The Narcissism of Small Differences?

2021 ◽  
pp. 151-172
Author(s):  
Gadi Sagiv
Keyword(s):  
Formative Period ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Charismatic Leader ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Fragmented Structure

This chapter highlights the problematic nature of every attempt to characterize the diverse Hasidic groups, schools of thought, and sects, which comprise the Hasidic movement. It talks about three well-known Hasidic leaders: ’the Yehudi,’ Simhah Bunem of Pshiskhe, and the Rabbi of Kotsk, who are generally considered founders of the distinctive Pshiskhe–Kotsk school but differed greatly in their respective spiritual orientations. It also explains Hasidism as a collection of distinct and often conflicting groups that comprises one charismatic leader each, who usually belongs to a dynasty of hereditary leaders. The chapter discusses the awakening of the collective consciousness of belonging to one movement among the disciples of the Magid of Mezeritsh. It describes the fragmented structure of the movement that was inherent from its earliest formative period.

Mass popular movement “Hirak” in Algeria - a new “Arab Spring”?

2021 ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Nailia Z. Fakhrutdinova
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Protest Movement ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Mass Protest

Serious changes are taking place in socio-political life of Algeria. The mass protest movement "Hirak", which began in 2019, after the country's president announced his decision to run for a fifth term, continues to these days. Despite his resignation, a prompt change of political leadership and elections to a new parliament, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in all cities of Algeria insist on further democratization and genuine modernization of socio-political and socio-economic structures, taking into account the interests and needs of young people. Indeed, more than half of the population of Algeria is under 30 years old, and unemployment among them reaches 24%. A distinctive tendency of the protest movement was the active participation of young people, which, according to the new leadership of the country, is the true real wealth of the state. Analysts note the awakening of collective consciousness in Algeria. Hirak's ability to make quick decisions during a pandemic shows that demonstrations are an instrument of extremely broad public momentum. Certain positive shifts towards changes have taken place - the president, who has been in power for 20 years, has resigned. However, the political situation can hardly be called stable. Including the majority of popular revolutionary protest actions in African countries ended with an immediate deepening of conservatism, the strengthening of traditionalism and the surge of radical Islamism. Probably, only in a fairly long-term perspective we can expect a real modernized stabilization of the socio-political situation, without which progressive economic development and its derivatives: an increase in the standard of living of the population and a decrease in unemployment are unrealizable.

The Cortisol Response to Normal and Nocturnal Awakening

2000 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Hucklebridge ◽  
A. Clow ◽  
H. Rahman ◽  
P. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Area Under The Curve ◽  
Secretory Activity ◽  
Linear Increase ◽  
Cortisol Response ◽  
The Awakening ◽  
Basal Cortisol ◽  
Free Cortisol ◽  
Main Effect ◽  
Nocturnal Awakening ◽  
Night Awakening

Abstract Free cortisol as measured in saliva increases markedly following awakening. It is not clear, however, whether this is truly a stress-neuroendocrine response to awakening or a manifestation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) circadian cycle. We investigated whether the awakening cortisol response can be generated in the middle of nocturnal sleep, when secretory activity in the HPA axis is low. In a within subject design, salivary cortisol response was measured under three different awakening conditions: (1) awakening at the normal morning awakening time; (2) awakening four hours prior to normal awakening time, and (3) awakening the following morning after interrupted sleep. The overall main effect was a linear increase in free cortisol following awakening with no significant interaction with awakening condition. Cortisol levels, as determined by area under the cortisol curve calculated with reference to zero, did differ by awakening condition. The two morning awakening conditions were comparable but values were lower for night awakening. Area under the curve change (calculated with reference to the first awakening cortisol base value), however, did not distinguish the three awakening conditions. We conclude from these data that there is a clear free cortisol response to awakening for both nocturnal and morning awakening although the absolute levels produced are lower for nocturnal awakening when basal cortisol is low. Nocturnal interruption of sleep did not affect the subsequent morning response.

Sufi Springs: Air on an Oud String

CounterText ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline Rooney
Keyword(s):  
Free Market ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Collective Consciousness ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Initial Part ◽  
Egyptian Revolution ◽  
Mimetic Desire ◽  
Arab Uprisings ◽  
The Will ◽  
Arts Activism

The initial part of Caroline Rooney's essay offers an incisive account of the author's experience of Cairo in the years leading up to the 2011 uprisings that led to the end of Hosni Mubarak's rule. Rooney's narrative evinces an active Downtown cosmopolitan spirit characterised by a burgeoning sense of ‘audacity’ in forms of arts activism, and its attendant collective spirit of perseverance that increasingly rendered ineffective the repressive manoeuvres of Egypt's disciplinary State. Criticising the impulse to construe the Egyptian revolution in terms of a mimetic desire for a secular democracy on Western lines, Rooney insists that the Arab uprisings consisted, in many respects, of a revolution against Western-style free market neoliberalism. Countering the perpetual cynicism attendant to the latter, Rooney argues, requires a form of politicisation that maintains ‘the ongoing presence of the real as a matter of collective spirit’ – one that can outlast the colonial interlude by resisting the absolutist self-assertion of market fundamentalism and its collusions with ‘diplo-economic cosmopolitanism’ as a mode of class-discriminatory privilege, as well as the compromising nature of right-wing Islam. Rooney moves on to locate a counter-movement based on an alternative form of consciousness that manifests itself ‘as solidarity, as resoluteness, as genuine comradeship, as collective consciousness, as revolutionary faith and [as] festiveness.’ In the last part of her essay, Rooney raises the intriguing case of Sufism, and specifically its mulid rituals and its important role in the Egyptian revolutionary effort, as a relational cultural mode that can survive the will-to-dominance as a persistent and liberatory collective gesture.

Gendering Emotions: Ṭarab, Women and Musical Performance in Three Biographical Narratives from ‘The Book of Songs’

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-183
Author(s):  
Karen Moukheiber
Keyword(s):  
Formative Period ◽  
Musical Performance ◽  
Ruling Elite ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Musical Performances ◽  
Slave Women ◽  
Social Conduct ◽  
Literary Biographies ◽  
The One ◽  
The Book Of Songs

Musical performance was a distinctive feature of urban culture in the formative period of Islamic history. At the court of the Abbasid caliphs, and in the residences of the ruling elite, men and women singers performed to predominantly male audiences. The success of a performer was linked to his or her ability to elicit ṭarab, namely a spectrum of emotions and affects, in their audiences. Ṭarab was criticized by religious scholars due, in part, to the controversial performances at court of slave women singers depicted as using music to induce passion in men, diverting them from normative ethical social conduct. This critique, in turn, shaped the ethical boundaries of musical performances and affective responses to them. Abū l-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī’s tenth-century Kitāb al-Aghānī (‘The Book of Songs’) compiles literary biographies of prominent male and female singers from the formative period of Islamic history. It offers rich descriptions of musical performances as well as ensuing manifestations of ṭarab in audiences, revealing at times the polemics with which they were associated. Investigating three biographical narratives from Kitāb al-Aghānī, this paper seeks to answer the following question: How did emotions, gender and status shape on the one hand the musical performances of women singers and on the other their audiences’ emotional responses, holistically referred to as ṭarab. Through this question, this paper seeks to nuance and complicate our understanding of the constraints and opportunities that shaped slave and free women's musical performances, as well as men's performances, at the Abbasid court.

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