Fake Liberalism

According to Wikipedia, liberalism (from the Latin liberalis) is a political philosophy or worldview founded on the ideas of liberty and equality.  "Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally they support ideas such as free and fair elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, free trade, and a right to life, liberty, and property."

As one can tell, the concept of liberalism is an evolutionary concept that requires certain maturity level and a clear understanding of what is going on around.  Every single word in the definition mentioned has different interpretations and has led to the development of the rule of law worldwide and specifically in the civilized world.

 However, this word is repeated by many people in our society and mentioned under the political view of so many facebook users without really giving this word a good clear thought.  Yes, the concept of liberalism versus conservatism can be place or time dependent  This means, one could be conservative in the US and liberal in Lebanon but this only happens if some views have developed further in one place and still at late stages in another.  This also means that one can have a positive opinion about something till a certain limit and a negative opinion about the same thing if that thing reached the limit that one has already determined.   Also, one doesn't have to be completely liberal or completely conservative where one can actually pick and choose from the two concepts that best fit his/her way of life as long as no contradiction arises at any point.  However, trying to cling to one concept has the serious price of really understanding the deep definition.

Unfortunately, the whole discussion about liberalism in Lebanon is reduced to sexual liberalism which I also believe is a real scam.  Forget about gay rights, women rights, pro-life/pro-choice, free trade, small government/ big government, etc... The people's narrow understanding of a liberal is reduced to the degree of his/her sexual awareness.  Moreover, many of those who claim sexual liberalism contradict their own views when confronted with cases that goes in harmony with the definition of liberalism and touches sensitive issues about their personal life.  For many people, claiming sexual liberalism is nothing but a tool of seduction and a technique of self marketing as a civilized person with an open mind.

A Peace Campaign in Lebanon

This week's post is not a critical post but it is meant to shed light on the peace campaign that the Center for Development, Democracy and Governance (CDDG) has initiated during the independence day memorial and that will last for a month.  I am writing this post as a founder and president of CDDG whom along with our excellent team of employees and volunteers, we were able to initiate a campaign that received lots and lots of positive feedback.

CDDG is a non-profit organization that has a relatively decent track record and you can check our history, mission, vision and objectives at www.cddg.org.

Below I am attaching two pictures, the original Lebanese flag and the banner of our campaign  The original flag has two red strips with the cedar in the middle while the flag of the campaign has narrower red strips and thus more white space symbolizing "Less blood shed and more peace" as a slogan of the campaign.  The campaign was carried out all across the country on several billboards, mini-boards, facebook, twitter, google plus and other social media tools.

Interesting Facts about Lebanon

Very interesting facts and figures put together that would actually give the reader a good idea about essential practices and facts from our society.

1- Lebanon has around 350 schools and 32 officially recognized universities with 87.4% literacy rate- 93.1 % male and 82.2% female- (Literacy defined based on those who are above the age of 15 and who can read and write).  However, the average national IQ  is 82-86 depending on different sources.  We are ranked the 52nd nation in average IQ along with Philippines. It is also widely understood that the average intelligence where almost half the population score is between 90 and 110.  So you do the math on the percentage of those who are below 80. Check the following link to have an idea about IQ scores by examining its relation to professions.  This is the best way to understand the score in my opinion.. (I chose this website but almost all websites that discuss this issue mention very close numbers.  Lots of data about this issue are available)  http://www.sq.4mg.com/IQ-jobs.htm

2- We are ranked the 40th nation for number of vehicles per capita.  
There are 434 cars for every 1000 persons.  This includes automobiles, SUVs, Vans and commercial vehicles and exclude motorcycles and other motorized two-wheelers.  However, we are ranked 70 for owning personal computers per capita.  Our rate is 102.076 per 1000 persons.  That says a lot about the level of intellectuality.

3- Examining things superficially in Lebanon, one would say that the standard of living is good.  Cars, clothes, nightlife, etc... However, trying to observe carefully, one can notice that most people try to save on the essentials individual needs in order to cover up social auxiliaries.   Statistically speaking, we are 113th country in the list of 150 on the quality of life in a study done in 2010.  I believe it got worse nowadays.  (You can check the quality of life index in 2010).

The Disaster of Collective Forgiveness

"To err is human, to forgive is divine".  An excellent quote by the English poet Alexander Pope that should inspire us all.  Forgiveness on a personal level is an act of maturity that emerges from the deep understanding of human nature and the more someone knows, the more he/she forgives.  However, forgiveness is an individual right and not a collective right.   For this same reason, if somebody is convicted and even if the victim drops the charges, the system still impose a punishment on the offender.  Forgetfulness at the personal level is not forgiveness while on a social or collective level both forgetfulness and forgiveness are equivalent.

In our society, things are going in the wrong direction and both the personal and collective acts are disastrous.  We tend to collectively forget and when the same issue is assessed on an individual level, no forgiveness is offered. This should be completely reversed in order to have a healthy society.  For example, if a famous figure in our country makes a mistake, it takes few weeks for people to collectively forget about his/her misconduct.  Thus people have collectively forgiven that person by forgetting.  While when you approach people individually even after years, you notice that people are still holding grudges and bitterness against that person for that same act.

We as individuals have the right to forgive when the damage is inflected on us only and not on others.   Collective forgetfulness is a big problem that paralyzes the system and makes it very difficult for it to evolve.  A good judicial system can not be based on such a phenomena.  People complain about the system and yet they do not even offer a push to that system in the basic needs that fuel up an evolutionary path for it. 

What should we do?

We should be selective in our forgiveness when the damage is social or collective.  This is the role of civil societies and political subgroups of bigger political entities.  

A Commitment with Complaints is not a Commitment

Years ago while I was still residing in Philadelphia, I call an American friend of mine asking him to help me move out of my old apartment at a certain date.  The guy mentioned that he will get back to me after checking his schedule.  Hours later, he calls me to tell me that he can do it.  The day I moved out was hectic, full of last minute unpleasant unpredictable surprises; not enough boxes, late checking in the new apartment, walking more than 1Km back and forth around 10 times in addition to the extreme cold weather of Philadelphia after our moving cart broke down.  I started complaining about the situation but I never heard one complaint from my friend.

Years before that while I was living in Lebanon, I asked a Lebanese friend of mine to take me to my hometown (about 30Km drive) to get some official documents that I needed to submit for the university back then.  It took him less than 10 seconds to say yes.  I mentioned that there will be some traffic on our way there in addition to the expected long waiting for the documents and he interrupted me saying "No problem my friend".  The day we had to go, he calls me in the morning telling me that he forgot about his dentist appointment but he is coming anyway.  On our way there, we got stuck in traffic (predictable in Lebanon in addition to my previous warning) and then I heard "**** ikht el3aj2a" (Curse in Arabic) more than 30 times which average up to 1 curse/Km. We got there and as usual and completely predictable, we had to wait for my official documents for an hour or so and another bunch of curses for the government and the system were thrown left and right.  We finish and we had the traffic problem on the way back as well.

What is the difference between the two cases and which one I prefer?

We are emotional people pressured by unnecessary social commitments where we feel pressured at many points to say yes when we mean no and say no when we want to say yes.  The happiness and support that I felt from the quick reply of my Lebanese friend were great at that moment but all the appreciation transformed into an unease feeling all the way.  Besides I was stunned for the moment by my American friend who told me "I will get back to you after checking my schedule".  However,  my appreciation to the guy kept growing and still growing.

It seems I made a choice on my preference and I made a choice as well on the type of person I want to be in case I was asked for help at any point. Commitment whether it is for a cause, for people, for family and even for ones self is definitely rewarding but it also comes at the price of unpredictability in certain situations specially when it is related to others where it is beyond your control. 

Why Do We Negatively Compete?

"Competition in biology, ecology, and sociology, is a contest between organisms, animals, individuals, groups, etc., for territory, a niche, or a location of resources, for resources and goods, for prestige, recognition, awards, mates, or group or social status, for leadership; it is the opposite of cooperation. It arises whenever at least two parties strive for a goal which cannot be shared or which is desired individually but not in sharing and cooperation."

Competition occurs naturally and if based on an ethical behavior, it  is highly beneficial for improving one's skills, one's self esteem and ones chances in enhancing his/her (professional, social, academic,...) status.  However, when competition discards ethics and crosses the line from enhancing self performance and self chances to destroying or degrading other people's performance, it definitely falls under the category of negative competition.

Let me explain why do we live in a negatively competing society.  First, I will explain a social phenomena in our culture and relate this phenomena to negative competition.

We actually live in a society where one's good performance is mostly measured relative to the bad performance of others and not according to an absolute measure determined by a system.  For example, if you ask your son/daughter, how did you do on your exam?  He/She says, I got 50 but all the class did not do well.  In this case, most of us will say, Ah OK but you should do better next time.  What  have you done here is that you are teaching your son/daughter that grades are relative and not absolute.  Your answer offered useless flexibility where no delivery can be done on your behalf. If there are factors that justify such low performance, the system will offer flexibility and it should not be on a personal level. What I mean by that, the teacher will most probably be flexible and he/she will take that into consideration. Even though many factors could have been involved that would justify his/her low grade but still you have to send a message that the measure for his/her performance is absolute and not relative.  (I am giving this example but I am not very happy about adopting the grades as a measure of good performance.)

How is this related to negative competition?

Since we are structured in a way that our good performance is relative, we get so busy destroying or undermining other people's achievements in order to show that our performance is better.  Thus instead of investing the energy in the right way, we divert it.   At least, if some do not undermine or destroy others' achievements,  they hide their appreciation for it.

What should we do?

We should do our job by adopting an absolute measure without worrying about others.  We should motivate others and tell them how good they are when they really are.  Don't wait for a downturn to tell somebody about his/her great past achievements, just say the good words for their present achievements.  Brains are structured to transform good words into energy.

The Dilemma of Prejudgment

Prejudgment is the act of reaching a decision or making a conclusion before an evidence is available.  Prejudgment could be an instinctive act originally developed to protect our species by previously predicting what the next step could be and build our move based on that assumption.  For example, our ancestors had to prejudge a wild animal and kill it in order to protect themselves even though that animal might had no intentions to attack.  They also had to prejudge others to protect what they have or else their defense mechanism wouldn't have developed and thus they wouldn't have survived.

However, with the social development that took place rapidly in the last century, humans had to abandon many traits that are not important anymore for their survival.  Laws and regulations protect them and they do not need to develop their defense mechanism on the personal level in directions where the cons are much more than the pros.

In our society though and due to the absence of confidence in the system, people unfortunately still hold onto traits that the civilized world has abandoned. Developing our individual defense mechanism on the judgmental level is still as it was from hundreds of years ago.  For example, if somebody is a suspect in a murder(of course assuming politics is not involved or else people will be highly opinionated); people will conclude the following :

1. Some will say he/she is definitely guilty.
2. Some will say he/she is not; out of trying to be different.
3. Some will say he/she is not; out of being convinced he/she is not.
4. Some and very few will say let us wait for the verdict.  Moreover, many of those as well on the personal level has some sort of a conclusion but they are smarter than others not to share it.

 

At the same time, if people start abandoning this trait, their individual defense mechanism will retreat and this is OK if there is a judiciary system that is well implemented but this is not the case in our culture. 

Plagiarism of the National Anthem; Not so Strange

It is really frustrating that even the national anthem in our country might be plagiarized.

Check the following  link that dates back to 2011.  I know many of you might have seen the video but it will be really amusing for those who haven't.

http://www.nowlebanon.com/BlogDetails.aspx?TID=1400

The Lack of Social Sensitivity

 “Social awareness may be defined as the individual’s ability to understand people, social incidents, and the processes involved in regulating social events".  

Social senstivity though is an important component of social awareness where one uses one's judgement in order not to say or do what would hurt, embarass and make someone uncomfortable during social interaction.  In other words, to put one's self in someone else's shoes before imposing a question or an action.  In a study done by Professor Anita Woolley at University of Cernegie Mellon in Pittsburg Pennsylvania and published in New Scientist Journal, it has been proven that social senstivity trumps the general IQ of an interacting group and it plays an important role in group development that supersedes the benefit of the indivual's separate IQs.  It actually contributes to higher IQ on the individual level when well practiced.  

In our culture we lack social senstivity and when we are socially aware of certain differences or weaknesses, we confuse social sensitivity with hypocracy.   It actually occurred to me to write about this issue after a personal incident that happened with me last week in the US.  While spending time with some friends, there was a guy whom I met for the first time and who is a friend of a friend.  After chatting a bit about certain issues, I asked the following question: Did you finish your studies here or back in your country of origin?  To me and to many of you this might seem a normal question to ask.  However, after the guy left, my friend told me that this is an insensitive question to ask.  GUESS WHY?  

I assumed that the guy had finished his studies and of course my question got him uncomfortable cause he did not.  Although I have been practicing my social sensitivity for a long time now but still I made a mistake that could have been avoided if I just gave my conversation a bit more of a thought.  It is very common in our culture to ask the following questions which are all based on assumptions; for example

1. Where did you finish your studies?
2. When will you get married?
3. How many kids do you have?
4. Are you getting paid well?

Etc.....

Many might say,oh you don't have to take it that far but actually you do.   In our society as well, people don't like this kind of questions but most of them developed a defense mechanism towards this kind of behavior that covers intimidation when facing such incidents.   Some others might not care due to indifference about the requested information and due to somewhat social acceptance of certain weaknesses.  

Although the correlation between civilized societies and socially sensitive societies is clear but being socially sensitive on the individual level is a contagious phenomena that spreads quickly and we should definitely work on that.  Those who think it is easy to do, start it and let me know. 

Pepsi vs Coca Cola

Today's post is not really a deep analysis of any certain social behavior but rather a simple observation about a very common phenomena. 

It occurred to me to write about favoring Pepsi over Coca Cola or vise versa after a deep discussion with a friend of mine in the US about the effect of propaganda on people's decisions and after personally experiencing several occasions where people point out strongly that they favor one over the other.   The following also applies to other similar products and I really never understood why many people are so picky about their choices when I comes to that.

I always asked myself the following question:  If one has four cups, two filled with Pepsi and another two filled with Coca Cola, Will it be possible for someone to point out the difference?

In several occasions I was present where people always argued on which one tastes better and I thought that people talk about it out of deficiency of other fruitful conversations.   Guess what?  It turned out that I was wrong about one thing but right about the other.  Yes, people talk about that due to the lack of fruitful conversations but actually they might be right about the difference in taste that is not that obvious to me.  Check the following link where an experiment about the difference in taste was conducted at  http://syntheticremarks.com/?p=926.

However, other sources agree with me on the difficulty to distinguish between the two and that none is better than the other but rather slightly different.  Moreover, the difference in taste is not worth paying for one more than the other as it is the case in many countries.  Thus it is all a game of a well implemented media campaign.

To summarize,  it doesn't make sense to really feel strongly about favoring one of the two.  If both are available, then yes choose the one you like but if the presence is exclusive to one of th two, just get any.

The Secret Powers of Time

This week and due to travel arrangements, I will only post an interesting short video about the secret powers of time and how it shapes our life and our decisions.  This video briefs the theory of Professor Philip Zimbardo about the six time zones that people live in.    

From the suggested theory, we are past and present oriented people.

The Good Old Days

Days ago, I was mistakenly watching a music show on a supposedly respected national TV where the host was interviewing a composer.  The host started talking about the good old days of Arabic music and the old singers and the impossibility of having such great people again in our lifetime. She added that most of the new generation singers have nothing to do with music and art and nobody can ever take the place of our deceased old artists. So ideals, ideals and ideals.

It is not the first time I hear such a lame argument and I have also heard the same argument about other kinds of art.

I got no problem with those who like classics or old timers stuff but I have a problem with those who undermine the new generation without a valid argument.  I personally rarely see their work as high standard but here I would like to say why do I have a problem with that?

1. Art in general is a result of a social, psychological, political, etc... status of a given nation and as a result if those new guys are losers, it is a definite consequence of the disastrous status of our culture. So shoot at the culture and not at those poor people who think they got talent.  Their talents are relatively good compared to the nothingness that they live in.  To make the story short, we lack culture and we live in the culture of lacking.
2. Most who criticize the new generation and their limited capabilities are past oriented people who dwell on the past and live the dreams of the good old days or are negative competitors who won't admit any positive trait for people in their field of work. (I will shortly post an article about the culture of negative competition).

Guys, most of the old generation artists in our culture were not that good.  Only few made it and those are the ones you hear about today. (although I doubt the talents of many due to several plagiarism cases that were revealed).

I haven't heard Al Pacino talking bad about Brad Pitt or about Andrew Garfield trying to undermine their work.  I haven't heard Dolly Parton talking bad about Jay Z or about Rihanna.  Never seen a show on any respected western TV that demolishes the work of any popular artist but rather in many circumstances present a social/political/psychological analysis of his/her work.

Try to positively criticize and just forget about the wrong national quote that says: "Akbar minak youm, afham minak sini" which translates "He who is older than you by one day is a year ahead of you in knowledge".  This is not always true and I am sure many of you can prove that.

Conspiracy Theory: Not a Sign of Intelligence

"Conspiracy theory explains an event of being the result of alleged plot by a group, organization or government."  Although historically many conspiracy theories turned out to be true (Operation Ajax, Kennedy Assassination, Illuminati, etc...) but one cannot explain every strong phenomena by this theory.

We are culturally used to adopt this theory in many aspects.  We have to give up the idea that there is an office somewhere where a group of people meet and control every single aspect in every country, for every event at all times.  Predictions can be made about everything but certainty cannot be the norm.  Our people enjoy this theory and many get the rush of "feeling intelligent" due to certain analysis about an event in terms of this theory.  Yes some conspiracies can exist but building all ideas, plans and moves on such a thing will definitely jeopardize all the credibility of one's argument. Give a space to randomness and allow the unpredictably of human behavior to explain events.   


Trying to determine the reasons behind the heavy adoption of this theory, I arrived to somewhat a satisfying explanation after researching this topic and determining the socio-psychological factors behind such belief.

1. We culturally deal with things from an emotional point of view, and thus we strive sometimes for rationality, hence we try to explain randomness through a meaningful pattern.
2. Since our region has been struggling with wars and instability for ages, people try to turn a blind eye on the main reason of such a history and tend to blame it on others.  In order to have a clear evidence on what they already believe, they create such a rational pattern that satisfy their blame and that explains events.
3. Also due to instability in our region, people imagine to live in a predictable and safe world.  Since instability creates discomfort and in order to eliminate this discomfort, people tailor theories that best fit a certain explanation which makes them feel either safer or helpless. In both cases, it is a relief.

We Can't Say "No"

Why is it so difficult for us to say "No" when we don't want to do something?  Many say that we can't say "No" out of politness but guess what? Most of the time the effect of not saying "No" overcomes the  positive consequences of politness.  Others say we don't want to lose opportunities but guess what?  You will lose many others if you don't stand for your commitment on this one.  Others add; we want to help people but guess what?  In many circumstances, your agreement, if not implemented according to your promise, might be an obsticle.

However, I do believe that the problem is far more than politeness, lost opportunities and the need to help are concerned, it is a problem of wrong predictions. 

We are not programmed to plan for the future and we tend to make future predictions based on the present status or on similar previous experiences.  A past experience or a present event completely dictates our future assumptions in a country where tomorrow is uncertain in many aspects.  We lived decades of uncertainty and chaos at many levels so the concept of planning is almost inexistant.  The years of uncertainty that we lived give us an ideal image of the future so we tend to squeeze in all the pleasant events or ideals not taking into consideration other crucial real life factors.

The future is nothing but a continuous path on the time coordinate that might be affected by one's past or present decisions but can not be completely determined by the past or the present.  Think for a second and consider many variables before agreeing on future plans.  Eventually saying "No" when you can't do something will become easier and easier.

                                                              Image from Cartoon Clipart

Are We Really Smarter?

Social behavior varies from one culture to another and it is interesting how different people from different cultures react under certain circumctances.  However and in almost every culture, most people generalize or derive their conclusions about others from the first impression.   Many of us though leaves a bad first impression due to a very tempting assumption.

Many assume that they are smarter than the person they are talking to and guess what?  In many cases they are wrong.  Many of them think that this tricky move is buying them respect and power but in most cases this backfires really hard.  This is how many people do it here:

1. They talk to someone assuming they are smarter.
2. They realize they are not specially after ones disapproval on many inaccuracies or fallacies.
3. They retreat and give the person the space to express his/her point.
4. They end up talking to him/her as he/she is smarter.
5. They lose his/her respect.

Talking to a friend about that, he adds a very important observation;  "After their realization that they are not smarter, they proceed using the same conversation technique with another person and this goes on and on." 

The Push-Pull Dilemma

Wait next to a store that has a sign "push" on its door and count the number of people who pull the door instead.  I conducted this experiment on three different days for thirty minutes each.  I chose Monday (the most annoying working day), Friday (last working day) and Saturday (supposedly the problem free day) and guess how the results came out to be?

All the results from the three different days matched regardless of the pressure factors that were taken into consideration.  The result came out to be 85-89% of people did the wrong thing and only 11-15% of the people thought before attempting to open the door.

I said to myself: "Maybe, the sign is in English and even though you know what it means, you still have to think it so let me try a store with an Arabic sign on it "Idfaa3" (which means push in Arabic). I did exactly the same experiment and guess what the results came out to be?  Amazingly 82-85% of the people did the wrong step again.

So then I had to analyze this problem and I reached the following conclusion:

We are either highly intelligent and we keep our mind extremely occupied so we do not notice small details or it is easier for us to try all possibilites rather than giving our actions a thought.   Well, I don't think it is the first case and I hope it is not the second one so what is left is that there might be a flaw in my sampling process.

Arrogance: The Nation Number One Killer

Arrogance according to Merriam Webster is an attitude of superiority manifested in an overbearing manner or in a presumptuous claims or assumptions.  Here is the catch: "Assumptions" and Webster got right in our case.  Many in this country claim superiority over others in different ways but guess what?  All this superiority is built on irrelevant and fake assumptions.  This growing phenomena is the number one killer in our country and it is growing fast.  Besides all the obvious reasons from the creation of the "nouveau riche"  in the post-war era to the "copy-paste" method of many concepts from the West without passing through the normal evolution into those concepts, there is a socio-psychological reason behind this phenomena.

It seems to me that many of those who have this sense of arrogance in this country are those who either achieved something relatively minor or achieved nothing and they either truly believe that their achievements are significant or they know the limitation of their achievements.  Approaching this phenomena through this angle will definitely relieve you and will keep you sane if you want to live here.  People in this small society are very close to one another and this closeness automatically creates social pressure in addition to other forms of pressure. This pressure pushes one to achieve and many average persons are psychologically paying the price.  In case one's achievements were non-impressive or nonexistent, one has to create this wall between him/her and the society in order to hide one's weaknesses.  From behind this wall, one either has to amplify his/her minor achievements, invent virtual ones or has to materialistically substitute for his/her lacking in this aspect.  Don't get me wrong here; we all like luxury and we all seek to serve our comfort in the physical world but not to the point when our belongings define us or when it becomes a pillar of our identity.  This show off society makes many outside observers sick while when one try to look at this issue from this perspective, it actually makes one feel bad.

Think-Say-Do

Our ideas, words and actions define us in our surrounding.  However, it takes lots and lots of practice to get the three aligned in harmony.  Those who think this is easy to do, think twice. What we think, what we say and what we do start as inconsistent during childhood but as we grow older, we are expected to get them closer and closer by narrowing the distance between the three and through experience we should succeed eventually in unifying them. Once we achieve the unity among the three, we are consistent honorable people whom will be taken as a good example in our surrounding.  It is very common in our culture though to align at most two of the three and still preserve consistency in people's eyes.  Why is that?  Why is deceiving considered a survival technique?  Why do we confuse it with intelligence? Why is it OK to violate the harmony among the three and still be considered respectable people?  Guess what?

• If what you think and what you say, you don't do then you are a hypocrate.
• If what you think and what you do is not what you say then you are a deceptive person.
• If what you say and what you do is not what you have in mind, then you are either weak or abusive.
• If what you think is not what you say and what you do is not what you think and what you say then you lost the real sense of humanity.

  

A Nation of Diagonal Readers

Reading is listed under the interests or hobbies in almost every vitae I have encountered in Lebanon.    Do you know how many people have I met in the last four years who were interested in philosophy?  At many points, I felt stupid so I tried to read about the philosophers they mentioned and I got stuck for hours trying to understand one line of the definition of one's philosophical ideas.  How do all those people read a book about Heidegger in a week?  How can they understand Nietzsche's ideas in hours?  By the way, it is currently trendy to have Nietzsche as your favorite philosopher in Lebanon.  There has been a shift in the last decade from the admiration of Plato, Aristotle and Socrates; those guys are outdated.  You are only an intellect if you admire Nietzsche.   

In an effort to organize my thoughts, let me define reading.  "Reading is a complex process of decoding symbols in order to derive a meaning".   Once the meaning is derived, I don't believe it can be lost in a relatively short time.  However, talking to those geniuses, most of them are out of it.  Why is that?

We are diagonal readers or even worse, we are last page readers.  We are superficial readers who once we get one idea of what we read, we dwell on it.  We read one idea and then analyze it and talk about our analysis for hours thinking we got the point of the writer.  We are so smart, we do not have to read the rest.

If you don't like to read just admit it. Saying nothing due the lack of knowledge is way better than talking with the lack of the real understanding. Knowing a little from many things is good but it has to come after knowing a lot from one thing at least.  People admire and listen to those who talk with sense and one can only talk with sense about something if one knows it well.

I cannot wait for a device linked to a search engine that one can carry and it beeps every time somebody says something inaccurate.  I swear to you this machine will be playing symphonies as you sit with many people around here.  Worse than that, there is a common Lebanese quote: "Talking is tax free" translated from "El 7aki Ma 3li joumrouk".  This really reflect the sense of forgiveness that people have towards inaccurate speakers.  Forgiveness is great but not when the distortion of knowledge is concerned.  Knowledge is not show-off, it is a tool when combined with self-experience generates deep self-understanding and facilitates the understanding of the surroundings.  

Critical Thinking

An amazing tool for the survival of our species.  We can debate that without it, we would have been extinct.  For certain, it opened horizons for us to develop and to reshape our lives in its current form.   We are living  the age of thinkers and those who don't think cannot compete anymore.  It is the age where only the thinker can excel.  Come up with something new and you win.   Please give up the idea that memory is the greatest treasure.  It is a treasure only when it acts as a supporter to our critical thinking.  We are culturally programmed to use memory as the trash can of the difficult analysis.  Guess what, it is backfiring nowadays.  We are incapable of  producing originality cause it is way ahead of us. We need to run the rusted engines again.  We are not anymore impressed with those who memorize the capitals of the countries cause we can google them.   We got to think and think and yes it is hard.  Thinking is not exclusive to the educated, it should be the main tool in every profession  in order to develop that profession.

Our educational system is a memory based system with huge comprehension gaps.  Just listen to people saying that Lebanese education is so so strong, our kids excel abroad.  Maybe many of our kids excel abroad but thanks to their system and not ours.   

We have to start encouraging our kids to think alone.  Their dependency on us should be a decreasing sequence and not a monotonic behavior.  Encourage their sense of choice.  Try to avoid the "do this and do that" but get your way by giving them choices with consequences.  We got to teach our kids to memorize only what they understand cause then their solid base starts to build up.  Push our schools to rely less on memory and more on analysis.  We want future thinkers who think twice before they speak, who use emotions where it belongs and who can filter useless irrational conversations in addition to many other things that will for sure be obvious then.

A High Context Society

Our society is a high context society that loves sophistication and difficult expressions.  Watch our movies, listen to speeches or attend a play. Ten sentences can be said in one word, three scenes can be described in one scene.  Guys, great movies that made millions of dollars if not billions were based on a simple story, one or two thoughts the most per excellent commercial movies.  The days of sophistication are gone.  Difficult words are vanishing, spiced expressions are outdated, over dramatic gestures are not even funny anymore.   Why are we still stuck in this high context culture?  Is it because we are not used to say things directly?  Is it because we lack critical thinking so we try to fill our sentences with words waiting for the brain to continue the right thought?  Is it because we repeat what we hear and we think plagiarism is a smart tool?  Is it a culture of memorizing rather than thinking?  Is it all what I mentioned?