In defence of grand theory



As the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico haemorrhages the refuse of industry into the water, infecting the environment and strangling the oxygen of aquatic life, we hear the echoes of the slogan "drill baby, drill". Now I love metaphor, and reading meaning into the physical environment is part of the synthesis of form and content. Inference is the sole purview of the rational animal.

The current environmental disaster alludes to some interesting readings into the crisis of the contemporary intellectual landscape. For the past 50 years the emphasis of intellectual work has been to purposely move away from anything that smacked of a grand scheme. Correct thinking had to be intensely specific, intensely local. It would be governed by context and never accused of generalising. In its narrowness and specificity it was akin to drilling down to the very particular details of one specific case.

This 'mode' of thinking and analysis is important. A person's actual situation is never decontextualised. We have to account for that. But the contention is that something is lost here. Specifically what is lost is one's global positioning on the map of a bigger picture. Without recourse to a holistic cartography a person cannot make sense of trajectories as the flux of their existence causes positions to evolve and change.

The resulting scatteredness and atomisation of being leads to a type of narrowness and a myopia of sorts. Self is lost, identity is lost, the forest, as an environment, as a larger context, can no longer be seen. But when I say identity here, I mean ontological identity. It is a structure much deeper than the superficial identity politics of swappable labels; for example, citizen/immigrant, black/white, Labour/Conservative.

But to what degree is this merely the reverberations of post-structuralism and its penchant for surfaces and allergy to centres, and not a reflection of the individualistic direction of the past 100 or so years? Radical specificity causes us to be disconnected, insensitive and fragmented. It causes us to be heedless of the impact of our actions and ideas on the greater "environments" that we occupy and share. Our vantage point becomes narrow. To correct this minor glitch a fix, called relativism, is applied. The problem is that once relativism is activated, the lights go out, value is lost and we're all moving about in the dark with a feigned air of confidence.

This confidence however, belies the frightened confusion that somewhere in this dark room to which we have subjected ourselves lays the edge of the abyss of nihilism. While the Quran, in haunting intonations, warns "and do not toss yourselves, by your own hands, into destruction." A superior corrective would be one that joins between these two extremes, recognising the value in each. The need for a map presupposes the mastery of cartography. Case-specific analysis ensures that one's map is in 360-degree relief. Dr Recep Senturk, of the Istanbul Foundation for Research and Education (ISAR), proposes that Islamic 'fiqh' provides the foundations of an alternative social science because of the priority that both fields give to the analysis of human action.

But the system cannot be complete without recognition of a spectrum of universal principles that spans the continuum of time and space, allowing the ability to calibrate "global positioning". Once the holism of the system is in place, and one possesses the astrolabe and sextant to read this canopy operating above, we are then enabled to chart a course. Jihad Hashim Brown is director of research at the Tabah Foundation. He delivers the Friday sermon at the Maryam bint Sultan Mosque in Abu Dhabi.

The Bio

Hometown: Bogota, Colombia
Favourite place to relax in UAE: the desert around Al Mleiha in Sharjah or the eastern mangroves in Abu Dhabi
The one book everyone should read: 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It will make your mind fly
Favourite documentary: Chasing Coral by Jeff Orlowski. It's a good reality check about one of the most valued ecosystems for humanity

MATCH INFO

Uefa Champions League semi-final:

First leg: Liverpool 5 Roma 2

Second leg: Wednesday, May 2, Stadio Olimpico, Rome

TV: BeIN Sports, 10.45pm (UAE)

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

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Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
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What: 2006 World Cup quarter-final
When: July 1
Where: Gelsenkirchen Stadium, Gelsenkirchen, Germany

Result:
England 0 Portugal 0
(Portugal win 3-1 on penalties)

The Sand Castle

Director: Matty Brown

Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea

Rating: 2.5/5

Unresolved crisis

Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president was ousted, Moscow annexed Crimea and then backed a separatist insurgency in the east.

Fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces has killed more than 14,000 people. In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal, known as the Minsk agreements, that ended large-scale hostilities but failed to bring a political settlement of the conflict.

The Kremlin has repeatedly accused Kiev of sabotaging the deal, and Ukrainian officials in recent weeks said that implementing it in full would hurt Ukraine.

Gulf Under 19s final

Dubai College A 50-12 Dubai College B

Set-jetting on the Emerald Isle

Other shows filmed in Ireland include: Vikings (County Wicklow), The Fall (Belfast), Line of Duty (Belfast), Penny Dreadful (Dublin), Ripper Street (Dublin), Krypton (Belfast)

RedCrow Intelligence Company Profile

Started: 2016

Founders: Hussein Nasser Eddin, Laila Akel, Tayeb Akel 

Based: Ramallah, Palestine

Sector: Technology, Security

# of staff: 13

Investment: $745,000

Investors: Palestine’s Ibtikar Fund, Abu Dhabi’s Gothams and angel investors

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Name: Salem Alkarbi

Age: 32

Favourite Al Wasl player: Alexandre Oliveira

First started supporting Al Wasl: 7

Biggest rival: Al Nasr

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Artist: Linkin Park

Label: Warner Records

Number of tracks: 11

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Dubai Bling season three

Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed 

Rating: 1/5

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