Watch him! His middle name is Mortal

Thursday, April 29, 2010

A Lebanese Saturday Night Fever


The POP, CURSE, SHOOT scene rewinded

Recap:  Two angry men showing up one night at the Lebanese White House (aka Maison Blanche), one of the hip night club in town, located in Sodeco,  Ashrafieh.
A Saturday night 'à la Libanaise' fever that started as usual, with all the bling-bling set on fire mode for a show off long night-party played on a strident volume, and a base finely tuned. 

However, that night, ego entered the arena like a flashlight, as fast as guns charged in, and rumours followed, spreading out of all proportion, on an exceptionaly unrealistic scale...   
I'm sure you all agree; encounters as such adversity involving an exchange of insults--have high probability to end up with an injury than not. 

Nonetheless, i'm trying to understand how could two educated young men end up in such a furious face-off,  as one could hardly believe that a Mazen el Zein has been willingly targeted with a "shoot to kill 007 plan" from an Antoun Sehnaoui, as he declared to the media.

It was a screw up on all sides, easily admissible. Everything went wrong that night after the war of words kicked in. In a blink of an eye, an incomprehensible hateful downward spiral, which like an inverted tornado, took amazingly hold of Lebanon.

Now let's think of it this way: whoever is insulted in front of others will see himself as diminished in his masculine mind & body, reputation and status. Perhaps partly as a result, the insult produces more aggressive or domineering behavior depending on each individual.  In fact, the "public" insult produces heightened aggression over and above a "private" insult.  We do believe this was the case in the White House shooting,  where the public versus private nature of the flow of insult played an important and determinant element here.  It is normal to see that publicly insulted individuals would show a more extreme pattern of responses than privately insulted people, as traditional "macho" behaviors emerge, specially in Arab countries.

Indeed, in private, an assaulted man would make an approach that is entirely different than that what we heard happened at Maison Blanche. 

What am trying to ponder here, is that a lonely cowboy is not as prone to ambush; he doesn't charge in randomly nor purposely, if not given the right stimulus. Antoun became upset and prepared for aggression on the physiological level; and only because he was chaperoned by big dudes with plenty of beef on their shoulders that hostility increased and the high degree of aggressiveness made the guys easily primed to react with no wise thinking. 

An article by The Free Spirit

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

The "Culture Of Honor" At Play Between Antoun Sehnaoui and Mazen el-Zein

The dynamics and specific mechanisms inherent to the culture of honor is an important topic to study in light of the Maison Blanche night club shooting that took place February 25th between a Mazen el-Zein and Antoun Sehnaoui, CEO of SGBL. What happened on that hot Saturday at the White House Club in Beirut helps us understand something about the etiology of 'manhood' in Arab societies and in similar cultures of honor

In fact, Antoun Sehnaoui's bodyguards' act falls within what anthropologists have righteously identified and dubbed a "culture of honor", in which even small disputes become contests for reputation and social status."

Honor in a society like Lebanon means a pride of manhood in masculine courage, physical strength, and warrior virtue. It was somehow of no surprise to see the bodyguards of Antoun Sehnaoui, defend the young CEO's honor without a moment's hesitation-lashing out against their challengers. 
Indeed, defense of honor can and must be understood within a larger social context of reputations, relative social status, and enduring relationships.
The shooting provided strong additional evidence that defamatory insults are crucially important in such cultures. A male who is insulted but does not retaliate risks having his masculine reputation diminished. When a challenging or highly status-relevant situation is encountered, the person may lash out with violent or aggressive behavior to reassert himself. 

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

This is not comic!

Comic Strip by Kuper

from DeviantArt, a drawing by Bordon 
 An awesome perspective; though this is not what you think it is!


Illustration by Ben Heine

-------------------------------------------------
Anyone interested in examining 
the relationships between WORDS, PERCEPTION & REALITY
should focus first and foremost on Magritte's painting:
'CECI N'EST PAS UNE PIPE'
(This Is Not a Pipe)
The difference between image and reality--when spotted-- 
becomes key to solving many conflicts.  

A noteworthy P.S. here: Magritte's work known & referred to as 'This is not a Pipe' is actually a caption, the punchline of the very painting titled as 'THE TREACHERY OF IMAGES' (La trahison des Images)


Posted by Point.Barre from The Demos Unit

Monday, April 12, 2010

An Odd Anger Management Course

Although anger has often been classified as a biologically grounded, universal emotion, it is clear that anger is interpreted, managed, and regulated differently in different social contexts.
What is known is that in Arab circle and culture, demeaning expressions targeted toward individuals of high status constitute a challenge to their manhood. Hence, the mean and hostile aggression directed toward Antoun Sehnaoui, CEO of one of the leading banks in town, wasn't going to pass without retaliation. Indeed, the wild outburst of violence through fisted and belittling gestures and wordings was clearly a confrontational call that drove fury to take stage on the Maison Blanche opened-ring.  As a matter of fact, a clear affront was offered to Sehanoui and his bodyguards as soon as the young reputed and successful entrepreneur walked into the White House on that Saturday night (Feb. 25, 2010).
What seems to have actually happened is that Mazen & Co. did all they can to fuel Antoun and his bodyguards to encourage them to be aggressive. Such a behavior is known as "instrumental aggression" involving an intention to hurt another as a means to some goal.
And it's nothing but the availability of guns that made the bullying face off and war of words take a different route; however, the fight was unavoidable, point blank. Did any of the provocative and angry men expect Antoun Sehnaoui to flee the night club with his men like a bunch of sissies, rather than stand their ground in fights, summoning up  courage toward the aggressiveness that emerged upon their arrival to Maison Blanche? Or were Antoun's opponents giving him an angry management course?
Have the men not been armed,  would have violence been lowered? Not certain! It could have been worse! How many times have we heard about late night fights where people stabbed have ended on a hospital bed with serious wounds? How many times, have we heard about alcohol bottles used as lethal weapons with fight ending even more lethally than what happened at Maison Blanche?
What we should condemn here is not how Antoun Sehnaoui's bodyguards dealt with their aggressive impulses; but how the opposite clan provided stimulus to unhealthy emotions defying men who are paid to protect someone from any potential threat and have an inborn tendency to respond to certain provocative stimuli by striking out against the perpetrator. Think about it?


A metaphoric visual to help picturing the situation as in a target and darts (the game) thrown unexpectedly at someone who just planned that night to party and enjoy his time. 
Result: one blast of a night!!

Posted by The Free Spirit @ News 961

The Reality Game

How to play the Reality Game?


“Well, it's all about believing, 
and if we believe in something,
     then that's real, isn't it? 

And if enough 
people believe in the same thing, then...
That's reality!
     
And now, we have something
 that they all wanna believe in...
     
We're back in the game, the reality game.”

WHO TO BELIEVE?! 

From the movie: The Million Dollar Hotel

"If three billion people take the Oscars seriously, then it's serious. It's like religion. If eight billion people believe in something, then it is the reality."  --David Cronenberg


Point Blank!

Posted by Point Barre + Maverick 
The Demos Unit