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November 19, 2005
Disillusioned
I am disillusioned, with many things. With entertainment, with the monotony of life, with pretending to be happy and joyful. Everyone seems to be alive with an illusion of things. Everyone is trying to have "fun" based on a series of pre-defined ways of having fun.
The things we are fans of, books, movies, music, seem all to have fallen prey to repetition, remaking, and repackaging. The "new" version of my favourite comic book, Asterix the Gaul, looks like a collection of clippings from the previous books. My favourite singer seems to think that people liked him only because he could scream ludly. The movies I am watching all could have been generated randomly by a computer programme. The louder and more shiney they are, the better they seem to be.
We are suppose to like these things either because they are "classics" or they are the next big thing. We are contantly fed by the advertisement industry and led to believe that this is how things should be and this is the proper way to enjoy life. The makers of these products seem to have lost vision of what made them attractive originally: the fact that they touched a human nerve. We liked them because we saw ourselves in their mirror. The "new" versions of our old nostalgia are but a repackaging of the old things. I am tired of the cliche.
So, are we having fun yet?
Posted by Khodadad at 07:07 PM | Comments (4)
November 11, 2005
Grammar
I think everyone here has realised that I like languages. I like learning them particularly when they are obscure and hopefully safely dead!
However, I have a little secret too: I didn't know anything about grammar. I never learnt the Persian grammar, since the Iranian schools are very negligent about teaching the grammar. I also started learning English early on and never paid attention to the grammar. When I started studying German, I did some grammar, but still not much.
The problem began to show when I started to study dead languages. Everyone was expecting me to know the technical terms and concepts associated with the grammar, but I obviously did not know them. I tried reading grammar books on my own, but the results were less than desirable.
In classes such as Sanskrit and Avestan, I was totally lost about terms such as "subordinate clause" or "the ablative case" or things of that sort. I felt I am always behind the others, and it was not a great feeling.
This was the case until last year when I started studying Middle Persian. I had studied MP before, but mostly just with professors, reading a text and translating it withouth bothering much about the grammar and trying to analyze the words and sentences. But since last year, I have studied MP systematically with Prof. Rahim Shayegan who is a brilliant philologist, linguist, and historian and the student of the famous P. Oktor Skjaervo of Harvard. I think he could tell from the first glance that I don't know the grammar. He would always stop me in the middle of reading and ask me to parse a verb or noun and tell hims things such as "this is a third person plural indicative active present verb" or similar. He explained and re-explained the concepts of nouns governing adjectives and attributive and predicate positions and things of that sort.
This year, I am realising I am not only more comfortable with Middle Persian, I am also having a much better time in other languages such as Greek. I actually feel like I understand how words relate to each other grammatically and can pretty much explain it, although I still am slow at it.
I told this story to encourage everyone who might want to study history or languages or anything requiring the study of languages to make sure he or she is well versed in grammar. Iranians are notoriosly careless about languages, and I am finding out that the same is true about the Americans. In both cases the result has been that many people cannot write properly or make gross mistakes when speaking. I think it is a good idea for everyone to learn about grammar, it is a skill that might come in useful sometimes in your life.
Now I just have to learn all these terms in Persian!!
Posted by Khodadad at 12:14 AM | Comments (2)
November 08, 2005
Anthony Giddens
I went to listen to Anthony Giddens' talk last night. He is a famous sociologist and the former director of the London School of Economics (LSE), and consequently, his signature is on my MSc degree! He was and is a major advisor to the New Labour and Tony Blair. Since retiring from the LSE, he has become "Professor Lord Baron Anthony Giddens" and sits in the House of Lords for the Labour.
His talk was about Globalisation, his field of expertise. The talk was designed for the general audiences (which concidering the fact that he was talking at the UCLA, was a bit surprising), and thus he did not talk much about theories or issues. Most of the time he summarised the concept of Globalisation and its components. For the rest, he talked about terrorism and sounded a bit like the 24 hour news channels!
It is interesting that when he was a professor, he used to say the same things in a more neutral way, but since becoming a full time politician, he sounds very politically charged. At times, his talk almost sounded like the old imperialist/colonialist rhetoric of the bygone years! I was suprised and I was not sure how I should react.
In any case, listening to him was interesting, particularly hs answers to some angry sounding questions.
Here is the result of a Google search on him. There are even Anthony Giddens Trading Cards being sold in the internet!!!
Posted by Khodadad at 09:52 PM | Comments (1)
November 04, 2005
The List
My choice for the twenty most important non-political characters in history, in no particular order. These are all so important that I cannot make any of them more important than others. Obviously, due to the limits of my knowledge, my list is more concentrated on the areas I know the best. I also don't know the name of important persons such as the author of the Vidaevdat, or the one who first designed the dams in Mesopotamia. So, there are individuals who deserve to be mentioned, but who are nameless.
1- Plato: The Greek Philosopher
2- Zarathushtra: Iranian philosopher/prophet
3- Abu Reyhan Biruni: the amazing man of many crafts and sciences
4- Avicenna: a true genius
5- Ibn Moqaffa: the translator who started a scientific revolution
6- Su-Sung: Chinese engineer who surpassed many around him
7- Buddha: a true philosopher
8- Benjamin Franklin: walking encyclopaedia
9- Plutarch: ancient psychoanalyst
10- St. Augustine: the man who was all conscience
11- Averroes: influential philosopher
12- Panini: ancient grammarian
13- Jacob Grimm: linguist
14- Julian the Apostate: last of his kind
15- Fernand Braudel: modern historian
16- Erasmus of Rotterdam: Praise of Folly!
17- St. Cyril: gave voice to a whole race
18- Alcuin: true knowledge when it was most rare
19- Admiral Zheng He: he was the best of all explorers
20- Christopher Columbus: accident that changed the world
Posted by Khodadad at 09:17 PM | Comments (4)