WHY CAN'T WE STOP GOSSIPING?

WHY CAN'T WE STOP GOSSIPING?

In light of the February 25 incident at Maison Blanche night club in Beirut, involving two young entrepreneurs, Antoun Sehnaoui & Mazen El Zein, we ought to wonder about  the "evil and unlawful," or "of poor quality" narratives that followed such incident, where all the cursing addressed toward the so called culprit before even he got judged remain puzzling. 

In recent years, researchers have turned to the study of gossip—our predilection for talking about people who are not present. 

Why is news about others so irresistible?

As it turns out, gossip serves a useful social function in bonding group members together. We are social creatures like wolves.  We hunt in packs to weaken individuals (to see if they are fit) and either physically or psychological try to over power individuals (who are weak) and take them down. 

All through my life, since the day i learned reading, I always found myself puzzled over the 24/7 coverage of people such as Paris Hilton, Tara Reid, Nicole Richie and all in between, who are “celebrities” for no apparent reason other than we know who they are--if we happen to know who they are. And yet, covering these so-caled 'Celebs' is a non-stop habit, simply because people/readers are obviously tuning in with a state of delirium barely understandable. 

This preoccupation with the lives of others, is a by-product of society of which its members have big time issues with themselves. Thus, it appears that we are hardwired to be fascinated by gossip, wealthy people, to say the least. And here again, the Maison Blanche story comes to mind again, for all the meanness and cheap talk opportunists have jumped into to ruin a wealthy, healthy, successful young CEO, everyone would dream to be in his chair.

It is difficult to define exactly what Gossip is...

Most researchers agree that the Gossip practice involves talk about people who are not present and that this talk is relaxed, informal and entertaining. Typically the topic of conversation also concerns information that we can make moral judgments about. Gossip appears to be pretty much the same wherever it takes place. 

Why does private information about other people represent such an irresistible temptation for us? It is an undeniable fact that is pretty unusual to see any individual walk away from a juicy story about one of his or her acquaintances, and many of us have firsthand experience with the difficulty of keeping spectacular news about someone's else a secret. Although everyone seems to detest a person who is known as a “gossiper”; though, it appears to be a national hobby, especially in a country as tiny as Lebanon, where any name rings a bell to anyone...And boom,,,,the tongue suddenly rolls, becoming longer, harder, bitter, if not lethal. Gossiping can become worse witch hunting or lynching. 

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Harming Antoun Sehnaoui Seems To Have Satisfied the Envious Hearts

Make lemonade
As it goes, the White House is an incident that was shined, polished, & perfected for a television show, O TV in that case: Extreme Makeover Tayyar Home Edition. So funny, so Absurd!

As a society, we're at a point where adversity, war, fights--mashkal-- call it whatever, and chaos are deemed somehow 'Normal'. However, because of these facts, our definition of 'Normal' has become changed and distorted beyond comprehension...
When we look at the news, on 25th February 2010, we hear of a young successful entrepreneur, Antoun Sehnaoui, shooting at people left right & centre.

He was at Beirut's Maison Blanche night club, and chose to do so for no reason says the rumours.

On the other side, It is still unclear what the reasons are for launching such a massive rumour-based orchestrated campaign; but it is thought that the young man was going out to party and was attacked verbally, insulted with rude gestures and disparaged beyond anyone's imagination with all the meanness low people may be good at. Then, the thunderbolt....

Harming this man was an obvious, easy, cheap and Oh so Golden opportunity for many here in Lebanon to catch. 

Would be good to try to dissect the false from the truth...Why the news was hugely distorted?


A thought by The Free Spirit 
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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

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. 

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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

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