20 July 2008

More Funeral Stuff

A short McSweeney's list: Phrases I'd Rather Not Be Used At My Funeral by Harry Burt, with my anxious additions:

 

"autoerotic asphyxiation" [likewise: "left 10-inch clawmarks"]

"found by cadaver dogs" ["according to the forensic entomologist"]

"hopped up on goofballs" ["ate her weight in Oreos"]

"minutes from rescue" ["last-second airline flight change"]

"prehensile tail" ["cascading sheets of mucus"]

 

["salvaged what we could," "leaned over the rim a smidge too far," "must have been in unimaginable pain," "what's that on his forehead? 'syawliarT'?"] 

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19 July 2008

Reason-Giving: Four Kinds of Reasons

At the heart of Tilly's book Why? (see previous post) are the four kinds of reasons he posits: conventions, codes, stories and technical accounts.

 

Conventions and codes don't posit cause-and-effect; they simply appeal to socially appropriate formulas as explanation:

 

CONVENTIONS -- Conventionally accepted reasons. Examples: My train was late, I wasn't in the mood, she's just lucky, gotta run, I'm so busy, 

 

CODES -- Rules, basically. Particularly relevent in law, medicine, the military, government, religion, diplomacy, sports and so on.  

 

 

Stories and technical accounts do posit cause-and-effect:

 

STORIES -- Explanatory narratives, usually used for exceptional, unusual, or unfamiliar events.

 

TECHNICAL ACCOUNTS --  cause-and-effect explanation used by authorities and specialists in their fields (engineers, physicians, programmers, artists, etc.)

 

 

To show the difference among these, Tilly starts the book with a discussion of causes put forth early on, by politicians and survivors, for the 9/11 terrorists attacks: 

 

Story: Terrorists did it, but lax officials let them do it.

Convention: Modern life is dangerous.

Code: Because we have freedom to defend, we must combat terror.

Technical accounts: (Not many given initially. Later, specialists gave accounts of "how airplane crashes brought down supposedly unshakeable buildings, what went wrong with American intelligence," etc.) 

 

He notes that "intermediate forms of reason giving exist. One form sometimes mutates into another as people interact. In religious communities, 'God wills it' stands halfway between a convention and a story, having more or less explanatory power depending on prevailing beliefs about divine intervention in human affairs."

 

He also makes clear that all of these ways of relating are also used to accomplish things other than give reasons. For example, stories also "amuse, threaten and educate;" technical accounts also "display their providers' expertise and signal where the experts stand on divisive issues;" conventions also "mark boundaries between insiders and outsiders, fill lulls in conversations, and convey accumulated ideas from one generation to the next."

 

More about each:

 

CONVENTIONS

 

Conventions, like etiquette, "mix propriety and self-interest."  Etiquette "consists of supplying appropriate, effective reasons why -- for things you do, and for things you won't do. Good etiquette incorporates conventional reasons. The reasons need not be true, but they must fit the circumstances" and, even more, the relationship.

 

Some conventions consist of 'serviceable excuses' that try to normalise relationships. An example Tilly gives is of someone who's illiterate asking a stranger in a store to read something for them, with the explanation that they forgot their glasses. Other examples of 'serviceable excuses' we give to conceal "our suddenly revealed incompetence" include Sorry - I thought this was someone else's office, These gears always grind, The map was wrong, It's too loud to hear anything, etc. We use these to avoid embarrassment, to "prove that the relation between ourselves and others is not what it might seem." Sometimes, Tilly notes, we give similar explanations not to express our social competence but to "explain a failure as a result of excusable incompetence" (my watch stopped, I'm sick, I'm new in town, I've never done this before, etc.)

 

Tilly says that justification occurs in all types of reason-giving, but that "justification by means of convention ... has a peculiar property: participants rarely take the reason proposed seriously as a cause-effect account, and more often treat it as a characterization of the relationship, the practices, and the connection between them. A good reason offers an acceptable characterization." 

 

 

CODES

 

Using codes as reasons is all about matching the case at hand to the code in the book: "Asked to justify a decision, adjudicate a dispute, or give advice, skillful users of codes find matches between concrete cases and categories, procedures, and rules already built into the codes. Like conventions, reasons based on codes therefore gain credibility from criteria of appropriateness rather than from the cause-effect validity that prevails in stories and technical accounts."

 

"Sermons, classes, Power-Point presentations, manuals and how-to books often present codes: briefly stated principles followed by practical applications. Their very formats separate them from everyday social interchange. ... Job applications, survey interviews, resumes, obituaries, and citations for honors typically require either their authors or some specialist to convert accounts initially presented in story form into stylized facts to match well-established codes."

 

Tilly gives lots of legal and medical examples, especially malpractice. 

 

 

STORIES

 

Stories "truncate cause-effect connections. They typically call up a limited number of actors whose dispositions and actions cause everything that happens within a delimited time and space. ... Stories inevitably minimize or ignore the causal roles of errors, unanticipated consequences, indirect effects, incremental effects, simulataneous effects, feedback effects, and environmental effects."  

 

(All those errors and effects are what interest me -- as well as what the 'actors' think, feel and do -- and may explain an aversion I have to stories that omit those messy things.)

 

Stories make meaning, make "the world intelligible. ... Stories provide simplified cause-effect accounts of puzzling, unexpected, dramatic, problematic or exemplary events. ... [T]hey often carry an edge of justification or condemnation. ... The story usually gives pride of place to human actors. When the leading characters are not human" ... (animals, God, storms, etc.) "they still behave mostly like humans. The story they enact accordingly often conveys credit or blame. ... Stories exclude ... inconvenient complications [like those errors and effects named above]. ... Even when they convey truths, stories enormously simplify the processes involved."

 

Elements of stories and when we choose to tell them:

• Stories explain events in question, when conventions and general principles won't do
• Stories often assign blame to the actors involved, omitting other non-actor causes
• There are master stories that recur frequently[ i.e., myths?]: "A let B down and B suffered," "C and D fought to a standstill," etc.
• Stories usually have some kind of moral, even if subtle through assigning praise or blame

 

This paragraph was most enlightening for me, articulating something felt but not always consciously understood: 

"As with conventions the choice of stories obviously has consequences for later relations among the parties to the stories, and typically involves justification or condemnation of certain practices. If I tell you that a mutual friend has cheated me, I am simultaneously aligning you with me against the friend and warning you not to trust the friend .... That is why hearing stories often upsets us and sometimes incites us to challenge the teller: if we accept the story, we take on the consequences."

 

"Superior stories" are those that are simplified to the greatest degree and are also closest to truth; that is, they get their cause and effect right. These stories are widely accessible and persuasive.

 

TECHNICAL ACCOUNTS

 

Technical accounts "combine cause-effect explanation (rather than logics of appropriateness) with grounding in some systematic specialized discipline (rather than everyday knowledge). ... They assume shared knowledge of previously accumulated definitions, practices and findings. For that reason, outsiders often consider technical accounts inpenetrable because they are so hermetic or ... filled with jargon." 

 

Their relationship work is that they "signal relationships with possessors of esoteric knowledge, saying you're one of us to other sympathetic specialists, marking differences within the field from others with whom the author disagrees, providing introductions to the field ..., and establishing the author's respectablity vis-a-vis respectful nonspecialists."

 

Technical accounts use codes to match and measure cases against norms and standards, and they go on to posit cause and effect based on this.

 

Tilly's examples concerns violence, crime, the National Academy of Sciences, privatizaton of common resources, property rights, Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel, etc.

 

(I find most of the examples in this book pretty tedious and very skippable.) 

  

My Conclusion 

 

After reading this book, I have the sense that pretty much every reason we give others or ourselves, or hear from same, is either formulaic or a highly simplified mythic account. Is that it?

 

I've been trying out reasons in my head -- all stories, so far, because that's the only place where it seems that complexity and doubt could enter -- conventions are not complex per se, codes may be complex but are also pro forma to some extent, and technical accounts aren't that useful for discussing ordinary relationships) -- for various actions I've done, and even when they sometimes include mention of coincidence, feedback effects, incremental effects, etc., they still, I can't help but notice, omit a lot of contributing factors, either because I want to minimise those factors when I present the reasons to myself, or the story gets unwieldy with so many offshoots -- perhaps with cause-and-effect accounts, there is a tendency to weight the contributing factors and to present those writ bold because they seem significant and seem to account for most of the outcome. My life experience, though, tells me that my justifications and reasons-giving after the fact are liable to be misinterpretations of reality, the result of my mind imposing actions, feelings and thoughts (and cause and effect hypotheses) into a biased framework.

 

I understand, reading this book, why I have felt at times so slighted by someone I considered a friend, when he listens to my story (sometimes a reason-giving story, sometimes not) and responds with what feels to me like a pat convention ("You know it's wrong to do that." "Well, these things happen." etc.)  I've done the same thing and felt the chilling effect it's had on the reason-receiver, too. Now I wonder if answering a friend's drama with a conventional response always necessarily reveals either (1) an intention to push the other away, to make an intimate relationship more distant, or, likewise, (2) an intention to change the relationship's power balance -- the one offering the convention is in effect saying, "I'm superior," or is at least making a claim to more power than she currently has within the relationship. 

 

13:10 Posted in books and reading , community , language , lists , neuroscience, psychology, the mind , other people said it , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this

15 July 2008

Favourite Funeral Music

Looking for music for your memorial service? Check out these ideas, which include the Monty Python song, 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'; Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem (Kempe or Klemperer versions, 79 minutes long); Bach's 'Sleepers Awake;' Prince's 'Let's Go Crazy;' Gillian Welch's 'I Dream A Highway;' Crash Test Dummies' 'At My Funeral;' requiems of Verdi, Faure, and Mozart; AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell' ...  

 

(My list includes, at the moment, Louis Armstrong's 'What A Wonderful World,' Kate Smith's 'I'll Be Seeing You,' and either Ella's or Bobby Short's 'They Can’t Take That Away from Me')

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28 May 2008

Brand Timeline Portrait (R)

Following Jane's lead, I'm blogging the (visible) brands I use today:

 

 

7:15-7:45 a.m. 

Getting up, getting ready ... Zadro is the Shower Bug I listen to in the shower.

I'll note only this first use of Quilted Northern ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

7:45 a.m.

Getting dressed ... socks and necklace don't seem to have a brand on them ...

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

8:00 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.

What's happening in the virtual world?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

8:15 a.m.

Dog feeding and cooking rice for future dog meals ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

8:45 a.m.

Feeding me, vitamins (some are not branded), cleaning up ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

9:45 a.m.

Going out -- need jacket, gum, shoes, and a treat for the dog ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

11:00 a.m.

Returning-home treat for the dog ...

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

11:00 - 11:52 a.m.

Now what's happening in the virtual world?

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

11:52 a.m.

Going out again for a walk ...

 

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

12:05 p.m.

Got a phone call while walking ...

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

1:00 - 1:30 p.m.

Home and reconnecting ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

1:27 p.m.

Water plus tonic water ... Lunch was leftovers in a non-brand plastic container, so no brands to record. Then in the garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

1:50 - 2:00 p.m.

Playing with the dog ...

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

2 - 2:30 p.m.

Working out ... weights don't seem to be branded ...

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

2:52 p.m.

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

3:00 -  3:40 p.m.

Watched taped "Workout" and blogged, read online, etc. ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

4:50 p.m.

Did dishes. Oh joy. (Swept earlier, but no brand names on broom or dustpan.)

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

5:15-5:30 p.m.

Made cornbread to accompany leftovers for dinner. Most cornbread ingredients not name-brand.

 

 

 

 

 

 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

5:35-6:10 p.m.

Reading the paper online and doing email as cornbread cooks and before heating up leftovers ....

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

5:42 p.m.

Dog eats again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

6:15-6:55 p.m.

Dinner (leftovers, cornbread, and half of Christmas beer) and TV. Dog goes out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

7:00 - 9:30 p.m.

Reading. Drinking tea. One phone call.

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

9:55 p.m.

Dog to bed.

 

 

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

10:00 p.m.

 Evening ablutions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

22:00 Posted in consumption , finance and business , food and drink , householding , lists , pop culture | Permalink | Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0) | Email this

06 May 2008

What I Did and Didn't Do - Preamble

Yesterday, I thought I did nothing. Nothing worth the while, nothing to reflect on, nothing 'good.' I probed that, feeling that I had done something, and something worthwhile, even if it was nothing that fit the cultural and partially internalised rubric of worthiness, and came up with this list of what I chose to do (and what I chose not to do):

 

I slept late because I was tired from dreaming.

I listened to some of Morning Edition on NPR.

I made the bed. 

I watered house plants and hanging plants.

I clicked on the Animal Rescue site and all the other rescue sites. 

I read and responded to email, including listservs. I read my feeds via Bloglines several times during the day.

I entered the HGTV "Green Home" sweepstakes, as I do every day (until this Friday). 

I did two loads of 'dog' laundry (her blankets, bedding, etc.) and a load of dishes.

I reconciled the checkbook with the bank account online.

I made a batch of brown rice for the dog. 

I moved money from a sweep account at an online brokerage into a mutual fund there.

I did minor research of a house for sale in town (pure curiosity). 

I took photos in the garden and watched the robins build their nest. I looked for the snake but didn't find it. I put the photos online at my Flickr account.

I weeded the yard/garden.

I stroked the neighbour's cat in my garden, while I was digging dirt, and I kept my dog, who was sunning herself on the deck, from attacking the cat. (It was rather dramatic and required strategy.) 

I planted lettuce and arugula in containers on the deck. 

I tracked down and printed a cookie recipe (but didn't make it).

I imitated the seagulls' cries.

I wrote two blog entries for my 'work' blog. 

I didn't do any editing of my 'work' website, other than the blog.

I didn't write an author's profile though I have the notes for it. I didn't edit another author's profile, though she sent me edits.

I swept the kitchen and hallway.

I listened to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright taking questions at the National Press Club on NPR (missed the first part).

I blogged here. 

I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out what to wear for a walk outside.

I took a walk downtown and did a few errands. I bought a heavy item and carried it home because I knew my spouse would appreciate it. (compassion, or earning merit?)

I bought a small gift for a friend.

I rehearsed fantasy (un)conversations in my head.

I took a half-hour online Harris survey that involved determining our net worth (omitting real estate) and exactly what percentages of it are in what kinds of investments.

I did my daily half-hour weights and stretching workout.  

I watched bits of "Red Green," sports talk shows, "What Not To Wear," "House Hunters," and "It's Me or the Dog," amounting to about an hour of TV. I taped "House MD" to watch later.  

I didn't watch any Kentucky Derby coverage because it made me sad and angry. I signed a letter online via PETA concerning horse-racing (I amended the letter a bit).

I re-heated Chinese leftovers for dinner. (Happy Cinco de Mayo! ;-))

I talked with a few friends via email and one briefly on the phone. Except for my spouse and dog, I didn't have a face-to-face interaction with anyone I know.

I wrote a grocery list and a short list of things to do this week. 

I read and finished a crime novel. 

I wrapped another gift for another friend and got it ready to mail. 

I didn't read anything scholarly.

I didn't do a crossword puzzle. 

I didn't drive or ride anywhere. 

I didn't make any money.

I didn't volunteer anywhere.

I prayed and meditated but rarely as discrete actions.

 

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25 April 2008

Collective Violence - Examples - Part III

It's been 16 days since my last Mob Violence post. The delay isn't due to lack of material but instead to being overwhelmed with material. The news from the Patna area of India would be enough by itself to fill this entry.

 

(If you want to know why I'm doing this, read the first posting.)

 

On with the show ...

 

 

1.  25 March, Port Harcourt, Nigeria:

 

The Advocate reports on the brutal beating of a chapter director of Changing Attitude Nigeria, a gay rights group, during a funeral service: "A man approached him while the congregation sang a hymn, asking him to speak with him outside. He said he was then attacked with slapping, punching, kicking, and spitting by a group of six men.

 

"'While beating me they were shouting, "You notorious homosexual, you think can run away from us for your notorious group to cause more abomination in our land?" Those who attacked me were well-informed about us, so I suspect an insider or one of the leaders of our Anglican church have hands in this attack.' ...  The attackers "said they would not rest until gays are silenced from activism."

 

"Colin Coward, director of Changing Attitude England, said in the release that violence against LGBT people has been encouraged by the Church of Nigeria's leaders, including notoriously antigay archbishop Peter Akinola, who is primate of the Church of Nigeria."
 

Conformity: Homosexuals are likely scapegoating targets in a majority heterosexual society, particularly one that considers homosexuality 'an abomination.'  The attackers seem to have found meaning in their violence, announcing that they would not rest until their mission was accomplished.

 

2.  9 April, Karachi, Pakistan: 7 die in Pakistani clashes

 

"Rival groups of lawyers fought Wednesday in Pakistan, triggering greater mob violence that left at least seven people dead in Karachi, police said.

"Five of the victims, including a woman, were burned alive when rioters set fire to Tahir Plaza, the Press Trust of India reported. Fifteen more people were reported injured, and a bank and several vehicles were torched, PTI said.

"The confrontation between the lawyers started near the office of the Sindh High Court Bar Association over the alleged manhandling of former federal minister Sher Aftgan in Lahore the previous night. The violence then spread elsewhere in the city with armed men exchanging gunfire at several locations, PTA reported."  Per UPI

 

Conformity: Not much info here. The spreading of the violence to other quarters speaks to the contagion aspect of violence and mob actions.
 

 

3.  15 April, Zweletemba township, Worcester, South Africa:

 

IOL reports:

 

"Thomas Chamiso, 32, an Ethiopian refugee, ran the Thembikosi Trading Store in Fulang Street in Zweletemba township, Worcester. A month ago, he was one of 50 foreigners chased out of the town by local residents.

"With his four cousins, Chamiso fled Zweletemba with only their wallets and cellphones. They lost their refugee permits, business papers, financial records, identity documents and driver's licences. 'Maybe we will sleep on the street. What will we eat? We have nothing. How can I start a business again? I have nothing left, nothing. Who will give us money? We have lost our humanity in Worcester.'

 

"As one drives from the bustling town of Worcester ... it is hard to imagine that this place, where the shacks have neat gardens and children play in the streets, could have been the scene of violent all-night looting of 23 foreign-owned shops.

 

"Foreigners, about 20 from Somalia, 15 from Ethiopia and a handful from Zimbabwe, the Congo, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh, were driven away on the night of Friday, March 7.

 

"The violence is said to have erupted after two shooting incidents in which a teenager was killed and a woman injured. Two Somalis have been arrested, one on a charge of murder and one on a charge of attempted murder. Both were released on bail and are scheduled to appear in Worcester Magistrate's Court again on April 25. ...

 

"South African shopkeeper 'Lani' Rasi, whose parents own Vukuzenzele Spaza Shop, said it was as though the community 'were just hungry for violence'."

"[Worcester police spokesperson Captain Mzikayise] Moloi said the perception of many locals that Somalis were murderous and intent on 'killing our children' was an issue that needed to be addressed. 'Locals don't acknowledge how many people their children have killed,' he said. ...

 

"Duncan Breen of the Consortium for Refugees and Migrants in South Africa (Cormsa) said the Worcester attacks seemed to fall into the same pattern as other recent xenophobic attacks across the country.

'There appears to have been tension building for a while, and it just took a trigger to ignite into mob violence. One of the common challenges we see is that many foreign nationals and South Africans have very little interaction, which allows negative stereotypes of foreign nationals to remain unchallenged.'"

Conformity: Pretty typical choice of scapegoats, people who aren't (for the most part) an intrinsic part of the community, strangers and unknowns on whom the locals can project all manner of evil. All 'foreigners' could be tarred with the same brush. What surprised me most was the police spokesperson's comment that while locals may perceive Somalis as child killers, the same locals don't take into account how many people their children have killed! 

 

 

4. 17 April, Bihar, Patna, India: Two men lynched in Bihar for theft

 

"In yet another case of 'mob justice', two people suspected of committing a theft were lynched by a mob in a Bihar village, the police said Thursday. The victims, identified as Mahant Nat and Butan Nat, were brutally beaten after they were caught allegedly while stealing a water pump set Wednesday night in Pokhra village of Siwan district, about 150 km from here. Both victims belonged to the economically weaker nomadic Nat community.

 

"'An angry mob of villagers caught them and beat them to death with bricks, bamboo sticks and iron rods. One eye of Mahant Nat was gouged out by the mob,' police sources said."  Reported by ThaiIndian News.

 

Conformity: No sense of the size of the 'angry mob' or the unifying aspects of the violence. As I commented last time, with the regularity of these mob lynchings in Bihar, one can only assume that the feeling of unity and peace during and following the lynching, if there is any, is extremely short-lived. The victims' status (or lack thereof) -- poor and nomadic -- conforms to Girardian predictions for typical scapegoats, those on the margins.

 

 

5.  19 April, El Alto ("La Paz's destitute and neglected satellite city"), Bolivia, S.A.:

 

The BBC reports on mob violence in January against two innocent bystanders mistaken for perpetrators:

 

"Tony and his friend arrived at a birthday party in the Bolivian city of El Alto and realised they had come empty handed. After greeting the host, they went to find a shop. But as they came out of the house a girl who had just been the victim of an attempted robbery saw them, and alerted the neighbours.

 

"'People started to point at us, they started to bang the doors yelling we were robbers,' Tony told the BBC as he walked down the streets where he was attacked, his face still swollen from the beatings.

"'All the other people around there woke up and were coming out of their homes with whatever they had at hand, like sticks. They started to beat me insanely, with their hands, with rocks.'

 

"'They were out of control, not listening at all … we were yelling: "you are confused, we are innocent, we are innocent, please", we begged a lot, even crying', Tony added.


(The article continues with a discussion of Bolivia's increase in mob violence and of the distinction between community justice and mob justice.)

 

Conformity: The mob was not interested in the guilt or innocence of the people it was beating; they came out of their homes ready to attack whoever was there. Tony even recounts the accusatory gesture: "People started to point at us."

 

6.  24 April, Bihar, Patna, India: Two [more] beaten to death in Bihar

Headline looks the same, but it's a different case a week later, as ThaiIndian News reports:

 

"In two incidents of 'mob justice', a man was lynched for allegedly attempting to rape a girl while another man was beaten to death for opposing extramarital relations of his wife in Bihar. Mithilesh Singh was lynched for allegedly attempting to rape a girl at Kelbanni-Dahiyar village under Rosra police station in Samastipur district, about 100 km from here, police said Thursday.

 

"Singh entered the house of Manju Devi, a ward member in the village, and allegedly tried to rape her twelve-year-old daughter. But the family members caught him and beat him to death, a police official said.

 

"In another case, Nasib Paswan was beaten to death by the family members of his wife for opposing her extramarital relations in Betadi village in Bhojpur district, about 70 km from here."

 

Conformity:  The first case doesn't sound as much like mob justice as protection of a child by her family. The second case is perplexing -- the man was killed by his wife's family because he didn't like her having an affair? Probably more to this than the short article can convey. 

 

 

7.  24 April, Bihar, Patna, India:  Man lynched for delay in serving tea:

"In yet another case of mob violence, a tea shop owner was beaten to death by a group of youths for delay in serving tea in Bihar's Araria district, the police said on Thursday.  Abdul Qayum, in his 40s, was the victim of the violent act. ...
The police said some youths were angered by the delay in serving tea. They first beat up Qayum's son Bittu. When Qayum intervened to rescue his son, they severely beat him with bamboo stick and bricks, they said. He died on the way to hospital and his son was admitted to the hospital for treatment, the police said.

 

"According to the police, the victim was busy serving tea to people at his shop and requested others to wait for some time. But the youths took the request as an act of humiliation."  Reported at Rediff.

Conformity: The lynching was seen as justified because the youths felt humiliated.

 

8.  25 April, Gotkharik village in Bhagalpur, Patna, India: Mentally challenged man lynched

 

From India enews: "A mentally challenged man was beaten to death by a mob in a Bihar village on charges of trying to give injections to children. ... According to the police, some girl students informed the villagers that a man was trying to lure them so that he could administer injections.

 

"A group of people attacked him with bamboo sticks, bricks and stones. He was seriously injured and fell unconscious. Some people took him to the house of a village council member. But before the police could intervene, he was dragged out and beaten to death.

 

"Deputy Inspector General (eastern range) Raghunath Prasad Singh said the police were yet to identify the victim. 'No injection needle was found (on him),' said Singh."

 

Conformity:  'Mentally challenged' is almost shorthand for 'likely scapegoat.' (Bamboo sticks and bricks certainly seem the brutal weapons of choice in Patna.)

 

 

9.  26 April, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia:

(This is a follow-up to the actual attack, reported by GoldCoast.com.)

 

"Some of the teenagers responsible for a sickening attack on an off-duty Gold Coast police officer and his girlfriend have walked free from court, smiling and laughing. Meanwhile, their victims, Constable Rawson Armitage and Michelle Dodge, who have been left physically and psychologically devastated by the attack, made a secret exit from the court yesterday, away from the spotlight.

 

Constable Armitage "told the court he was questioning his career as a police officer, had lost his confidence and desire to have children because of the violence inflicted on him by 'the pack of animals'.

 

"Of the nine teenagers sentenced in Southport District Court yesterday, six -- including ringleader Tiani Slockee, 18 -- walked free with either probation and community service or a suspended detention sentence.

 

"Two other teenagers, who assaulted Constable Armitage while he was unconscious, were sentenced to 15 months in juvenile detention.

 

"Many of the teenagers allowed to go free yesterday were happy to pose for the cameras, safe in the knowledge the media cannot identify them. Queensland's Juvenile Justices Act prevents the media from doing so.

 

"Described as inflicting 'mindless, gutless, mob violence' by Crown prosecutor Stuart Shearer, the gang worked together to render the couple completely defenceless as they walked home from a night out in Coolangatta.

 

"Constable Armitage was beaten unconscious and his head then stomped on.

 

"Ms Dodge was repeatedly punched and large chunks of her hair and scalp were ripped out as she tried to call for help.

 

"Alcohol abuse, peer pressure and a lack of parental supervision were raised as explanations for the attack."

 

Conformity:  The article doesn't talk about what led the children (in their minds) to attack the couple, so it's hard to draw conclusions. Obviously, lots of communities have alcohol abuse, lack of parental supervision, and peer pressure without mob violence resulting, though those conditions certainly increase the chances. The article does imply that the teens are perhaps not unhappy with their identity as savage attackers.

21:25 Posted in community , crime , death , girardian anthropology , lists , politics, government and law , travel and place | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

09 April 2008

Collective Violence - Examples - Part II

I wasn't sure how often I'd be posting stories of contemporary mob violence but it looks like there are enough incidents to post a list of them every two weeks or less. (If you want to know why I'm doing this, read the first posting.)

 

Be sure to read the last incident, which is different from the others.

 

Conformity: The accusation of 'witch' makes those accused seem to be outsiders. There are no details about how the accusation came about, what perceptions it was based on, whether the women had caused perceived harm to anyone. The group attacked the police station where the women were in protective custody because they felt the police were delaying 'justice' in this case. That there were more than 1,000 people in the mob indicates strong community unanimity in the accusation.

 

Conformity: Not much info here. This part of India sees a lot of lynchings, so obviously if there is a sense of peace and unity afterwards, it's very short-lived. The most interesting part of this report is the family's testimony that he is not an habitual thief. Remember that in the report on the man lynched on 26 March in Bihar it was said that "there seems to be no resentment as the man had criminal antecedents." In this new case, the family may be signalling that the man did not deserve this treatment and that there may well be "resentment." (Or they may just be upholding family honour.)

 

4. 3 April 2008, Sheffield, England, UK:

"Three Asian men were locked up this week for their part in the 'mob violence' that led to the death of an Iraqi Kurd on the streets of Sheffield. Ismail Rashid, aged 42, was the victim of an 'honour killing', beaten to death because he had been sleeping with a married Pakistani woman. A gang of up to 20 attacked him ... in June last year and he died in the Northern General Hospital eight days later, despite brain surgery.  Amjad Latif, aged 27, armed himself with part of a roof rack from his car and hit Mr Rashid around the head, knocking him to the ground, Sheffield Crown Court was told. A 'sustained attack' by others followed, with Ashraf Latif, 18, and Ishtiaq Ahmed, 19, both admitting kicking him as he lay on the ground. On Tuesday they were sentenced to a total of 20-and-a-half years in custody. ... The purposes of sentencing in a case like this are clear – to punish the individual offenders and to send a clear message that the use of mob violence in the streets cannot be tolerated in a civilised society." The catalyst for the attack had apparently been Rashid's spraypainting of his nickname 'Rambo' while he was drunk on the front of a shop owned the Latif brothers' cousin.

Conformity: The victim was seen as deserving violence, because he was breaking a cultural (and presumably religious) taboo. He further 'incited' his attackers by flaunting himself and defacing another's property.  In a 'civilised society' that places a cultural prohibition on extra-marital affairs, the victim probably would not be attacked or killed (though he might be, but probably only by one person, not a group) but would likely be scapegoated in more subtle ways, by economic and social exclusion, by ruining his reputation, and so on. The woman would probably be scapegoated as well. In some civilised societies, there is little or no prohibition on extra-marital affairs, perhaps because the role of religion is minimal in those areas. ? Are there 'civilised' countries where such things are handled by a civil legal system?

 

5. 1 April 2008, Waycross, GA, USA: Third-graders plot to harm teacher.

"A group of third-graders plotted to attack their teacher, bringing a broken steak knife, handcuffs, duct tape and other items for the job and assigning children tasks including covering the windows and cleaning up afterward, police said Tuesday.  The plot by as many as nine boys and girls at Center Elementary School in south Georgia was a serious threat, Waycross Police Chief Tony Tanner said. ... The scheme involved a division of roles, Tanner said. One child's job was to cover windows so no one could see outside, he said. Another was supposed to clean up after the attack."

"The children, ages 8 and 9, were apparently mad at the teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair."

 

Conformity: For 8- and 9-year-olds, the teacher is an outsider by virtue of both her exalted role and her advanced age. Justification for the attack was that one of their classmates was 'unjustly' scolded for what they probably considered a minor infraction. The unusual thing about this case is that the mob attack was heavily premeditated, not spontaneous. If it had actually occured, however, others might have joined spontaneously, sucked into the excitement of the moment.

 

 

6. A different kind of mob story.

J. Dunne at Through the Eyes of Faith: Holy Cross Ghana blogs about witnessing and transforming an incident of mob violence last month.

 

At around Noon that same day [Good Friday] I heard a loud ruckus outside the school library where I was working with a student. I turned to see a few students running across the assembly area towards the canteen just outside the campus grounds. As I walked out of the room I saw about a hundred of our boys gathered around the canteen outside the campus.

I knew what it was before I got there. It was what I feared… Ewee. In the Fante language Ewee means thief. Now why does that cause me to fear? Stealing in Ghana, or in Africa, for that matter is a pretty serious crime. The thing is thieves aren't turned over to the police, in fact, the police sometimes don't ever hear about the incidents. When a thief is caught he faces mob justice which usually ends up with the thief being beaten, humiliated and then lynched, drowned, or burned to death. The general justification for such brutal punishment is that to steal something that someone has worked their whole lives for is like taking that person's life; so you should be killed for doing such a thing.

Anyway, the story is this. A young man was caught trying to steal a TV antennae in Anaji, where our school is located. The small mob stripped the man naked and beat him severely. They walked him down the road humiliating him in front of all who were present until the thief ran toward our school for some vain hope of refuge. His accusers continued to beat and insult him outside our school grounds.

When I finally got to the scene I was overcome with anger. There were my own students laughing, insulting, and encouraging the other men to beat the thief. Once of the students ran up to me laughing like a jolly fool, 'Hey Bro…look look Eweeo!' I shoved him to the ground and started screaming at the tops of my lungs for the students to go inside. I don't think they ever saw me that angry because they all scattered and ran inside. One of the teachers came out behind me and helped me to get the rest of the boys back inside.

I turned back to see the thief crying and begging for his life whilst bleeding all over. His accusers stood over him holding big sticks and shovels. They were shouting insults in the vernacular and slapping him across the face.

 

They wanted to kill him. I felt sick. I couldn't stand it so I stepped up to the accusers and begged them to let him go. At first they didn't mind me at all. Almost as if I wasn't there, but eventually they began to move away from the thief until there was only one man left. He still stood there holding his stick threatening the thief by slamming it on the bench behind where the thief was sitting. I looked at the man and told him he was sick.

 

All of the students were still watching from inside the campus. I had to do something for the young man. I took off my undershirt and gave it to the poor naked criminal. We made eye contact for about one second before I turned and headed back inside the school.

 

As I walked back into the school all of my students with impatient tones demanded to know why I would do such a thing. 'Bro why would you give that man your shirt? He is a thief.'

 

I was so bewildered by my mixture of rage and discouragement that I could hardly speak, but I did manage to answer their question. 'Because I am a Christian.'

 

I don't think they understood me.

 

 

10:00 Posted in community , crime , death , girardian anthropology , lists , politics, government and law , travel and place | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this

26 March 2008

Crafting Luminous Reviews

Fun essay in the NYT's Papercuts by Bob Harris, listing his choices for the seven worst words frequently used in book reviews. The comments are even funnier, by which I of course mean compelling, nuanced, readable and haunting.

14:00 Posted in books and reading , language , lists , silliness and humour | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

25 March 2008

Girard Sightings

First in a new series, linking to articles, essays, op-eds, websites that mention Girard or Girardians:

 

Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams in the Observer on Sunday, in an article titled: "We live in a culture of blame - but there is another way: The Archbishop of Canterbury tells why the Easter story can help humanity escape a lethal cycle of fear and resentment."

Giles Frasier in the Guardian on Saturday, in a powerful article titled: "A funny kind of Christian: His thirst for scapegoats shows how poorly George Bush understands the meaning of Easter."  From which: "[T]he story of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus is supremely a moral story about God's identification with victims. The French anthropologist René Girard is the modern voice that has done most to explain the nature of this moral change."

Michael Kirwan SJ's article "Fear and Loathing in the Low Countries" in Thinking Faith (a journal of British Jesuits) in February "uses the insights of French philosopher René Girard to analyse what it is about the Dutch psyche that might lie behind such vociferous opposition to Islam." via A Vow of Conversation

There's a course to be taught this April-June at the Servant Leadership School ("an ecumenical center for theological reflection and spiritual formation located in Washington, D.C.") by David Hilfiker, M.D. titled "The Radical Inclusivity of the Gospel: Ending the Spiral of Violence" [scroll down] which will "explore the theories of Rene Girard, to see how they can help us get beyond our current cultural impasse, as well as see what they mean for our personal and spiritual journeys."

Girard in poetry: Poet Ange Mlinko's "Conversion Comedy" in the March issue of Poetry magazine pays homage to Girard's comment that "the origins of music lay in the necessity of drowning out the cries of sacrificial victims." She also says that her priest told her to read Rene Girard and James Alison when she was deciding to be an Episcopal, "to give me a philosophical framework for Christianity quite apart from metaphysics." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

05:50 Posted in girardian anthropology , lists , theology, spirituality, philosophy | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this

03 March 2008

The Dejas and Other Terms for Eerie Sensations

Explanations of déjà vu, déjà vécu, déjà visité , déjà senti l'esprit de l'escalier, etc.

 

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29 February 2008

EmoMusic

Tagging along to Belle Lettre at Law and Letters' list of music she listens to "in order to exaggerate a certain emotion," which in her case consists of country and jazz (esp. for music of longing), here's a first stab at mine. What are yours?

 

(I can't vouch for the YouTube videos -- I'm including most of them for the audio performances)

 

Wallowing, Despondent

Unbreak My Heart - Toni Braxton

Pills - The Perishers with Sarah McLachlan