Tarek Heggy on "Compromise" & the Arab Mind See the rest of his articles here on Winds of Change.NET.

Back in November, I noted briefly that Arabic culture has no real word for compromise, and that such words as are used in translation often have overtones of surrender and shame.

The incomparable Randall Parker recently pointed me to Egyptian author Tarek Heggy, a Renaissance Man in the true sense of the term. His "A Culture of Compromise" article is fascinating reading, not only for its insights into the Arab mind but also for this insight into the Anglosphere:

"For nearly twenty years, I had the opportunity to work closely with people drawn from over fifty different nationalities in a global economic establishment which remains, after a long history stretching back to the nineteenth century, one of the five largest establishments in the world. What I noticed over the years is that people with a west European background use the word 'compromise' more often than those coming from an eastern cultural tradition. As the study of cultures is one of my hobbies, particularly when it comes to comparing the Arab, Latin and Anglo-Saxon minds, I could not help noticing that just as those with an Arab mind-set use the word compromise less than those with a Latin mind-set, so too do the latter use it less than those with an Anglo-Saxon mind-set. There is a simple explanation for this. If one’s way of thinking is based on a set of philosophical/religious principles, then it is normal that people raised in an Arab culture should be less inclined to use the word compromise than those whose minds were conditioned in a Latin context, where, although the philosophical dimension looms large, the religious dimension figures less prominently than it does in the Arab mind-set. It is also normal that Latin societies use the word less than societies with an Anglo-Saxon cultural formation. The Anglo-Saxon way of thinking, which has come to dominate the world in a manner unprecedented in history, is based on an altogether different set of rules."

This is one of the good guys talking, and I'll be featuring more material from him in future. Worth a look.