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3 Responses to “It’s a dog’s life”

1. onparkstreet Says:
   April 9th, 2011 at 4:37 pm

   Funny comics
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   OT: I discussed an idea I had about narrative and the DARPA-net posts you and J. Scott have done. Here is one quick example of what I am thinking (and it’s not particularly original):

   "Having been a very brief witness to the expat scene in Kabul — a kaleidoscopic bacchanalia of excess and debauchery — the need for catharsis from being a participant for so long is obvious.
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   Interesting review. I know nothing of the Kabul journalistic or expat culture so I have no idea if you review is accurate or not (in deference to some of the commenters above who object to your review). Still, I found it interesting!
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   It reminded me of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala’s collection of short stories Out of India
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   The book is available on Google books.I think you might enjoy the stories, Mr. Foust. She is very good at describing western foreigners in environments that don’t always bring out the best in those very travelers. Her writing is sometimes deemed orientalist by critics, but I don’t think this collection is particularly orientalist. I think, essentially, she is describing herself in an environment that she doesn’t really like (and she doesn’t like herself or the way she behaves in that environment, either.)
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   She does an amazing job of displaying people that are dislocated from their environments and from their own inner selves – a kind of lost “seeker” that you might find in some expatriate communities.
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   At any rate, your review made me think of the stories. One in particular, “My first marriage,” is a chilling inventory of a kind of temporary “madness” that might overtake a cult member. That is how I read the story, anyway. Again, you can read a bit of it on Google books.
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   Okay, I’ve rambled on long enough. Good, if harsh, series of posts lately."
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   From a comment I left at Registan.
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   http://www.registan.net/index.php/2011/03/02/inside-the-taliban-shuffle/

   What if you were to look at the writings of Western expatriates in Asia, the Middle East, etc. People that are "seekers," a little lost within their own cultures, searching for some happiness. They way we study people that find themselves involved in a religious cult.
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   Search those narratives for key phrases and key words. Do the same searches online. What overlap might you find from Westerners being recruited for terrorism and the like?
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   Not a new thought, I know, but I was wondering more about the application of what it means to study religious and spiritual seekers and how that might apply to the personality types attracted to do violence.
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   – Madhu

2. Charles Cameron Says:
   April 9th, 2011 at 7:08 pm

   Hi Madhu:
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   As it happens, I’ve been a member of an email-list of people who research "new religious movements" for quite a while now, and one of the earliest academic papers about bin Laden and AQ was a 2001 treatment from the historian Jean Rosenfeld of the UCLA Center for the Study of Religion, who occasionally comments here.
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   She’s not addressing the issue from the "narrative" perspective, but certainly regards AQ as a "NRM" — and indeed notes:

   The genotype of Al-Qa’ida is what Catherine Wessinger and Michael Barkun call "revolutionary millennialism."

   That’s pretty much the angle I’m coming from, too.

3. Charles Cameron Says:
   April 15th, 2011 at 1:59 am

   A friend pointed out that I didn’t link to my sources on this one.  FTR:
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   Peter Steiner cartoon from the New Yorker — Jeff Stahler "Moderately Confused" cartoon