About Calls to Prayer

For several years I have taught week-long courses at law schools in Istanbul, Turkey. Those visits have been put on pause due to COVID. I was a couple weeks from traveling to Istanbul once again in early March, 2020, but I reluctantly cancelled that.

I often think of the many people I repeatedly visit when I'm in Turkey. Like most of my friends in the U.S., digital technologies have made it possible to keep in touch, but I look forward to the day when I can once again take it all in through all five senses.

Back here in St. Louis, Missouri, I tend to my ordinary life. Every week or so, however, I fondly think of something that I couldn't have predicted before I first visited the Middle East. I often think of the call to prayer.

In the Middle East, the muezzin calls out from the top of nearby minarets five times each day (sometimes more than one at the same time if you are between minarets). It's a call, for sure, and almost seems like a song, but I've been told that it is not singing. The calls seemed like intrusions on my ears until I heard many of them. Gradually, over my repeated visits, the call to prayer became an exceptionally beautiful moment for me. I write this as an atheist who doesn't understand any of the words of the call to prayer. For me, its beauty is about the sounds and the moment, coupled with images of the venerable mosques I visited (I took these photos in Turkey and Egypt). Also coupled with the second-to-none hospitality of the people I met in the Middle East. It's different than church bells, because it's only five times each day and because you are not hearing a mechanical bell--you are hearing a human being earnestly calling out to you.

As I repeatedly visited Turkey, I started looking forward to the calls as opportunities to stop and think about life and my place in the world. I also took it as a reminder to always be tending to things that really matter because the day is always slipping away. It is also a reminder that you are part of a much bigger community because that call is to everyone in hearing distance, not just you.

There are many reasons for craving an effective vaccine for COVID. For me, this is a reason that I didn't anticipate. This is a good example of a reason that you should travel to new places: If you travel with the right state of mind, you will be changed by what you encounter.

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Deborah Tannen’s Observation that The Argument Culture Has Been Brewing for a Long Time

Deborah Tannen, The Argument Culture (1998), well before social media took over:

This is not another book about civility. “Civility”suggests a superficial, pinky-in-the-air veneer of politeness spread thin over human relations like a layer of marmalade over toast. "This book is about a pervasive warlike atmosphere that makes us approach public dialogue, and just about anything we need to accomplish, as if it were a fight. It is a tendency in Western culture in general, and in the United States in particular, that has a long history and a deep, thick, and farranging root system. It has served us well in many ways but in recent years has become so exaggerated that it is getting in the way of solving our problems. Our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention— an argument culture.

The argument culture urges us to approach the world— and the people in it— in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as “both sides”;the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you’re really thinking is to criticize.

Our public interactions have become more and more like having an argument with a spouse. Conflict can’t be avoided in our public lives any more than we can avoid conflict with people we love. One of the great strengths of our society is that we can express these conflicts openly. But just as spouses have to learn ways of settling their differences without inflicting real damage on each other, so we, as a society, have to find constructive ways of resolving disputes and differences. Public discourse requires making an argument for a point of view, not having an argument— as in having a fight."

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Facebook Safe Usage Product Warnings

I recently watched the new documentary, "The Social Dilemma." which has inspired me to cut my usage of Facebook. Rather than simply scold myself to cut FB usage, I decided to create more detailed guidance for myself (and anyone else who finds this useful):

Facebook Safe-Usage Product Warnings

A. Use FB no more than 10 minutes per day (extra time allowed for posting content I create and for exchanging private messages). Set a timer. This limited use will function like the rule many people use for potato chips: Put a handful into a small bowl instead of gobbling them out from the full bag.

B. Before any FB session, remind myself that FB is a valuable and useful platform with serious hidden dangers. Thus, using FB is like using a dangerous consumer product where the manufacturer failed to attach necessary usage warnings.

C. Remind myself that FB has been meticulously designed as a highly-sophisticated manipulation engine. In the short run, FB is addictive. In the long run, FB encourages us to think like teams instead of as individuals and this it is ripping our communities apart.

D. Only use FB intentionally, never out of boredom, out of habit or thoughtlessly. Don’t use FB unless I’m using it consciously. Avoid using FB when I’m tired or fatigued, because these are times when I am especially prone to go down the FB rabbit hole.

E. Before using FB, always ask myself whether there is a better use of my time, such as directly reaching out to a friend or choosing my own next thought process.

F. Do not access FB from my phone.

G. Keep all FB notifications turned off, except for private messages.

H. Use FB for several defined purposes only. If I stray from these purposes, turn FB off.

1. Checking out what is up with people I know well. 2. Interacting with thoughtful people. 3. Reading and sharing interesting, inspiring and light-hearted posts. 4. Connecting with special-interest FB Groups that I have consciously chosen to join. 5. Keeping an eye on FB Events that I might want to attend. 6. Sharing my photography and articles I’ve written at Dangerous Intersection. 7. Sharing well-written articles that I have found outside of FB.

I. Whenever on FB, I should strive to use the same tone and degree of kindness that I use when communicating with someone in person.

J. My FB friends will mostly be feeding me a steady diet of articles that reenforce my existing opinions. Therefore, I need to remind myself to always look beyond FB to seek out diverse sources of information, including news sources that are not in my comfort zone.

K. Repeatedly remind myself that FB’s algorithms delude users into believing that those with differing opinions are idiots who we are entitled to treat rudely.

L. Whenever I sense that I am caught in a cycle of doom-scrolling, I should shut off FB.

M. Always vet articles for accuracy before sharing anything on FB.

N. Remind everyone I meet to watch the important new documentary: The Social Dilemma.

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Purity Tests, Friendship and Thomas Jefferson

I see the opposite of Jefferson's wise approach commonly being celebrated on FB.

A few months ago, I was booted from a decades-long friendship by a woman who insisted, out of the blue, that I needed to acknowledge the unparalleled wisdom of the Roman Catholic Church. Ideological purity tests everywhere I look these days. This is exactly what Terror Management Theory predicts when death is in the air, when mortality is "salient."

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