your society

[Omeros]

المجتمع مهم جدا ..الا ان المجتمع يحوي اخطاء وشوائب كبيرة زكثيرة ...... هنا سنحاول عرض البعض ....ففي موضوع اخر تكلمنا عن نظرة التيار للشاذ الجنسي ....اما هنا فلنبدا بهذا الامر من نظرة اجتماعية ...فللننقد مجتمعنا لا ننتقده من اجل التحسين لا الثورة فقط وكما ليس من اجل التعبير عن المشاعر مشاعر القرف فقط ...
( ملاحظة : ارجو من المتحاورين الكرام الا يجيروا الاحاديث الى مواضيع دينية وانا لا اقول لا نتطرق لمواضيع مثل زواج المتعة ..الا انه هذا من وجهة نظرة اجتماعية لا دينية .....)

[BOILER]

Lets' start by demanding for the civil marriage.
It's 20 minutes and you can be in Cyprus.
So?

[Dalzi]

Thank you Omeros for this thread, I’d like to add something before we start our discussion.

We can divide the Lebanese people into three social groups.

1. Those who have decided to break free from most social and cultural norms, thus adopting western culture and incorporating it into our Lebanese society – The Liberals.
2. Those who hold firmly onto eastern cultural and social values – The Conservative.
3. Those who are in between, open to both eastern and western social/cultural norms - Neither too liberal nor too conservative.

So, what group do you believe you belong to and why?
What other characteristics can we add to each group?
Where are we to draw the line?
Can we conclude what group a person might fit into based on his/her posts?
How accurate are we, and is the way a person writes sufficient to classify him/her as belonging to this/that group?

Regards.

[shadow1]

On my just concluded visit to lebanon, I received a bonus in the form of meeting some forumers. Though a not life shattering experience, it did leave in my mouth a sweet taste and a wonderful memory.

On one occasion a member of this forum invited me and 10-12 other forumers, totally unknown to me personally to a picnic where we spent one lovely afternoon.

I enjoyed the friendly atmosphere with total strangers. They were pleasant, courteous, mentally stimulating. For someone who feels ill at ease in groups, I didnt want the time to pass so quickly so as to get the maximum enjoyment out of it.

However in the evening as I sat by candle light reading a book lent to me by one lady at the picnic, I began to wonder:

Had I met these people in the street would they have shown towards me the same politeness, respect and courtesy or would have they acted like all strangers fighting for the survival. What I mean has the people in our society been plagued by a subconscious need to fight for their space either for supremacy or for priority:
1-You go to a bank, someone who might come in after you cuts in before you to have his business concluded and without the slightest tinge of compunction. In fact he more often than not feels smug and لشاطر بشطارتو

2- You say please and thnak you and many think you are عمتستلمنas if acts of kindness are not expected between strangers.

3- You are nearer to exiting an elevator and yet someone tries to beat you to it as if you are insulting his dignity by getting out first even when you are nearer to the door.
4- You go into a shop you face (depending on how you are dressed) either an arrogant or a servile attidute and you notice the relation is often between باعص و مبعوص rather than a buyer and a seller. (I went to Jibsheet near Nabatyyeh to buy trees and asked my companion to call me Hassan so we may get them cheaper, to my astonishment the owner recognised one of my two comapnion (frequent customer) and didnt buy this Hassan thing but nevertheless sold us the goods 5 times cheaper than what we would pay for in Ghazeer and without having to speak French or know the french names of the trees)
5- You go on the roads and drivers drives in the manner يا قاتل يا مقتول and you wonder if they care not for their life why do they treat yours as worthless

6. You try to express a need for public good, you have your intentions doubted or that you are a weirdo.
7. Someone accidently steps on your foot and they give you a look(if they bother at all) that it was your fault and you should have known they were going to step there.

You feel defeated and you wonder what role the corruption in the political system has played in making us feel an inner need to snatch things before someone else does it and be so territorial. As if our whole society is in a state of severe struggle for survival with all the associated requirements of toughness, lack of kindness, lack of manners.

And yet when you are amongst people you know or even just met, you feel a typical warmth in such a short space that you would not feel from westerners even if you lived with them all your life.
As a society are we becoming too cruel and kidness (to strangers) is a sign of weakness?

[Dalzi]

Shadow, we need more like you in Lebanon :D. The problem is that each thinks that being humble is a sign of weakness. If you humble yourself, they look down on you lol. Baddak tdall dareb 7alak bmisheyye kbire ta yshoufuk kbir .

[Abufijli]

The thing that distresses me the most about our society is "showing off".

Everyone, especially the youth are in a constant battle to be the better person not in manners and kindness but in having the biggest biceps, the nicer car, the best looking boyfriend or girlfriend, the best house etc...

I don't feel the need to compete with people on these petty issues. I have other things to worry about.

Individualism gone wrong.

[coralie]

معك قرش بتسوا قرش

this is what our society is all about :
mazahir , tefchikh w akel hawa !
kezb , ma7soubiyet , w foujour !
techbi7 , la2la2a , w 3angahiyet bala ta3meh .....



can we call this a society ?

[supersonichadi]

In 1974, a group of European scientists came to Lebanon in order to make a social and economical analysis of how does a normal Lebanese person live, they arrived to a very confused conclusion, 75 % of the normal Lebanese people spend money in a month more than there monthly income

[supersonichadi]

Originally Posted by Dalzi

Thank you Omeros for this thread, I’d like to add something before we start our discussion.

We can divide the Lebanese people into three social groups.

1. Those who have decided to break free from most social and cultural norms, thus adopting western culture and incorporating it into our Lebanese society – The Liberals.
2. Those who hold firmly onto eastern cultural and social values – The Conservative.
3. Those who are in between, open to both eastern and western social/cultural norms - Neither too liberal nor too conservative.

So, what group do you believe you belong to and why?
What other characteristics can we add to each group?
Where are we to draw the line?
Can we conclude what group a person might fit into based on his/her posts?
How accurate are we, and is the way a person writes sufficient to classify him/her as belonging to this/that group?

Regards.

I like the in between (3rd choice) and am one of them for one simple reason. We are living in a country that contains people from the east and the west and in order to communicate with all the lebanese people (and that is my aim in life) we have to be between the both, i.e understanding the both and trying to reduce the gap between them. Just as a note, the people that are very liberal, oftenly are rich and placing the highest positions in their work or themselves have companies and very high income business, while the conservative are oftenly more poor