comparison with the US) was RIDICULOUSLY low.  For example, my monthly electricity bill came to the equivalent of about $5 US.

So it wasn't ALL bad - contrary to the way it might sound. Great kids, a good team, and the chance to learn another new language (and I love languages). I'd say I learned 'survival' Arabic at best, and can fully empathize with kids coming in to school as ESL. Sadly through misuse, I've forgotten most of what I learned. I remember 'I want...' and 'I don't want...' (Ana isa & Ana mish-isa respectively). I could probably still count to ten if I really think about it. But with my love of languages, I think this had to have been one of my favorite parts of being there.

Least favorite - being the object of racism - it's way different when you're treated that way, and makes you appreciate what others go through. I was once asked to leave my classroom (I was grading at the back of the class while the Arabic Studies teacher was teaching the lesson). The reason I was asked to leave was because I was not Muslim.

Most surprising - the cold. Say Egypt to most people and they think hot country. Deserts are DAMN cold at night... and in the winter... OMFG.  I literally had to sit 2 feet away from the space heater, wrapped in a blanket to stay warm.  Why?  Well the apartment was built to keep inhabitants cool in the height of summer... (because when it was hot, it was hot!). It was all marble floors and wall tiles, and not at all good for keeping heat in when it was needed.

Where other countries have 'snow days' etc., Egypt has 'sandstorm days'

Most disturbing - when I was there it wasn't long after the revolution, so there would be some days when we would get a call from the school to stay in our apartments and that there would be no school that day due to unrest in the society.

Also, one morning, I saw a man on campus who had a gun tucked into the waistband of his pants. Of course I reported it to the headmaster right away, and it was investigated.  Turns out that it was a plain clothes policeman.

Would I go back?  I want to visit for a vacation some day, do all the things that I didn't get to do because I was too busy teaching. The most touristy thing I got to do while I was there was a boat trip on the Nile.  It was a school field trip for geography lesson, and it was in the heart of Cairo.  Let me tell you, that water was NASTY.

Would I want to live/work there again.  No, really I wouldn't. And driving in Cairo... Hell no! New York driving x10 doesn't even come close... maybe if you crossed NY driving with Stock Car racing, you'd come close. Those drivers are SCARY!

It was an experience, and I don't really regret doing it. I think I learned a lot from being there... about people, and about myself.

Thank you for a brilliant ask!

[nicolawritesnovels]

ABC Tag

I was tagged by @merigreenleaf! This look really cool. I’m going to do it for both Alex and Terry because they’re probably my most developed characters. 

A is for Age: The story kind of covers Alex’s entire life. But at the time of the first story I wrote for them, Alex is 15, and Terry is somewhere between 30 and 33, depending on which version I’m using.  B is for Biggest Fear: Alex’s biggest fear is probably losing more people. She lost Tina so early in their lives. And then a few years later her dad died, and then her mom. She drifted away from Mini. Lexi left. It was all of the people she cares about dying or leaving her. 

Terry is... afraid of becoming like his parents. Cruel and heartless like his mother. And weak and submissive like his father. Also, he hates spiders.  C is for Current Time: tbh, half the scenes written for these losers take place in the fall D is for Drink Last Had: Alex drinks like 90% water. Terry... you know, I have no idea. He’s a tea person, I think.  E is for Everyday Starts With: Terry yelling at Alex to get her ass out of bed, and demanding to know what she’s doing in his house again. Alex rolling her eye at his fake surprise.  F is for Favorite Song: I’ve got a lot of songs that I have on their playlist, but I’m not really sure which ones are their favorites. Alex is a pretty big fan of Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles. I don’t really know Terry’s music tastes, but I bet they’re songs I don’t know.  G is for Ghosts, Are They Real?: Alex would argue that they are, just for the sake of arguing. And secretly, she wishes that Tina were there, even if it was only as a ghost. And her dad. But I don’t think she truly believes. Terry hasn’t dismissed the possibility, but he’s never met one.  H is for Hometown: Alex has lived her whole life in Rachel, NY, and that’s where she stays her whole life. Terry grew up in Merry, NY. The next town over. 

I is for In Love With: Each other, for the most part. In the past, Alex was in love with Tina, and to a degree, with Lexi. And I’m inclined to think that Terry was in love with Alcyone. He loved Aliet, but I don’t think he was in love with her.  J is for Jealous Of: Terry gets jealous of Lexi, in Dark Blue. That leads to some very dramatic situations. Alex... I don’t think so? Maybe a little jealous of Aleit before she died? But not really. 

K is for Killed Someone: Nah, neither of them killed anyone. Alex blames herself for Aliet’s death for awhile, but it wasn’t her fault.  L is for Last Time They Cried: Depends on what time we’re in. There are points where Alex cries a lot. But the general answer is, Tuesday. For both of them.  M is for Middle Name: Jean. Her full name is Hannah-Alexandria Jean Hyreh. And his is Lawrence. Terrin Lawrence Hassen.  N is for Number of Siblings: Alex has 2 sisters, one younger (Mini), and one older (Andi). Terry also has 2 sisters, but only one of them is still alive. Twins, Lauren and Laurel. Lauren died when she was 9, and Terry was 12.  O is for One Wish: Alex doesn’t believe in wishes. She thinks that when you wish, the world will arrange to make it happen and it would always have bad consequences. She refuses to wish. But if she did, I think she would wish that her sisters would be more understanding of her coping mechanisms. Terry... I think he wishes for his baby sister back. For a good life for his daughters. 

P is for Person Last Called/Texted: Alex... probably Haidee, or Andi yelling at her to get her butt home. Or Jaci. She’s got a lot of people she talks to. Terry, probably either Lani or Alex. Maybe JH?  Q is for Questions They’re Always Asked: For Alex: “What’s your excuse this time?” “Is that a lie?” “Did you do your homework?” “Alex, what’s the answer to blahblahblah?” “Alex, would you please stop upsetting my staff?” “Alex, why are you friends with a serial killer?” “How are you happy right now?”

For Terry: “Why are you so stubborn?” “Dad, can I go to Terry’s?” “Why do you always pretend you don’t want me here?” “Do I really have to do the homework even though we both know I know the material?” “Why do you spend some much time with Alex?”

R is for Reasons to Smile: Alex is a pretty happy person, all things considering. There’s a lot of things that make her smile. Terry. Jonathan. Haidee. Documentaries. Confusing people. Science. History. Learning in general. Climbing things. Rain. Later on, Ace. 

For Terry: his daughter, Alex, his job, history, learning, teaching, tea, cooking, boxing. S is for Song Last Sang: I feel like Alex sings ridiculous songs in the shower. Like the song that never ends.  T is for Time They Wake Up: On a normal day, early. They both have school to do. If it were up to her, Alex would get up a lot later. Terry is a morning person though.  U is for Underwear Color: Terry usually wears green or black. Alex... probably black, but also whatever color there is. She isn’t picky.  V is for Vacation Destination: There’s a plan for a world trip. Terry started one when he was young, he went to Kenya and Japan and Greece, and then Germany. But then he met Aleit when he was in Germany and she got pregnant and he ended up settling there for 10 years. After he moves back to the US, he and Alex plan to travel the rest of the world, especially Germany (to visit Lani’s grandparents), India (Alex’s family), Iran (Alex’s family), Israel, Mecca, Greece (to see Alcyone), and others. But then Cippie gets pregnant with Ace, and that doesn’t end up happening. And it still doesn’t happen before Terry dies. Eventually, Alex takes Lani and Ace on a trip around the world. They visit a lot of places. Germany (to see Lani’s family and friends), Greece (to meet Alcyone, and see parts of Grandma Blythe’s life), Israel, Mecca (Alex isn’t that close to her Islamic faith but since she’s doing a world trip, a pilgrimage feels like a thing to do), Iran (to see Saam’s family there), India (to see Jaya and the rest of Chandra’s family), Spain (to see where Ace’s Grandma Blythe grew up, and also Abuelo Hector’s childhood home and everything), Egypt (where Abuelo Hector’s family was from, and also Alex has always wanted to go there), Argentina (related to Grandpa Paulo’s family) Peru (there are cool ruins there), Iceland (where Lilja is from), Italy (it sounds fun), Poland (there’s no one here from Poland but I like Poland so they’d go there too). Ace is a child of the world, and she’s Alex and Terry’s daughter. They want her to see all of the parts of the world that helped to bring her into existence. All of the places her parents are from, her grand parents, her sister. 

I’d say the place they keep going back to is Germany, because Lani likes to visit her grandparents there. And all her old friends.  W is for Worst Habit: Alex has a lot of bad habits. She lies. She cheats. She steals. She sneaks into Terry’s house. She’s friends with a serial killer. She never does her homework and comes up with lots of excuses. She never tells her sister where she’s going. She has hacked the police records before (to be fair, Andi has a really easy to guess password). Oh, and she blackmails people a lot. 

Terry... he’s stubborn. He used to have a lot of aggression issues, but now he keeps things bottled up. I feel like the fact that he started dating Alex when she was so young is probably a bad thing, even though everything was 100% consensual and generally initiated by her.  X is for X-Rays; Ever Broken a Bone?: There was a plan for a separate story where Alex breaks an arm, but I never wrote it. But she does shit like chill on roofs and climb trees, so probably. 

Terry was an angry kid, and rightfully so. He punched a lot of walls before he got into boxing. So I imagine he’s broken his hand before.  Y is for Youth: 

Terry’s youth was pretty unpleasant. He was close with his dad, but his mom was abusive, emotionally and physically.  When he was 12, his mom killed his sister Lauren. A month or so later, his father committed suicide. He was pretty angry. He got in trouble at school. He was always smart, but well, his life sucked. He got into boxing. When he turned 18 and graduated high school, he got a passport and promptly went to go travel the world. It was less than a year later that he stopped in Germany and got Aliet pregnant and ended up starting a family there. 

Alex... I don’t even know where to start. Half the stories are about her youth. She was a brilliant kid. Her family was well known and well liked around town. Her dad was a cop and she helped him solve cases a lot. She got married at the age of 8 to Tina Valentine in a playground wedding that actually made the news because it was protested by a homophobic kid named Maria. Less than a year later, Tina died of brain cancer, and Alex stayed with her to the end. When she was 12, her father was murdered by serial killer Jonathan Stratten. Her mother committed suicide soon after that, and Alex was left in the custody of her older sister Andi, who wasn’t exactly responsible but was trying to learn to be. Andi’s boyfriend and her father’s former partner, Hemming, moved in with them. Uh, the homophobic kid Maria teased Alex about her parents death, so Alex put her in a coma although I don’t think she meant to. Then she met Lexi, who helped her solve her father’s murder. Alex caught Jonathan Stratten and was a key witness at his trial, and along the way, developed an interesting relationship with him. In 9th grade, she ended up being abused by her history teacher, which was a nightmare. And in 10th grade, she met Terry and things changed. Let’s see what else does she do in youth? Catches Jonathan when he escapes again, helps engineer a genetic miracle in the form of Ace, adopts Ace. Catches more bad guys.  Z is for Zealous: What Are They Passionate About?: Alex is passionate about a lot of things. Catching bad guys. Helping people. Sleeping. Poetry. Learning. History. Healing from the past. Curing cancer. Making the world a better place for Ace, and Lani, and the other kids. Terry. 

Terry is passionate about... Ace, Alex, history, the world, teaching, becoming better, surviving. 

And I tag: @thejollywriter, @fuzzyfuckingllamas (do it for Riley), @gxlden-dayss, @itstartswithablankpage . Pick a character and do the thing!

[thetruthseekerway]

You Are a Muslim, You Just Don’t Know It Yet

New Post has been published on http://www.truth-seeker.info/guided-atheists/you-are-a-muslim-you-just-dont-know-it-yet/

You Are a Muslim, You Just Don’t Know It Yet

By Abu Mohammed Abdullah Yousef

I was born in England just after World War II. My family are Catholic. My father, who was a Methodist, converted to Catholicism to marry my mother. We were brought up in a strictly religious manner and I could answer the Mass in Latin before I could read or write in English. Religion was one of my favorite subjects at school. I did well at it too. By the time I was eleven I earned a scholarship to a boarding school run by Jesuit priests and my parents were hoping that they would have a priest in the family – every Catholic parent’s dream.

At the school, however, I began to notice the inconsistencies between what was taught in religious lessons and what was taught in history classes. When I started to question the teachers about the differences in history and religious lessons and asked which was correct, I was told that I was just learning history as a subject to pass an exam but that with religion, I had to have faith. Around this time too, there was a change of Pope. Pope Pius XXII died in 1958 and Pope John XXIII was elected as his successor. Catholics are taught that the Pope is infallible (incapable of being wrong) and yet, rules are often changed/updated by new Popes. It seemed illogical to me that some things had to be changed if the previous Pope was incapable of making a mistake. In the 14th and 15th centuries there was a period when there were two Popes, one in France and one in Rome. Each of Popes excommunicated and constantly ruled against one another. For a very short time there were even three Popes. How could two or even three Popes, be infallible if they constantly ruled against one another? The more I learned, the more unsettled I became. I questioned everything; after all, if something is true, it should be easy to explain. The teachers grew more frustrated with my questions and ended up beating me with canes because they could not give me proper answers. Repeatedly I was told I just had to have faith.

One time, after being beaten I ran away and when I arrived home I was beaten again by my father because I left the school. He was insisting that I should go back, but I told him I was determined that if he took me back, I would run away again. There was no option but for me to leave the school and go to a normal high school. All the time that I remained at home, I was made to attend Church with the rest of my family, but my heart was no longer in it. At that time, I became an Agnostic… not sure of my beliefs, but knowing that the one religion I did know anything about was not correct.

As soon as I could, I left home. I joined the Royal Air Force when I was 15 years old and did not go to Church at that time. I met my future wife when I went to her home on vacation with her brother. She belonged to the Church of Scotland (a Protestant, Church). We decided not to have a church wedding, but under pressure from her father, we visited the local minister together. He asked me about my beliefs and I was totally truthful with him. He was a good, straightforward person and we had several meetings and, much to our surprise, he appreciated the fact that I was honest with him. Although I never agreed with his views on religion, he agreed to marry us anyway, giving us the Bible that he used in the service as a wedding gift. We had a quiet wedding with only the minister, my wife and I, her father and two witnesses in the church.

After I finished my service in the RAF, I left the UK in 1976 to work in a Muslim country teaching Electronics to air force officers and NGOs. I never knew a Muslim before this time, and I had certain pre-set ideas (all wrong I hasten to add) of what Islam was about. There was nothing in the behavior of the students that really impressed me. They were not praying and in general they did not have a religious attitude; some were even drinking and womanizing. Most of them had a rather lackadaisical attitude to their studies, saying “Insha’Allah” to all my instructions, and they gave me the impression that they didn’t really have to work hard; their philosophy was “whatever will be, will be”. I started to read the Qur’an for two reasons: firstly, I wanted to be a good instructor, and had hoped that if I could get inside the students’ mind-set then I would get my points across to them better and hopefully instill in them more enthusiasm for their studies, and secondly, I wanted to prove Islam wrong.

Once the students found out that I was reading Qur’an, they brought a Sheikh to the classroom to talk to me. We had several detailed discussions, and he questioned me about my beliefs. At the end of one of our talks, the Sheikh said to me, “You are Muslim, you just don’t know it yet”.

For several months I continued to read Qur’an, and the more I read, the more impressed I was by the logic, consistency and purity of Islam. The rest, as they say, is history… I made Shahadah late in 1976.

——

Taken with slight editorial modifications from Islam Online Archive.

[bayoubelle]

The Half Stupid

Stupid people are usually too stupid to know they’re stupid. Ignorance can be bliss for them. Alas, the half-stupid aren’t nearly so lucky. They’re smart enough to know they’re not that smart, but too lazy to do anything about it. Perhaps this is why they’re so often attracted to the cheap moralism and silly simplicity found in reductive ideologies. These are, after all, fundamentally lazy people, TED-talk watching skim-readers, who secretly can’t remember the last time they read a serious book cover-to-cover.

Ideology is the fig leaf the half-stupid use to conceal their essentially shallow understanding of the world. It’s what allows them to have an opinion about everything, despite having an in-depth knowledge of practically nothing. The notion of epistemic privilege, so central to the identity politics of our age, is especially attractive to the half-stupid, as it allows them to further avoid the difficult task of thinking (e.g., I know, in advance, that whatever this white guy says is wrong because of who he is; just as I know, in advance, that whatever this indigenous woman says is right because of who she is).

The moral grandstanding of the half-stupid is surely fired, to some extent, by a love of justice; but it’s fired, too, by petty resentments and an anti-intellectual hatred of thinking. Just as less successful siblings often console themselves with the belief that they’re cooler than their more successful siblings, the half-stupid often console themselves with the belief that they’re more moral than us.

*

I know sociology profs who can talk about systemic social problems, like sexism and racism, without making any of their students feel like group representatives. They can do this because they’re intellectuals, first and foremost. They can do this because they’re adept at dealing with the paradoxical nature of reality. They can do this because they’re good at binocular thinking: at seeing “the forest” and “the trees” at one and the same time. Alas, half-stupid profs aren’t nearly so good at this. A former student of mine experienced this first-hand last year at Concordia University.

She wears the hijab. And this makes her rather obviously Muslim. A well-meaning progressive prof—who, as she puts it, “talks about privilege all the time”—calls upon her in class whenever they’re talking about anything remotely related to Islam (e.g., Islamophobia, I.S.I.S., women in Islam, etc.). As you might expect, being habitually treated like a group representative makes her profoundly uncomfortable. Makes other students uncomfortable too. The same prof calls on black students for “the black perspective” on a regular basis, much to their chagrin, and she systematically silences young white men who dare to “take up too much space.” She never seems to remember her students’ names. What a surprise.

*

When your ideas about the world have evolved, sometimes painfully, over the course of decades—through trial and error, mistakes, reflection, reading, learning—it’s incredibly insulting to have someone imply that your politics are a mere function of your biography. And yet it’s hard to deny that the two are interconnected. For instance, I was disappointed to learn, in Rüdiger Safranski’s Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography (2003), that most of Nietzsche’s deep-seated hatred of antisemitism was based, not so much on general principle, as on his visceral contempt for his virulently antisemitic brother-in-law.

In his outstanding article on antislavery activism in The Journal of Southern History (November 1990)—“The Experiential Basis of the Northern Antislavery Impulse”—historian John Huston demonstrates that the vast majority of those who joined the antislavery cause did so, not because they were convinced by a detached, theoretical, Enlightenment critique of the institution of slavery, but rather because they were radicalized by a visceral, traumatizing experience, wherein they were exposed, usually by accident, to the brutality and violence of slavery up-close-and-personal (e.g., watching a drunken slaveholder beat his slave to death whilst vacationing in Newport).

*

Humanities profs love to go on and on about how they teach critical thinking. But if you ask them what critical thinking is, you’ll invariably get a garbled, fuzzy response. The root of the problem, to my mind, is that critical thinking can’t be taught. Not directly. Because it’s an emergent property of a process. Critical thinking is a byproduct of perspective. At their best, the Humanities provide us with much needed perspective on what is. But what students do with that perspective is up to them.

The worst Humanities profs are, in essence, Sunday School teachers teaching a catechism class. These are, in my experience, precisely the profs who go on and on about how they’re teaching their students critical thinking. By contrast, the best Humanities profs do not seek to indoctrinate their students; they merely seek, instead, to provide them with perspective. There are various ways to do this. The study of history is perhaps the best. Regardless, before you can think critically about what is, you must first think about what was, what is elsewhere, and what might be. Without a point of comparison, thinking critically is quite literally impossible. A fish must first realize he’s swimming in water before he can think critically about water.

*

Real intellectuals surprise you from time to time. They praise something you didn’t expect them to praise. They attack something you didn’t expect them to attack. And they change their minds occasionally. For instance, an old friend of mine recently jettisoned his longstanding skepticism concerning climate change. His reasons for doing so were thoroughly intellectual: “I used to be a ‘climate skeptic’ until I realized that the argumentative patterns of ‘climate skeptics’ are the same as that of ‘Holocaust Revisionists.’ While I can’t do climate science, I can do pattern recognition.” Alas, dogmatic people never surprise you like this. All to the contrary, the dogmatic person’s position on pretty much any subject is entirely predictable—indeed, tediously and nauseatingly predictable.

An old college buddy of mine is a case in point. He was always quite politically conservative, even when we were in undergrad, but he was an intellectual back then, first and foremost, and that made arguing with him till three in the morning thoroughly delightful, regardless of our differences. But arguing with him is no longer delightful. He’s become dogmatically neoconservative in middle age, and, as a consequence, conversation with him has become pointless, repetitive, and boring—despite the fact that he’s extremely well-read and highly intelligent.

On good days, talking to him is like talking to an answering machine that answers all questions with one of ten prerecorded responses; on bad days, it’s like talking to a doctor who prescribes the same three prescriptions to all of his patients, all day long, regardless of what they say to him. He used to be a conservative intellectual. Now he’s just a conservative.

*

An ideologue is a person possessed by an idea; a philosopher is a person in possession of a few ideas. This is precisely why philosophers who disagree about religion or politics can be friends, whilst ideologues cannot. The ideologue’s inability to brook disagreement is rooted in his inability to see himself as anything other than the incarnation of an idea. When you challenge an ideologue’s idea, it’s an existential threat: you’re challenging everything that he thinks he is. By contrast, the philosopher cannot be reduced to her ideas. And she knows it.

*

Plato was acutely interested in sociological categories and psychological types. All of the major human types are captured and cataloged in his dialogues with cold-eyed precision. The charming host of The Symposium is a case in point. Agathon is a type: an intellectual lightweight, with a flair for language, who’s smart enough to suspect that he’s not all that smart, a good-looking guy who loves pretty things and doesn’t care if they’re real, the sort of guy who values beauty far more than he’s ever valued truth.

Eryximachus, the annoying doctor in The Symposium, is also a familiar type: an overbearing know-it-all with a stick up his ass and a PhD in Being Boring, a narrow-minded expert who seems to know everything there is to know about the little fenced-in patch of intellectual property he calls home, but practically nothing about the world outside of it.

Phaedrus is also a type: a self-absorbed narcissist who celebrates love, not because he’s a romantic, but because he’s noticed that people do lots of nice things for you when they’re in love with you. These are flawed characters. No doubt about that. Agathon is a bit of a tool, Phaedrus is a bit of a dick, and Eryximachus is a bit of a douche; and yet you can’t help but like all of them. Because they’re so much more than just types.

Like all of Plato’s characters, these guys are thoroughly human, entirely believable, and utterly unforgettable. These aren’t cardboard cut-outs or sock puppets; these are real people, people you recognize. You never forget their humanity when they’re in the midst of a heated debate, regardless of whether or not you agree with them. Alas, the same cannot be said of a heated debate in Social Media Land. We slip into demonization and nastiness far too easily there.

My friend Jean-Louis says this is an inescapable feature of the electronic medium. And maybe he’s right. Maybe it’s just too easy to be an asshole online. Regardless, the sociological paradox Plato resolved long ago remains unchanged. It sits there on the path before us like a stumbling block. We can’t get around it. So we might as well face up to it.

To study people as a group, we have to place them into categories: individuals must cease to be individuals. They must become representatives of this or that category. If you want to know humanity the way an entomologist knows butterflies, you’ll have to learn how to see forests not trees. But if you want to be a decent human being, who treats people with respect, you’ll have to learn how to see trees not forests. Because people are not butterflies. And few things are more dehumanizing than being treated like the representative of a category. Individuals want to be treated like individuals.

Plato figured out how to talk about the complicated relationships between people and power, ideas and institutions, without dehumanizing us. We’ve yet to figure out how to do this in Social Media Land.

—John Faithful Hamer, Being a Philosopher in Social Media Land (2017)

https://committingsociology.com/2017/11/29/the-half-stupid/amp/?__twitter_impression=true