Reading Joseph Mossad's article on the Arab Spring from 2012, shapes an interesting view of that naming. I was learning recently about Edward Said's view on how authority affects shaping of knowledge,

His argument was as follows:

• Knowledge about the “East” is not neutral.
• It is produced by powerful institutions.
• These authorities define reality in ways that serve their interests. So whoever has authority doesn’t just describe the world; they construct how it is understood.

Massad’s critique of the term “Arab Spring” is a textbook example of Said’s theory: Western governments/media (the authority) coined and popularized the term. The label frames the uprisings as: Liberal and Pro-Western. Similar to European “Spring” movements. This framing filters out: Economic struggle, Anti-neoliberal demands Class conflict, and even anti-western demands (like connections to Israel). This is not just naming but also producing knowledge that aligns with power. #Propaganda #Politics

From a reddit comment:

The point of college is to index everything, not to understand it. You'll only understand it for a while after your exams, and after that, you will just have your index and a vague sense of what is true and what is preposterous.

So if someone says they've invented a perpetual motion machine, you'll quickly be like, "Hang on, that sounds crazy," even though you don't actually remember the laws of thermodynamics. A quick search, and you'll be able to explain it again.

All your education will end up in this state. You'll know what smells right and hopefully still retain some keywords to find what you are after.

You'll know what's simple and what's complicated. You'll know all established facts from current areas of research. You'll know who the authorities are in your field.

You don't need to know everything in financial math, BTW. You can know there are formulas for options on options without knowing what they look like. You'll internalise things like delta and vega changes with the market without remembering the exact formulas.

#Modus Vivendi #I'm not consulting an LLM

Sheikh Ewis was a very close friend to my Father, whose life was a complete tragedy. I don't remember his look very well, but I can say he looked like Tolstoy, and I remember him as a fakir, just like Leo Tolstoy, and just like my father himself. Maybe that's why they were friends. I was told that he donated some of his Land for the Azhar school in which I studied at. And I'm also aware that he built the Sheikh Ewis Masjid (that's how me, and my father, used to call it), which talks about how he valued his faith, knowing that he was a poor person. All of his kids were also very hardworking, his wife was (is) a hardworking woman. In fact, she very hardworking, I still remember seeing here everyday at her work, in the morning when I was walking my way to Azhar. My dad also used to love the mosque there, I'm unsure why. And my dad does not like to express a lot, and I find it hard to ask him (I hope I do soon, along with the many other questions I want to ask him before his death). Back to the story, Sheikh Ewis had one of the most tragic lives I have ever read, heard, or seen in my life. I always felt sad when I thought about him. Funny enough, when I was thinking about the Prophet Ayoub, I always imagined someone like him. My dad still goes to the mosque there, a lot of the times when I'm back to the town and I can't find him anywhere, my mother tells me to go look at the Ewis Mosque. I asked my mum recently why he always go there (instead of going to nearer mosques around the house), she said that this one is never closed. I like to think that the reason has to do more with him, recalling death in the place of one of his ever closest friends, alone, reading Quran and praying for hours and nights.