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Recently the French lower parliament overwhelmingly endorsed a bill outlawing burqa-style head coverings. For those unaware of what they are, it is a piece of fabric intended to cover both head and face, draping past the shoulders so as to leave only the eyes and them barely, uncovered. It's a practice not done by the majority of Muslim women, even in countries other than France. The purpose of the veil under Islamic law is to facilitate the continued purity of the woman by covering to the point of shapelessness the parts most associated with male lust (to no surprise of any male, this amounts to everything).
Tacitly assumed in the Koran's moral exactitude, is both the notion that men, principally Muslim men (infidels are beasts so it goes without saying that they're easily incited to the sin of lust), are so incapable of ethical control that the mere glimpsing of a woman's figure will inevitably result in sin. Second, that the female body is a principal contributor, by virtue of it's very nature, to deplorable acts. READ MORE
| The Principle of Communication As Communal-Creation and "Gap-Filling" |
At some point in life there comes a time when interests wade into the realm of the romantic and, all aflutter with the maelstrom of neurotransmitters, find a realm of uncertainty as to what someone meant by a comment, what the intent was behind someone’s action and often frustrated by the lack of information due to the absence of good or complete communication. Granted, as some are no doubt now bristling at this impossible standard, there is indeed no way to communicate in such a way as to remove all doubt, all potential for error. I’ve written before about how we exist in others’ minds as internalized projections of our own narratives, reshaped and molded through the lens of the worldview and assumptions of the other person. The same applies to all communications, both bodily and verbal/written. Troll through any bar or social gathering and the sometimes painful reality of this situation is glaringly obvious even through the haze of alcohol and wafting scent of hormones run amok. We simply do not exist the way we think we do for other people. However, before frantic protests of “but he/she knows me!” become shrill, the situation is not nearly so dire as my melodrama is making it sound. Obviously in light of numerous examples from healthy relationships of both friendship and romantic to peace treaties and negotiations of all types there is plenty of room for good and accurate communication, where understanding of one party is at least close enough to what is being by the other to make life manageable. So what is going on? READ MORE
