Condoning Domestic Violence? TV, Books, & Silence - Why We All Should 'Tell Somebody'

This week Glamour magazine published the results of a national survey conducted to measure the extent of relationship violence against women. The survey concluded that 60 per cent of young women in America have been subject to some form of relationship abuse or violence. Moreover, 24 per cent have not told anyone they've been abused and 37 per cent of women who know someone in an abusive relationship never said anything to that person or law enforcement authorities about it. In lieu of these results, Glamour has kicked off a campaign called 'Tell Somebody' to raise awareness of domestic violence in America and to encourage friends to keep tabs on friends in potentially violent relationships.

Violence against women is a phenomena that transcends culture, race, and religion. If 60 per cent of women in a country that has made significant social and legal advancements on their behalf are subject to relationship violence, one can only imagine the actual statistics in countries lacking any such protections or support for women.

To make matters worse, recent publications of teen fiction are equating love to violence, not to mention certain controversial episodes of TV series based on the books that seem to highlight misogyny. Two years ago, criticisms were launched against the vampire Twilight series, noting that the protagonist Bella was engaged in an abusive romance with vampire Edward. More recently, Jezebel writer Margarett Hartmann, reported on the criticism the most recent episode of Gossip Girl garnered for equating violence as romance. Gossip Girl is another teen book series made into a TV show. In the most recent episode aired on May 2nd, a male character, Chuck, lunges a punch at his ex-girlfriend, Blair, misses and smashes the window behind her cutting her face. "Yet this isn't a story about relationship abuse," Hartmann reports, "the writers say it shows how much he loves her."

Yes, you read that right, the Executive Producer of Gossip Girl is defending the scene not as abuse but as the intensity of love. "The way we viewed it, I think it's very clear that Blair is not afraid in those moments, for herself. They have a volatile relationship, they always have, but I do not believe—or I should say we do not believe—that it is abuse when it's the two of them. Chuck does not try to hurt Blair. He punches the glass because he has rage, but he has never, and will never, hurt Blair. He knows it and she knows it, and I feel it's very important to know that she is not scared—if anything, she is scared for Chuck—and what he might do to himself, but she is never afraid of what he might do to her. Leighton and I were very clear about that." Let's backtrack for a minute and note that Chuck's character doesn't have a brilliant record. In the Season 1 pilot he attempts to rape two other female characters.

If this series is about love then love has gotten mixed up with all the wrong messages to girls and it is desensitizing them to relationship abuse and essentially 'normalizing' bad behavior as 'romantic.' To be fair, a lot of paperback adult romance novels have carried similar themes of rape and initial abuse as romantic.  However, if these shows and books are targeted to teenagers parents should engage their children in discussion drawing the line between fantasy and reality. The reality is 4 women a day die at the hands of their abusive partners in the United States, according to the 2011 Glamour survey.



Now let's consider domestic violence in countries outside the US. In 2008, NPR did a segment called Domestic Violence: A Silent Crisis in Russia. The Russian government estimates 14,000 women die at the hands of their partners each year but Russian police don't even classify abuse as a crime. Because it is culturally considered a 'private matter' no support systems exist in Russia to rehabilitate or protect women who are the victims of abusive relationships. A US Report on Human Rights Practices published in 2006 added that in Brazil domestic violence is 'widespread and underreported' although the government now appears to be taking legal steps to protect women. Spain has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in Western Europe where reportedly 73 women died at the hands of their partners in 2010. Similarly, in Portugal 15,904 complaints were registered concerning domestic violence in 2009, including 16 murders, according to Amnesty International. In 2004, Saudi broadcast journalist Rania al-Baz breached the social taboo and spoke out against domestic violence in Saudi Arabia after sustaining horrific injuries perpetrated by her husband. Her audacity and courage launched public debate in the Gulf on domestic violence.

Violence against women should cease being condoned whether by TV, books, movies, the passivity of governments, and the act of silence. Tell Somebody! Women (and enlightened men) need to fight back not just in the United States but in countries around the world.

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Glamour Tell Somebody: Text TELLNOW to 85944 to make a $10 donation, and the Avon Foundation will match every dollar you donate to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. In 2010, 83,027 calls went unanswered by the hotline due to lack of funding— more than 1,590 calls per week. Glamour, in partnership with Avon, is seeking to raise $200,000.

Crowd Intelligence: The Case for Supporting a Free Web Globally

In a previous post regarding civil liberties, I mentioned that philosophically one could argue that total freedom of information could reasonably be dangerous to society especially in democracies where lines can be blurred between what constitutes a criminal action versus what is simply freedom of expression (the ambiguous term 'terrorist' being one such issue). Although, I suggested we should look at what actions constitute the intent to actually harm or impede on the rights of others versus actions that promote public accountability of one's government policies.

Currently, in Bahrain where protests are ongoing, the government has violently cracked down on opposition supporters and the media. The Bahrain Human Rights Council claims that 370 people have been arrested since the imposition of the emergency law on March 15. These include bloggers, human rights activists, and journalists. On March 28, the military public prosecutor imposed a media gag, banning "any publishing, through print, audio, video and online media, based on the requirements of discretion and commitment to the principle of confidential investigation." Here we have a government which instead of empowering and serving its people seeks to serve its own selfish interests by suppressing them. This is an unwise policy that is likely to backlash in the long-run. Moral realism and political karma will eventually prevail. No government can succeed or have stability for the long-term without seeking to serve the population on which its legitimacy depends, whether it's a monarchy, an oligarchy, or a democracy.

Consider this, right now the Internet is not a free medium globally. Censorship imposition and information regulation varies in different countries and government monitoring is quite common. I am not against monitoring the web if it is to prevent crime with proper privacy laws in place to protect innocent individuals. However, if monitoring is utilized to root out, blackmail, arrest, or even kill political opposition leaders such technology should not be sold by democratic countries to non-democratic ones. 

A free web benefits everyone politically, socially, and culturally because it empowers individuals. If people globally were to have open access to information, without political censorship, exchange ideas, have public forums of free debate then collectively the Internet becomes a powerful catalyst to transform societies simply by granting individuals the responsibility to verify fact from fiction and to organize collective decision-making in keeping their own governments accountable. Of course this depends on a population that has access to the Internet and who are literate, something that should be encouraged and promoted. Above all, greater civil liberties on the Internet also means inspiring greater creativity in individuals through collective exchange. This has massive impact not merely among artistic and literary groups, but also among corporate, business, and civil society groups who can connect through the Internet. Problems that have gone unresolved through isolated decision-making can benefit by access to crowd intelligence.

In 2004, James Surowiecki published a fascinating book The Wisdom of Crowds. Surowiecki argues that  the aggregation of information in groups results in decisions that are often better made than any single individual in the group. He argues that four elements are necessary for a 'wise crowd': 1. diversity of opinion, 2. independence of opinion (i.e. one's opinion is not influenced by others), 3. decentralization (i.e. people can draw from their unique local knowledge), and 4. aggregation (i.e. mechanisms are in place to turn private judgments into a collective decision). 

In corporate cultures, even among NGOs and in government departments, decision-making can be easily isolated, 'cliquefied', and threatened by the possibility of group-think. Surowiecki addresses the cases where crowd intelligence has failed: where opinions in a group are homogenous rather than diverse, where hierarchies are too strict, where groups are protective of their 'turf' or specialization and don't allow outsiders to contribute, where decisions are imitated, and where emotionalism or herd instinct can take hold. 

Now consider the massive resource potential of collective intelligence the Internet provides if it were a free medium globally. People across the world could easily provide for at least three of Surowieki's conditions for a 'wise crowd.' Already, mediums such as Wikipedia and Twitter allow people to cross reference information, cite sources, share news and opinion, and debate dubious points. Twitter and Facebook have been cited as factors helping aid the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. Although their influence has been questioned in regards to the current Arab revolutions taking place, one can't underestimate them as powerful tools or organization or to rally public opinion among a younger generation of net users.

Governments do themselves a disservice through the imposition of censorship and fail to tap a significant resource when they limit forums of information exchange. What if these online crowds were properly utilized to resolve major political, social, and economic problems globally instead of relying solely on 'experts'? The possibilities the Internet provides for this is endless. A politically uncensored Internet globally could well transcend language barriers and provide for collective creativity and problem-solving as well as for social, cultural, and political transformation. 

The One Hundred & Seventy-Third Night

Smitten with love and ignorant of love,

My poor forsaken heart burned with desire.

No sin did I commit, save that my tears

In spite of me revealed my secret fire.

With little hope I long and pine for three,

And what avails even the great when they desire?

My ardent sighs of passion rise to thee,

As if the coldest breath is blazing fire.

O you, whose love grows deeply in my breast,

Reign in my heart and rule as you desire,

A lonely heart that pines and wastes away.

Where cold disdain is but tormenting fire,

Reap what you sow then, either good or ill;

The lover's lot is but a martyr's pyre.

Glory to God who caused the moon to rise,

Bringing together lover with lover.

For who has seen the sun and moon at once

In Eden or on earth; who has ever?

~excerpt of poetry from The Arabian Nights, translated by Husain Haddawy

This by far has to be my favorite translation and abridgment of 1001 Nights. Husain Haddawy puts together a very readable version and the poetry within the stories are indulgent and beautifully interpreted. Thumbs up. Truly worth reading and buying if you've got an inner romantic to feed.

Bibliophilia Unbound (or why I'm book addicted)

For the past few months I've been buried in reading. My free time is often spent indulging in the things that make me curious, interest me, I waste away my hours learning. I love to read. I eat up books as if I'm indulging colourful French macarons, popping one after the other. I also eat up news and blogs. I easily get lost in reading. It eases my mind and separates me from more existential turmoils such as wondering as to the purpose of my life (an entirely futile endeavor) or fantasizing when the man of my dreams is going to arrive (wishful thinking). Charles W. Eliot (whoever he is) once said: "Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers." Truth.

Among my favorite authors - Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, Salman Rushdie, Naguib Mahfouz, Karen Armstrong, Tariq Ramadan, Idries Shah, his son Tahrir Shah (my books have relatives), Gautama Chopra, Al Ghazali, Ibn Arabi, Hazrat Inayat Khan, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Khalil Gibran, Jiddu Krishnamurti, poets Fernando Pessoa, R.M. Rilke, Rumi, Hafiz, Rab'ia, Jami, Sadi, and Mahmoud Darwish, and many more.

Books I've recently finished include: Heart, Soul and Self: The Sufi Psychology of Growth, Balance and Harmony by Robert Frager; The Essential Feminist Reader by Estelle Freedman; The Secret History of Dreaming by Robert Moss; and The Wind Amongst the Ruins: A Childhood in Macao by my auntie, Edith "Didi" Jorge de Martini; and The Sufis by Idries Shah. 

Books I've been stuck on for the past year and half and still haven't finished (yes, I have a few of those): The Prince a biography of Prince Bandar bin Sultan by his friend William Simpson (undoubtedly bias but well-written), and Desert Queen a biography of Gertrude Bell by Janet Wallach. For some reason I get to certain parts in biographies where my eyes start glazing over and I can't get past them. These two books are my first attempts to crack the biography genre.

One of my favorite books by far was a travelogue by Canadian poet Marius Kociejowski, The Street Philospher and the Holy Fool: A Syrian Journey where Kociejowski recounts his adventures across Syria with two unlikely and eccentric characters, an unemployed romantic smoking cafe-loitering philosopher and his friend a mad Sufi who aspires to uncover the secrets of alchemy and turn lead into gold. Reality is stranger than fiction indeed, but the two characters of Kociejowski's travelogue are exceedingly lovable.

My current reads include: In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey Into the Saudi Kingdom by Qanta Ahmed; The Religion of Islam, a classic by Maulana Muhamad Ali; Signs of the Unseen: The Discourses of Jallaludin Rumi by Rumi.

I recently purchased Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary.

Arif & Ali's Blog provided a great review of the book noting it to be "an unbiased account from the birth of Islam 1400 years ago right through the various Caliphate regimes, covering the Mongol Raids as well as the Glory days of the Moghuls right down till the 2003 invasion of Iraq. I don’t think there’s a country or major event in the tale that Aga Ansary has left uncovered." 

I'm dying to read it but I have to finish my other books first. At any rate, reading is a wonderful anti-productively productive hobby.

The value of work: credentials, economics, and self-actualization

I just read a brilliant article published in 2009 in the The New York Times Magazine concerning the case for working with your hands. The author of the article, Matthew B. Crawford, holds a Ph.D. in Political Philosophy from the University of Chicago and was previously employed in a prestigious position at a Washington think tank. Five months into the job he left to start up his own motorcycle repair shop. Many would view that decision as ludicrous, as a "regression" from all the things he had invested himself to achieve. Crawford, however, viewed the step as one toward real intellectual challenge, purpose, and authenticity.

"A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this," Crawford writes. "Nor can big business or big government — those idols of the right and the left — reliably secure such work for us. Everyone is rightly concerned about economic growth on the one hand or unemployment and wages on the other, but the character of work doesn’t figure much in political debate. Labor unions address important concerns like workplace safety and family leave, and management looks for greater efficiency, but on the nature of the job itself, the dominant political and economic paradigms are mute. Yet work forms us, and deforms us, with broad public consequences."

Crawford recalls one of his first office jobs post-Master's degree where he was inducted to a shiny cubicle to write summaries of academic journal articles. One of his colleagues was doing heroin on the job which Crawford believed "actually made sense." He describes indulging in his lunchbreaks with his colleagues as follows:

Come 12:30, the three of us would hike to the food court in the mall. This movement was always thrilling. It involved traversing several “campuses,” with ponds frequented by oddly real seagulls, then the lunch itself, which I always savored. (Marx writes that under conditions of estranged labor, man “no longer feels himself to be freely active in any but his animal functions.”)

For anyone intrigued enough, Karl Marx's case on estranged labor, published in 1844 yet wonderfully relevant to the American capitalist labor force, can be found here. To wit, Marx begins with the following assertion:

On the basis of political economy itself, in its own words, we have shown that the worker sinks to the level of a commodity and becomes indeed the most wretched of commodities; that the wretchedness of the worker is in inverse proportion to the power and magnitude of his production; that the necessary result of competition is the accumulation of capital in a few hands, and thus the restoration of monopoly in a more terrible form; and that finally the distinction between capitalist and land rentier, like that between the tiller of the soil and the factory worker, disappears and that the whole of society must fall apart into the two classes – property owners and propertyless workers. [...] The devaluation of the world of men is in direct proportion to the increasing value of the world of things. Labor produces not only commodities; it produces itself and the worker as a commodity – and this at the same rate at which it produces commodities in general.

Marx later continues to discuss the consequences of the alienation of a worker from his work:

[T]he fact that labor is external to the worker, i.e., it does not belong to his intrinsic nature; that in his work, therefore, he does not affirm himself but denies himself, does not feel content but unhappy, does not develop freely his physical and mental energy but mortifies his body and ruins his mind. The worker therefore only feels himself outside his work, and in his work feels outside himself. He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home. [...] As a result, therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions – eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal.

This may actually explain why depression is one of the leading workplace problems for employees, after family crisis and stress. I wouldn't doubt for a moment that unsatisfying work, work in which an individual does not see the results of his labor, and an unhappy workplace environment is actually a cause for depression. There's plenty of advertisements for anti-depressants in America. Doctors are quick to recommend a pill to cure our unhappiness instead of coming to the root cause of our emotional dissatisfactions.

How do we define the value of work? We can look at it from an economic standpoint and see it in terms of a labor market controlled by the forces of supply and demand and, superficially, individual incomes determining individual worth (i.e. the pecking order). We can also look at the value of work in terms of social prestige and the acquisition of credentials that raises one's economic value and social standing. Beyond this, however, there is the value of one's individual happiness in one's work namely personal satisfaction of purpose. What psychology researcher Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls flow.

To feel like a soulless cog in a machine can't possibly lend to employee satisfaction. We have policies and procedures and quality control and labor laws, but as Crawford points out, no one really discusses the character of work, of vocation, or of calling. There is an inauthenticity to following a career track, earning credentials, and taking up a prestigious position that may ultimately lend to nothing. If there is a human need beyond the economic necessity of sheer survival then it is the need for self-actualization - to be useful, to serve a purpose, whether in serving others or through the creation of something, to contribute to the greater whole of human history. Humanist psychologist, Abraham Maslow placed this need at the top of his conceptualization the "hierarchy of human needs."

While driving back from Boston last weekend my mother and I saw a pithy bumper sticker on the car in front of us: "I would tell you to go to hell," it said, "but I work there." It cracked a laugh but it was a sad reflection to a greater social reality that often goes unacknowledged. The majority of people hate their jobs. Often they won't leave out of a sense of economic responsibility to their families, because of financial obligations they have to take care of, and out of the fear that they may not be able to find another job, that they will be stigmatized for doing whatever they want. Many of us feel dependent on work that has no real meaning to us and live in fear of the consequences if we chose to autonomy in what we do over social stigma that we may be regressing in picking a career that is not traditional or expected.

Author, Po Bronson, tackled this issue in his book What Should I Do With My Life? where he saw that one of the biggest obstacles people faced in pursuing their own whims and careers they might enjoy was precisely the fear of other people's opinions and of society's judgment at large. Yet the individuals in his book went on to brilliant, fulfilling, and successful careers pursuing what they always desired and what reflected their individuality best giving up socially respectable jobs as investment bankers, brokers, and lawyers. Crawford, similarly, has adapted this NYT essay into a book, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work, a really excellent exploration concerning the individual's search for vocation in a society that seemingly rewards and values all the wrong qualities.

When measuring the value of work one should consider Marx's argument. Value is in essence a human assumption and determined insofar as we give it credence. To place so much weight on money and social prestige undermines the value of purpose, usefulness, and contribution where one can own one's labor and see its results rather than be an extension of someone else's ownership.