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Arabia
The World's Most Toxic Value System
2007-12-29
The thar [Arabic for Dire Revenge™ 'blood vengeance'] mentality can be said to include these features. They vary in degree from person to person and place to place but if we find all or most of them in a society we can justly apply the label thar.

•Extreme importance of personal status and sensitivity to insult
•Acceptance of personal revenge including retaliatory killing
•Obsessive male dominance
•Paranoia over female sexual infidelity
•Primacy of family rights over individual rights

Nothing better illustrates the thar mentality better than the fury directed by Islamic militants against Danish and Norwegian cartoons of Mohammed.

Sacrilegious art in other cultures can offend and get people angry but the lunatic response of radical Islamists is in a class by itself. It's the shrieking, out of control petulance of a three-year old throwing a tantrum. People infected with this attitude will be utterly incapable of recognizing wrongdoing by their own society, utterly incapable of taking criticism or recognizing the need for correction.

This is remarkably close to the image of Hell painted by C. S. Lewis in his books Perelandra and The Screwtape Letters: a paralyzing self-absorption that imprisons the individual in hate and impotent rage while simultaneously blinding him to any possibility of escape.
Posted by:KBK

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Posted by: Anonymoose   2007-12-29 10:30  

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Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2007-12-29 07:57  

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Posted by: Whomong Guelph4611   2007-12-29 06:03  

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Posted by: Tony (UK)   2007-12-29 04:24  

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