August 8th, 2006 — Uncategorized
Austrolabe hopes to start discussion about what are the 21 or so essential books in every Muslim’s personal library. This is the first in a series of essays on the topic.
We have a small but erudite online community so we welcome all suggestions. This, of course, applies equally to our non-Muslim readers, so if there is an unreconstructed Islamic medievalist in your life that is hard to buy gifts for, stay tuned…
We begin with one Islamic fundamentalist’s guide on how to read and why:
August 6th, 2006 — Uncategorized
Patrick West’s Conspicuous Compassion is an excellent book about a cultural phenomena that seems to affect many of us living in the West. That affliction is an obsession with conspicuous expressions of emotion. We now see people given to wearing empathy ribbons that declare their ’support’ for various causes; piles of flowers for deceased celebrities such as Princess Diana; public mourning over murdered children; apologies for historical misconduct such as the transatlantic slave trade or treatment of aboriginals; and vague demonstrations against ‘third world debt’ and, most poignantly, ‘war’.
One reason, West argues, for our infatuation with these sorts of public displays of emotion is that they provide us with a sense of belonging. At a time when community, family and the church have essentially lost their social value, many of us look to other means of forming social bonds and participation in public expressions of grief, anger or other emotions is one such means. For example, the ridiculous and exaggerated outpourings of emotion that accompanied the death of Princess Diana. As West observed:
Mourning sickness is a religion for the lonely crowd that no longer subscribes to orthodox churches. Its flowers and teddies are its rites, its collective minutes’ silences its liturgy and mass. But these new bonds are phoney, ephemeral and cynical.