Dave Earley's Prayer: The Timeless Secrets of High Impact Leaders

Dave Earley's Prayer: The Timeless Secret of High-Impact Leaders, is an insightful guide to praying, its methods and its purpose. It is addressed to pastors, missionaries, social and political leaders, to any believer influencing the lives and opinions of others or intending to do so sometime in the future.

In it, prayer is presented as a discipline, and each of its aspects is detailed in dedicated chapters, so that, after reading the book, believers may pray with their mind, their heart and all of their being, for the things that really matter in life.

The following lines will reveal the most important ideas in the book, the strategies used by the author to convey them, and how these ideas can be applied by readers in their everyday life.

Book Summary

A comprehensive guide to praying, the book is divided into ten chapters. The first nine chapters cover different aspects related to praying and provide advice and guidance on how readers can apply the information provided in their daily life. The final chapter is an overview of the first nine, connecting them and providing complementary advice on how readers can perfect their prayer.

Chapter 1 is dedicated to the "Value of Prayer". In it, Earley argues that most church leaders and pastors do not pray as much as much as they should (2008). No matter how busy pastors are, they should always find the time to communicate with God. 

Perhaps the most impressive passage of the chapter concerns praying time and refers to Martin Luther King's confession about dedicating several hours a day to prayer on a regular basis, and even more on the busiest weeks, "the first three hours of each day", to be more precise.

In order to convince his readers, the author uses the examples of Evangelist Billy Graham and Pastor David Jeremiah, fervent believers and respected ministers. According to him, only through prayer Christians can stand up to Satan and his demons and achieve spiritual warfare.

The importance of prayer is taken to a new level in Chapter 2, where the author conjures leaders to make time for it. He begins with the supreme prayer symbol, none other than Jesus Christ, and continues by recommending spiritual leaders to make prayer their main concern.

In order to find the time for prayer, people should reserve prayer time every day, by setting a duration for their prayer and choosing an adequate location. Through such recommendations, the writer actually teaches his readers to fight life's meaningless preoccupations and not let them turn into an obstacle to praying.

In Chapter 3, Earley discusses the rule according to which all leaders should pray for the communities they serve. He also emphasizes the importance of intercessory prayer. According to him, leaders are situated in the middle, between the people they serve and God. They gain power and authority by linking their heart with God, allowing it to beat in the same rhythm, sharing the same burdens. The chapter ends with recommendations on how leaders should make intercessory prayer a part of their life.

Chapter 4 focuses on why and how leaders should train others to pray for them ("Train Others to Pray for You"). Pastors and leaders need prayer as well, and they often find it difficult to ask for it, although they should not. The author gives the examples of Charles Finney and Charles Spurgeon as men who asked others and taught them how to pray for them and teaches readers how to find and train prayer partners.

The 5^th chapter teaches leaders to manage their troubles and make them the focus of their prayer, by practicing spiritual stewardship. Jesus Christ is given as an example again, for His ability to release Himself from pressures and torment through prayer. The readers should lay out their problems in front of God. This way, concerns will become desires, prayers will become expectations, tribulations will become liberation, and wavering will become advances.

Fasting is covered in Chapter 6, and there are many examples of spiritual leaders who fasted and prayed constantly in the Scripture. Earley unfolds the various structures of fasting as it is presented in the Bible, and reveals 25 blessings the Scripture promises to those who do not deviate from their prayer and fasting. The other benefits of fasting, such as body and mind revival and financial savings are also presented and supported with advice on how one should fast in order to benefit the most from this period, both physically and spiritually.

Chapter 7 is dedicated to courageous faith. Readers are encouraged to be bold when claiming divine promises, while also assessing whether the promises of the Scripture match their exact situation. The author then focuses on the Scripture promises referring to prayer and provides his readers with various examples of how such promises were kept for people like Nehemiah, Gideon or John R. Rice. He advises everyone to make their prayer clear and “ask big”.

Readers are encouraged to start improving their prayer strategy from what they already know on the subject in Chapter 8. They should use multiplicity in their prayers, but still base them on specific models, like The Lord’s Prayer, and follow the A.C.T.S. (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication) pattern. The rest of the chapter analyzes each of these stages of prayer, wrapping them in historical and biblical paradigms and providing several realistic ideas on how they can be successfully implemented in every prayer.

Chapter 9 is maybe the most important part of the book, pushing readers into accepting and embracing the best prayer practices, just like their notorious predecessors did. Among these practices, the most important ones are ceaselessly praying, prayer retreat, praying and reading the Scriptures, candid awareness praying, and praying while walking.

The final chapter, “Putting It All Together”, appraises the nine disciplines covered in the preceding chapters in what Earley calls the “Life’s Prayer Catalog”. It is spread with yes-or-no questions meant to clarify the most important aspects of prayer life.

The same goal is pursued with the "Prayer Life Assessment", which allows the prayers to focus on their most urgent concerns. The section titled “Life’s Prayer Function” allows the readers to catalog their maturity processes and related strategies. Another section is dedicated to “Life’s Prayer Aim”, meant to help the readers retrieve a single sentence or concept from the book and use it to improve their prayer life.

While each of the first nine chapters is dedicated to one discipline related to praying, the final chapter reviews all of them and teaches readers how to put all the information and advice they have received together. After this final chapter, readers should be able to pray with all their heart and make their prayer heard, should have turned into the spiritual leaders everyone around them needs and expects.

Book Critique and Evaluation

Dave Earley's Prayer: The Timeless Secret of High-Impact Leaders is more than a manuscript on prayer, it is the fundament of successful praying. In it, the author presents and explains basic Christian principles with a high dose of enthusiasm.

It is impossible not to notice the expediency of the suggestions the author makes, the relevancy of the examples he gives, the accessible language he uses to portray his ideas, all working together to provide readers with a pleasurable experience. The book is based on numerous positive elements, some of which discussed below, but also includes a few controversial ideas worth looking into.

As far as the positive elements are concerned, one of them is the high number of examples and quotations spread throughout the book. By quoting famous Biblical and historical personalities, as well as rendering personal concepts in his own words, the author succeeds to make his work memorable, convincing and impressive.

One example would be the declaration at the beginning of the book that “God…can do more in a tiny fraction of a second than I can accomplish in years”. This contemplation hints at the wise teachings to follow and challenges the readers to keep reading, to find arguments that will either allow them to contradict the author or convince them to believe and start living by the author's teachings.

Another insightful quote is the one from Martin Luther King: “I have so much to do that I shall spend the first three hours in prayer”. If Martin Luther King could find the time to pray for three hours daily, anyone can and should do the same, especially since, as the writer shows a few pages later, being unsuccessful in praying means being unsuccessful altogether.

Chapter 5 is dominated by a short but comprehensive idea: “I turn my worry list into a prayer list”. This way, prayer means liberation, problem-solving, success and peace of mind. The author also teaches his readers how all these can be obtained, advising that they ask for "a few definite things with boldness than to ask for a bunch of things lackadaisically.

Of course, more such examples can be given, but the straightforwardness, the eloquence and the practicality of Dave Earley's teachings are already obvious. Reading his book, one will not only be convinced to pray more, but will also learn how to do it in order to obtain better results and, implicitly, become a better person. How could it be otherwise, when the models provided are none other than Moses, with his humble prayer life, Nehemiah, Paul or Jesus Himself.

Moving on to questionable ideas, one could be Earley’s advice for leaders to “boldly claim God’s promises”, which gets close to Charles Spurgeon’s vision that prayer is “God’s checkbook”.  This type of language is used in the book of Hebrews, but there is a more viable alternative to it that goes unnoticed by the author: humbleness. One explanation for the writer's courageous attitude would be that the believers’ path to God has already been cemented by Jesus' sacrifice.

Besides easy and pleasurable to read, this book is educative, even life-changing. It makes it easy to understand many aspects of prayer and it changes your perspective on the subject. It contains principles that are not only easy to implement, but they can be implemented immediately, and without too much effort, by anyone. 

Conclusion

Prayer: The Timeless Secret of High-impact Leaders by Dave Early is a comprehensive guide to prayer that any spiritual leader, pastor or minister should read at least once. It helps readers understand the meaning of prayer, as well as the process of praying.

It gives readers all the motivation and tools they need in order to turn prayer into a priority of their life and, through prayer, come closer to God and the people around them. All this is achieved through a plethora of captivating quotes and examples that turn reading into a rewarding experience and underline Dave Early's talent and commitment to the chosen subject.

References

Bounds, Edward M. The Complete Works Of E.M. Bounds On Prayer (with Active Table of Contents), [Annotated]. Niche Edition: 2011.

Earley, Dave. Personal Prayer: The Timeless Secret of High Impact Leaders. Chattanooga, Tennessee: AMG Publishers: 2008.

Murray, Andrew. The Ministry Of Intercession. Eastford, Martino Fine Books: 2012.

Don Quixote's Madness and the Choice to Live in a World of Fantasy

When reality becomes too cruel and difficult to accept, it may be easier to forget it, to wrap it in a wave of fantasy. This is what Miguel Cervantes' Don Quixote seems to be doing through his controlled, lucid madness.
In order to escape a reality he does not treasure and come to terms with, Don Quixote de la Mancha gives in to his obsession for books of chivalry and makes the insane decision of exploring the world as a knight errant.

His adventure, spread with intentional comedic elements, offers a magical, distorted perception of reality that attracts and conquers the characters in the story and the readers alike. In Don Quixote, the line separating reality and fiction gets thinner and even vanishes as the story advances.

Miguel Cervantes uses his protagonist as a tool to instill the idea that this insignificant line for Don Quixote and the other participants in his adventure is inconsequential for the readers as well (Gaffney, 9). 

The knight errant exhibits signs of madness throughout the entire novel, but without ever losing complete grasp of reality, as the numerous moments of lucidity and brilliant lines the story is spread with prove.

His madness is deliberate and convenient, allowing him to forge a reality of his own, preferable to that of the others, allowing him to act and think in a way that would otherwise be severely judged and maybe even punished by the society he lives in.

His madness stems from his desire to change his life, his condition. He is a mere "Hidalgo" in the community of the village he inhabits, and this is less than what he wants for himself and from the world. He wants to improve his social status, to live in an alternate society, to be surrounded by different people.

Unfortunately, the world he would like to live in, a world in which anything is possible, people are brave and just, and they only need to go on adventures in order to forge a name and reputation for themselves is one that no longer exists. This social discomfort represents the foundation of the character’s mental instability, which gives birth to different adventures (Stavis, 4).

Don Quixote does not want to spend his entire life in that anonymous La Mancha village, as a gentleman with a lot of free time that he dedicates to reading books of chivalry, with such passion that he even forgets to go hunting or take care of his estate (Cervantes, 364).

He occupies the lowest rank in the nobility hierarchy, following the peasants, being responsible only for his estate and only having hunting as an activity. He is above the age of marriage, “getting close to fifty” (364), so he does not share the responsibilities of other men of his standing.

This is not the life Alonso Quixano wants, and, affected by so much reading (which dried out his brain and caused him to lose sanity), he decides to become a knight errant and travel "all over the world with his horse and his weapons", in search of adventures (366).

Alonso’s lifestyle, with his estate, niece and housekeeper is something Don Quixote barely acknowledges. He wants to be part of the world that exists in the novels he reads and idealizes that world to the point that he fails to admit that it no longer exists (Stavis, 5). Certain circumstances work in his favor, considering that he has inherited a suit of armor from his great-grandfather, the perfect symbol for the permanent retreat of the knightly order he wishes to join (Cervantes, 366).

Don Quixote's Insane Adventure

Don Quixote gives in to insanity in very first paragraphs of the novel. He has developed an obsession for medieval romances, which, combined with the lack of sleep and reading in excess, take possession of his mind.

He sees battles, fights, wounds, enchantments, sweet nothings, impossible absurdities, love affairs and storms everywhere he looks (Cervantes 365). All of a sudden, his horse is named Rocinante, a peasant girl becomes lady Dulcinea, his sweetheart, and the brave knight pts on the inherited armor and sets out to conquer the world.

The setting of his first adventure, the inn, is seen as a castle, the wenches are perceived as fair maidens, and the innkeeper himself is the lord of the castle. Amused and entertained by Don Quixote's madness, the innkeeper and the wenches embrace the roles assigned to them. The innkeeper approves of the protagonist's decision to roam the world in search of fame and adventure (372).

Instead of the dull place where men fall prey to their vices, women ruin their lives and others make money off their weaknesses, Don Quixote chooses to see a respectable community, ruled by a lord who watches over the safety and well being of his hardworking people and animated by fair maidens waiting to be rescued and wed.

This perspective is appealing to the innkeeper and the wenches as well, who prefer to humor him and only use their entertainment as a justification for their own choice to ignore reality. Quixote himself is amused by their decision to play along.

His madness puts him in control of those people, allows him to alter their reality and dress it up differently every moment, with their willing cooperation (Auerbach 351). Those who accept the protagonist's madness become an active part of it.

They inherently cause the line between reality and fantasy to fade away and inherently eliminating eventual obstacles Quixote may have had to face on his first adventure. Their willingness to become characters in the knight's story and believe in its magic is a mere invitation for the reader to do the same.

On his return home, Don Quixote convinces Sancho Panza, his neighbor, to become his squire. On their quest for adventure, they face many challenges: giants (windmills), opposing armies (sheep) and bad omens (the fulling-mill). The adventurer is aware of the difference between what things really are and what they appear to be and chooses to blame this difference on enchantments.

The sage Freston, who could be a symbol for God or Destiny, a supreme force, is trying to prevent the hero from becoming victorious by turning the giants into windmills and stealing his books (Cervantes, 388). There are numerous other instances when Quixote claims sorcery, pointing to the idea that fiction can turn into reality in the eyes of its beholder, even when the latter recognizes the elements composing fiction (Alter, 26).

All of these transformations and excuses become a conversation subject in Book II. The knight and his squire meet Sanson Carrasco, who reveals that Don Quixote is one of the most famous knights to have existed or come into existence in the entire world. It is all due to the work of Cide Hamete Benengeli who took it upon himself to make the hero's great deeds known to people everywhere (Cervantes 448).

The encounter with Carrasco provides all the encouragement the knight could possibly need: his story has already been written and is surrounding the world, people of all ages are speaking of his acts of courage and saying his name with admiration. At the same time, it suggests that Don Quixote is nothing more than the product of the story with the same name that he has read (Alter 4-5), a mere fictional character.

However, the fact that he speaks of his own character in the novel strengthens the reality he is portraying and gives him a certain degree of control over it. It is difficult to tell where reality starts and where literature stops in a world so profuse in mimicking the printed page, and Cervantes deepens this confusion even further (Alter 6).

Through this subterfuge, in Book II, Cervantes places his character in a real world, understanding the significant tension between acknowledging fiction as such and accepting it as reality, no matter how easy it may seem to remain aware of the two simultaneously (Alter 14-15).

This is the best way to exemplify the fading line between the two existence spectrums: presenting a fictional character in parallel with a real person. The author defends his version of Book II and challenges his readers to take a stance on Don Quixote's realism (Gaffney, 13).  

During the discussion with Carrasco, the knight and his squire discover several errors in Cide's writing. Although with no real fundament, these errors are real for the characters and, through them, become real for the reader, challenging any perception boundaries.

Reality is diluted even further when Sancho Panza tricks Don Quixote in introducing him to the lovely lady Dulcinea. Aware that he will not be able to find the real Dulcinea, the squire comes up with a plan to make his master believe that a peasant girl is the lady they were looking for (Cervantes 456).

He guides Don Quixote towards three peasant girls riding their donkeys in their direction, and he takes control of the fantasy. When the knight does not recognize his lady, Sancho pushes him to accept this perception and feeds his fantasy by exclaiming that he must be keeping his eyes at the back of his head if he fails to see the three ladies shining like the sun at noon (457).

Don Quijote embraces the suggestion but cannot overlook the huge difference between the Dulcinea he has envisaged and the unfortunate woman he is presented with. As usual, the knight takes control: finding an explanation, claiming that his lovely Dulcinea has been enchanted to take this form is preferable to returning to reality.

This encounter with the false Dulcinea is the moment when his illusion and disillusionment reach climax. Reality is, one more, too cruel for him to accept it, so the knight forges one of himself, in which the beautiful fair maiden is under a spell and it is his duty to save her and break the spell, restoring her untainted beauty (Auerbach 339).

Lady Dulcinea is maybe the most fictitious, intangible and controversial character in the novel. She is a constant presence, an ideal of beauty and virtue that one never encounters. Her closest materialization is this unfortunate woman that Sancho introduces to Don Quixote, with no real connection to the real Dulcinea.

Through her, Sancho feeds his master's fantasy and pushes him even further from reality. Don Quixote chooses to take the false Dulcinea for real, and her enchantment for a challenge he must face and win. His perception of her reminds the reader that the knight exists in a reality where the sweet Dulcinea must begin to appear like a purely verbal concoction (Alter, 27).

She is just an ideal, the product of his imagination, a lavish and unbelievable woman that could never exist in real life, the exact opposite of her enchanted version introduced by Sancho.

The knight-errant sets on a quest to break the enchantment and runs into Carrasco again. This character seems to be the anchor to reality, especially since, on this occasion, he manages to trick Quixote to return home.

Dressed up as a knight, he is originally defeated by Don Quixote but then manages to defeat him, thus forcing him home. Instead of simply trying to force Don Quixote to accept reality, Carrasco turns to fantasy himself and participates in the former's madness.

In the final chapters, the protagonist gets ill and regains his mental health, cursing the very books of chivalry he was so in love with. The reader is brought into a state of disappointment and loss. At this point, Don Quixote's fantasy had already become the reality of the novel, preferable to actual reality, not only for the protagonist but also for Carrasco and Sancho, who would rather return to fantasy.

Those who made fun of the hero's madness want it back and are disappointed to hear him claim his real name. They prefer the errant knight to Alonso Quixano, and Sancho even tries to bring him back, by urging his master to blame him for his defeat in battle (477). Those with a stronger grasp of the reality prefer fantasy, and those who have traded reality in exchange for dreams of greatness and ideals return to it.

Madness, Control, and Medieval Romance

Cervantes portrays his hero as a tall old man with a shabby old-fashioned armor, this picture being a beautiful expression of his madness, asceticism and fanatic pursuit of an ideal (Auerbach, 349). More than a comic, complex character, Don Quixote is the tool through which Cervantes warns his readers that there is no real, sure escape from reality.

His entire story begins and ends with a confrontation with reality and, his ideals, no matter how noble and heroic, remain unattained. More than that, through his madness and crazy dreams of glory, the hero irreversibly affects the destiny of those around him. After being part of his fantasy and seeing the world through his eyes, Carrasco and Sancho Panza, and, with them, the reader, find it difficult to return to reality, to face the cruel and cold world they live in.

The fall into madness and the adventure that follows is rather an inner quest of the protagonist, his way of getting to know his own limits and accepting his life. Had it not been for this madness, the protagonist and his neighbor would have never left home, would have never learned the things they did, would have never managed to understand themselves and their life as they did (Auerbach, 350).

Vladimir Nabokov describes the story of Don Quixote as alternating phases of lucidity with phases of vagueness, deliberate planning with sloppy vagueness, claims that the hero "was mad in patches”. The entire novel oscillates between clarity and ambiguity, between madness and narrative.

In Don Quixote, madness takes various manifestations, the one of the protagonist being the most complex and enabling the writer to weave a dense net of references to insanity that scholars have outlined throughout time.

1)                         Some critics have emphasized the relation of Quixote with Erasmus since The Praise of Folly plays with numerous ironies and humorous ambiguities.

2)                         Many scholars have studied a possible connection with Huarte de San Juan's Examen de ingenious, analyzing complexities according to the predominant humor (phlegm, bile, blood, and melancholia) and to the various characters approaching insanity due to their excessive creativeness. Cervantes' hero seems to be a quite believable insane person, in line with physiological theories of this period.

3)                         There are also critics who focus on carnival elements and their importance, studied in depth by Augustin Redondo. Obviously, the knight and his squire remind of the fat and the thin, of Don Carnal and Doña Cuaresma. Quixote, compared to Lent, is happy with some weeds, like other suffering knights, but Sancho dreams of meals like those served at Camacho's wedding. His surname is actually quite suggestive for his personality, "Panza" meaning "Belly". A strong contrast is noticed not only between the thin and read Don Quixote and the fat and slow-minded Sancho, but also between the former's skinny horse, Rocinante, and the latter's fat donkey.

4)                         The protagonist's insanity often makes one think of buffoons. In fact, Don Quixote and his squire are often perceived as mere buffoons, and others play this part throughout the story as well, like the buffoon shaking his bladders to scare the protagonists' horses away. Don Quixote's knighting ceremony at the inn is another grotesque parody that disqualifies him to be a real knight, depriving him of dignity (Arrellano, 69).

Don Quixote's madness takes many roles and shapes, too many to analyze here, but there is one important characteristic that needs to outlined - the protagonist is aware of this madness and controls it up to a certain degree.

For example, he sees things as they really are, but chooses to consider them enchanted. Magic and spells are his way of controlling reality, are the elements that enable him to see the best in people and things and overlook their dark side.

This idea is betrayed by the author himself. The protagonist "thinks" it is convenient and necessary to turn knight-errant, that, by imitating the heroes he has read about, he "might purchase everlasting honor and renown" (Gaffney, 14). As Cervantes assures, not even physicians and notaries around the world could make a final accounting of his madness, as he is a "madman who has many lucid intervals” (p. 571). 

Alonso Quixano could have chosen any other world to dress up his reality, but that described in the books of chivalry that he reads is the closest to his ideals. It is a world dominated by magic, bravery and untainted love, a world where everything is possible and a brave knight like himself can undertake whatever goal he sees fit, no matter how surreal or dangerous.

The protagonist cannot adjust to the reality he lives in, and that medieval, romantic world he has come to know and love is the closest to his personality, needs, and ideals. He can only escape reality in a world he knows, in which everything is possible, and an explanation can be found for everything (magic).

In the real world, a mere "Hidalgo" like himself would stand no chance at greatness but, in his books, the very ones he ends up cursing upon his return to reality, any knight can pursue greatness and conquer hearts.

Don Quixote was not as mad as he may have seemed. As Bloom puts it, many of us are Cervantine figures, blends of the Quixotic and the Panzaesque living in the broad dimensions with which the human was reinvented by Shakespeare (158).

Don Quixote faced the same difficulties encountered by the modern man, and his adventure is still lived by many, even though some choose other worlds to host their adventure instead of the ones described in the books of Chivalry.

References

Alter, Robert. Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Arellano, Ignacio. Quixote's Insanity And Sancho Panza's Wisdom. 1st ed. Centro Virtual Cervantez. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1968.

Bauer, Rachel Noel. Madness And Laughter: Cervantes' Comic Vision In 'Don Quixote'. Ph.D Undergraduate. Vanderbilt University, 2007. Print.

Bloom, Harold. How To Read And Why. New York: Scribner, 2000. Print.

Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quijote. The Longman Anthology: World Literature, Volume C, The Early Modern Period. 2^nd Ed. David Damrosch and David L. Pike, eds. New York: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009. 364-479. Print.

Echevarría, Roberto González, Love and the Law in Cervantes. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. 54-74.

Foucault, Michel, and Jean Khalfa. History Of Madness. London: Routledge, 2006. Print.

Gaffney, M. Brett. 'Don Quixote. Bridging Reality And Fiction'. Theocrit: The Online Journal of Undergraduate - Literary Theory and Criticism.2.1 (2009): 9 - 15. Web, 10 Feb. 2015.

Haley, George. 'The Narrator In Don Quijote: Maese Pedro's Puppet Show'. MLN 80.2 (1965): 145 - 165. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.

Nabokov, Vladimir. “Structural Matters.” Lectures on Don Quixote. Ed. Fredson Bowers. Trans. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Javonovich, 1983. 27-50.

Perez-Alvarez, Marino. 'The Psychology Of Don Quixote'. Psychology in Spain 10.1 (2006): 17-27. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

Rivers, Elias L. 'Otra Manera De Leer El Quijote: Historia, Tradiciones Culturales Y Literatura'. MLN 114.2 (1999): 416-419. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.

Sen, Sambudha. Don Quixote And The Problem Of Fiction Making. 1st ed. University of Delhi: Centro Virtual Cervantes. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.

Scheibe, K. E. The drama of everyday life. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Stavis, Jacqueline Mica. Suddenly, Opportunity For Adventure: The Interplay Of Madness And Narrative In Don Quijote. Bachelor of Arts graduate. Wesleyan University. Web, 10 Feb. 2015.

Sullivan, H. W. 'Don Quixote de La Mancha: analyzable or unanalyzable?' Cervantes, 1978, 18, 4-23.

Wade, Jonathan. 'Don Quixote In The Archives: Madness And Literature In Early Modern Spain By Dale Shuger'. Hispania 96.4 (2013): 798-799. Web. 10 Feb. 2015

Weiger, John G., and Carroll B. Johnson. 'Madness And Lust: A Psychoanalytical Approach To Don Quixote'. Hispania 67.2 (1984): 304. Web. 10 Feb. 2015

Weiger, J. G. The individuated self. Cervantes and the emergence of the individual. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1979.

The History of American Music, Cultural Populism, and Censorship

For as long as human beings have needed to express their cultural, spiritual and creative statements using sound, music has shaped the way they interact with one another and themselves. Music itself, as the art form and media platform it is known to be today, has only recently managed to be effectively defined in a way that is separate from the various historical and cultural artifacts that have performed this function in the past.

The American populace conveniently shifted into a post-modern musical environment that is both self-aware and self-reproducing while remaining uniquely American only in the 20^th century. This happened thanks to the pioneering work of modern American composers such as John Cage, whose compositions begged the listener to define music. Getting to this point, however, has been a journey as long as America’s history as a country.

American music has made many important steps on the way to becoming the globally significant cultural identifier that it is today. These steps involved the creations of notable composers, the promotion of their works using then-state-of-the-art broadcasting technology to create a never-before-seen mass media culture.

There were also many notorious attempts at control, censorship, and propaganda that, unintentionally, gave even greater power to culturally populist artists. But, before getting there, it is important to see how music in general and American music, in particular, have been defined throughout time.

Defining Music in General and American Music in Particular

Throughout human history, music has been described in a wide variety of ways, most usually determined by cultural and political factors defined by the society in question. As mentioned earlier, it was only in the 20^th century, in the wake of modernism, that seriously challenging art music gave rise to a critical theoretical examination of what it means to create music, what music does, and how to define it.

While modernists would be happy to simply describe music as any collection of sounds presented to an audience as music, a structural approach would be more forgiving to the popular tastes: music is any collection of sounds that express an artistic statement through the use of rhythm, melody, and harmony.

The self-referencing nature of contemporary music is what the post-modern definition makes very clear as being necessary ever since the age of broadcast and, lately, of the Internet, challenged people’s abilities to reject artistic statements as being unmusical.

While music itself is easy enough to define, the tastes and trends that go into defining the music of a culture are a much more sensitive matter. This is even more sensitive in the case of the music of the United States of America, due to the huge number of unique cultural elements that have historically combined to create it.

American music is relatively easy to identify, but difficult to define; the best method of doing so is through the history of musical influences that led to the confluence of musical statements and genres that created, not just American music, but American culture in general.

The Roots of American Music

There are several seeds of American music that can be identified within the context of the first American settler’s colonization of the 13 colonies. One of these is made of the folk minstrels that the first Protestant colonists brought with them, later adapted through time into Appalachian folk music, and then into styles such as country and bluegrass.

Another seed is represented by the influences made out of later African-American cultural contributions, such as gospel and, later, blues. Yet another starting point and seed for what would become known as American music is to be found in the sphere of classical music.

Here, prominent cultural influences developed in America gave way to the importation and transfiguration of the existing European classical model. The most significant of these early classical contributors is the Czech-born composer Antonín Dvořák.

While American music certainly existed before Dvořák emigrated to early America, it was his method of combining traditional folk idioms and his search for “American Music” that made his contributions especially notable. His most famous symphony, The New World Symphony, is a prime example of American music, due to its mixture of traditional themes with the long-standing European musical culture upon which it diverges.

American cultural history has long been defined by its ability to mix and interpolate widely different cultural starting points to inspire the creation of new forms. Dvořák is well-known for having been the director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City between the years of 1892 and 1895.

Soon thereafter, he retreated to Spillville, Iowa, where he would live with the Czech-speaking community there, after having completed the New World Symphony, which quickly became a worldwide phenomenon that put the composer — and the burgeoning country he authored his composition about – on the cultural and musical map.

This momentous symphony is important for marking the first inarguably significant piece of American art music to be taken seriously by the world at large. While previous early American classical composers certainly existed and created important works before Dvořák the New World Symphony is largely regarded as the first and most recognizable.

It has been influencing and will continue to influence generations of artists for decades to come and remains significant to this day for its part in building the vision of a unique American artistic culture that would culminate in the later designations of being the land of opportunities.

Having accepted the basis of American music in being the mixture of traditional folk music with established European musical structures, the artists who would go on to succeed Dvořák began to look at the traditional cultures brought into the country with a newfound fascination.

African-Americans, often neglected culturally in early America due to their social and political standing as either slaves or second-class citizens, formed some of the most significant contributions to American music thanks to this newfound appreciation for folk music.

At the very end of the 19^th century, ragtime music was born out this cultural approbation of African-American rhythms and syncopation with European harmonic and melodic styles, performed most commonly on the piano. Scott Joplin’s 1899 Maple Leaf Rag solidified the style and gave it national attention, leading to ragtime performances nationwide.

Ragtime, in accepting African-American syncopation with European harmony, eventually gave birth to Jazz. This was made possible by the unique cultural and geopolitical characteristics of New Orleans, long hailed as the birthplace of Jazz music.

The large contingent of French inhabitants along with the unique African-American culture of the city created the perfect conditions for the signature American cultural mixing process that would create a recognizable new music form - Jazz music.

Jazz borrows heavily from ragtime music, but switches from a primarily piano-based saloon act into a ballroom-level presentation with a full ensemble including brass and woodwind instruments. Jazz was made possible by the contributions of American marching band pioneers such as John Phillip Sousa, whose compositions made the ensemble format a viable one for performing this new popular music.

Once the ensemble format was established, it only took a number of inspired American artists to create momentous works in the new style and let it spread throughout the rest of the country. For many jazz historians and listeners, the primary and most readily recognizable artist of Jazz music was Louis Armstrong.

Trumpeter, bandleader, and celebrated singer Louis Armstrong created numerous pieces of music that helped to define the uniquely American sound and did so at a time when musical recording technology was on the rise.

The most significant of these songs, Stardust, is celebrated as a championing piece of uniquely American music, as well as a unique 1931 recording that would go on to set the standard for recordings to come. This is because of the innovative use of the newly invented ribbon microphone that would later become a characteristic of many other recordings such as those by Bing Crosby.

Alan Lomax was responsible for the recordings of many folk artists and influential blues singers before this, but the establishment of radio and later, television, as popular cultural formats for media consumption put a new emphasis on the recording process as it became economically viable and culturally desired.

As mass media grew in its cultural importance and leverage, other new forms of music began to meet the new cultural needs of the American populace. Many of these new forms of music had similarly American ethnic mixtures at the heart of their creation: Latino-American music and salsa music were defined by the contributions of early pioneers such as Tito Puente.

The difference at the time was that new audiences could be reached in relatively inexpensive ways, leading to the fragmentation of musical genres into a wide popular music format. African-American Gospel music was mixed with Country and R&B to create Rock N’ Roll through the artistic creations of artists such as Ray Charles and Chuck Berry.

This particular style was unique for its focus on youth culture, and for its instrumentation, which would become highly influential after Berry’s electric guitar sound became embedded into the minds of generations of young musicians to come.

The new media format offered by radio and television allowed new and never-before-heard sounds to reach wider audiences than ever before, creating a new era of expression in American music, but also skirting with censorship.

Beginning with the prohibition laws that came into effect in the 1920’s, American culture has followed a predictable pattern of attempting to fix societal problems by banning things. This has generally backfired and led to the banned or censored item becoming more popular than ever before, and music is no different.

For example, early Rock N’ Roll music was considered too banal to be played on the radio, and attempts to disregard it only led to increasing interest from the young people to whom it was targeted. Attempts at silencing vocal protesters such as the famous blues singer Paul Robeson for their communist ties only worked temporarily.

One of the most sensitive subjects, especially for early American music, is the role of music in church and the borrowing of spiritual music for other formats. Since this music is ostensibly sacred in nature, attempts to mix gospel music with popular formats have historically been met with great resistance — there was never any shortage of people calling Ray Charles’ music the music of the Devil.

While the particulars may vary over time, this resistance to contemporary music being mixed with spiritual music exists today as well, especially in the religiously homogenous areas of America, where religious institutions and churches play a role in the solidarity of the society they represent.

The mixture of religious music with the popular music format has a long tradition of creating quality pop music, but it tends to degrade the historicity of sacred music in the process. Degraded historicity is not a problem for pop music, which already has little historical capability as it is, as evidenced by Starr’s research into the recycling nature of remixes, pop chart contents, and throwback genres, but it poses a significant problem for sacred music.

Sacred music, like the church that it is a part of, needs to be understood and celebrated within a historical context rather than a contemporary one, in order to connect to the artistic values of the music itself.

While it is not the author’s opinion that any particular kind of music is the Devil’s music, there is an important historical element to a religious ceremony that is lost when a church replaces old, powerful songs with contemporary hits, for example, by Christian rock bands.

Churches, being responsible both for the moral values and the historicity of the society they represent, owe it to their members to maintain those values in the face of changing popular music trends. It is also their responsibility to offer a historically significant musical experience that rejects modern rock, pop, hip-hop and R&B, leaving those genres for the mass media audience they were intended for in the first place.

References

Kamien, Roger. Music. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print.

Starr, Larry, and Christopher Alan Waterman. American Popular Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Print.

Tibbetts, John C. Dvořák In America, 1892-1895. Portland, Or.: Amadeus Press, 1993. Print.

Ward, Geoffrey C, and Ken Burns. Jazz. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. Print.

Brief Analysis of Islam Compatibility with Human Rights

Ever since the beginning of the new millennium, more and more attention began to be paid to the concept of universal human rights and to the need for global morality, considered to have a positive impact on global politics and to improve the lives of people across the globe.

While these universal human rights have yet to be enforced, the very idea of their existence gains ground among people all around the world, no matter their cultural background or religious appurtenance.

While some of the rights mentioned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are a long way from becoming “equal and inalienable” in many countries around the world, others refer to basic human needs and freedoms and should be guaranteed to people everywhere.

Human Rights Implementation in the Islamic World

 

The Islamic world is perceived by human rights activists in the Western countries as the area where most human rights are violated. This is the area where, according to Naseer Aruri (1987), individual human rights are thoroughly disregarded, no matter the specifics of the government, their ideology or foreign policy.

This tragic ‘human wrongs’ (Dunne & Wheeler, 1999) practice is mostly associated with Islam and the related local traditions. Not even conservative Muslims can deny that human rights have yet to be implemented in their region.

Women are not equal to men; religious freedom is just a dream with few to no chances of turning into reality. People are still imprisoned illegally, testimonies are coerced, domestic workers are abused, legitimate political participation is absent, punishments for crimes like theft, alcohol consumption, apostasy, and fornication still include member amputation, flogging, stoning or crucifixion.

It is still necessary to clarify whether these abusive practices are rooted in Islam because the implementation of human rights in this region is also closely connected to the controversial historical relationship with the Western countries.

The modern individualism culture promoted by the current human rights regime is perceived here as just another manifestation of the increasing "Occidentosis" (Campbell & Ahmad, 1985) or "Westoxification" (Lechner and Kaplan, 1992). 

Consequently, popular human rights contempt is often manifested as an anti-Western reaction and is meant to express common disgust towards the Western civilization, rather than to exemplify the Islamic tradition.

Islam Compatibility with Human Rights and Reconciliation Potential

The ambiguity of the human rights issue is obvious and could stem from the various understandings of fundamental Islamic teachings. Islam's “not inherently illiberal" relationship with politics in general and human rights issues in particular is very complex and even paradoxical, up to a certain point (Dalacoura, 1998).

Qur’an, Sharia and Sunna traditional readings often tend towards the denial of some human rights, considering them as illegitimate. Nevertheless, Islam leaves remarkable room for interpretation, recommended by the Prophet himself.

As Shamsuddin al-Kaylani shows, Mohammed Arkoun acknowledges the presence of human rights ‘petals’ and ‘seeds’ in Islam (cited in Jayyusi, 2009), and this could represent the basis for a reconciliation between Islam and the modern human rights ideal.

There are many conflicting opinions on the possible compatibility of the two, but it is very important to acknowledge the potential for reconciliation and the need to build a local and global understanding of human rights.

East-West Tensions and the Disapproval for the Concept of Universal Human Rights

The permanent tensions between the West and the East and the threatening rise of Islamism are considered representative for the Huntingtonian "civilizations clash". It was the discussion related to human rights during the UN Conference in Vienna, in June 1993, the one that determined Huntington to further support his claim regarding the absence of universal human values (Huntington, 1993).

Numerous foreign ministers and all the Arab ambassadors attending the conference rejected the idea of the human rights' universality, as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates. The incident reminds of the abstention of Saudi Arabia during the Declaration's ratification in 1948, the first international manifestation of an Islamic government's reluctance to accept human rights, concept perceived as alien and in the detriment of the Islamic tradition (Bielefeldt, 1995).

Katerina Dalacoura (2003) considers that the opposition to the human rights concept is embedded deep in the Islamic world's perception of the West and its relationship with this civilization. Analyzing the social and political context is critical to understanding the Middle East's response to various concepts promoted by the West, as the idea of human rights is present in the Islamic teachings, but in a different form than the modern concept promoted by the Western civilization. 

As Dalacoura (2003) shows, although neither the Qu'ran nor the Sharia contains explicit acknowledgments that people have rights derived from their status as human beings, numerous Islamic communities have been respecting many human rights.

Rafsanjani, former Iranian president reminds that the human rights being drawn up by the international community have been discussed in Islam for quite some time (Bielefeldt, 1995). One example is that of women's political equality and property rights, discussed in the Islamic world in the 7^th century and in the West in the 19^thcentury.

As Heiner Bielefeldt (1995) suggests, the human rights issue was not raised by the Western culture exclusively, and, despite his controversial claims regarding human rights, Mawdudi is right to blame the Occident for claiming that human rights are their exclusive heritage and for disregarding, this way, the human rights tradition of the Islamic world.

The Eastern human rights concept was significantly affected by the region's history and the long distrust tradition between Christians and Muslims. According to Naseer Aruri (1987), there is no better example of the interaction between the East and the West than the Ottoman millet system and the way it influenced human rights.

This system offered political freedom to the religious minorities within the Empire, its actions being later undermined by the British, Italian and French "humanitarian interventions". These interventions supposedly aimed to support Christian minorities, but their actions brought about the Muslim's distrust towards Christians. Religious minorities ended up considered agents of the Westerners, and this made their situation even worse.

Sayyid Qutb is another voice accusing the Westerners of Crusadism spirit (cited in Moussalli, 2001), proving one more time the depth of the Islamic resentment. The post-colonialism rhetoric is still powerful, both in the Islamist groups in the region and one the streets of cities like Cairo, Teheran or Islamabad.

As Moussalli (2001) notes, Hassan al-Banna denies any religious nature of the discord on human rights. According to him, the Westerners do not fight Easterners because they are Muslim, as they have fought worse wars against their own kind. Their purpose is to control the East, both economically and politically, and they are repressive and unjust.

The very idea of cultural and political "repression" has implications for the human rights implementation in the region. The skepticism of the locals is usually manifested as an anti-Western reaction. Bielefeldt (1995) explains that any sign of commitment to the concept of universal human rights is interpreted as another crusade of the West. 

Unfortunately, the political instability affecting the region and the involvement of the Western countries in the local politics only succeed to strengthen this perception. In fact, some Islamist movements support their actions with this argument, thus legitimizing their fight against the intrusive Westerners.

Historical perspective supporters suggest that the local human rights practices are heavily influenced by different socio-political factors. This indicates not only that there are some non-religious influences, but also that Huntington’s theory of civilizations clash leaves room for doubts. It becomes obvious that dialogue and openness between the two parties are vital for the human rights implementation in the Islamic world.

According to an Islamist reformist, Al-Ghannushi, this dialogue and openness would involve ending the cultural and geographical division between the East and the West, as well as giving up the preconception according to which one side is rational, right and democratic while the other is perverse, cruel and despotic (cited in Moussalli, 2001).

Bielefeldt (1995) shows that most discussions regarding human rights implementation in the Islamic territories currently focus on two fundamental distinctions: between religions (Islam and minorities) and between genders (men and women), both representing major concern issues for universal human rights promoters. 

These seem to be the main categories of rights violated in the Islamic territories, and the ones surrounded by the greatest disagreements. Discussions on these rights in relation to Islam only succeed to underline the ambiguity of the Islamic teachings on the subject. This ambiguity could prove derogatory and dangerous, but it also suggests a wide reconciliation potential.

Religious Freedom Compatibility with Islam

Religious freedom, fundamental according to Prophet Mohammed's teachings, has been rather securitized within the Islamic territories and is one of the most controversial issues affecting human rights implementation in the region.

Equality between religions is subject to heavy theological debate, while the numerous apostasy incidents are often perceived as crimes both “against God” (the most severe) and against the statal authority (Dalacoura, 1998) and punished even by death.

The death punishment raised a lot of controversies, Perry and Khadduri (1985), for example, arguing that it has no legal basis, neither in the Qur’an nor in the Hadith. The Hudud punishments are in fact reflections of practices dating from the tribal rebellion wars that followed the Prophet's death. This clearly points to the socio-political aspects severely influencing such legal amendments.

Instigation from above is also possible in apostasy cases, and excommunication cases are not rare either. One great example is the case of an Islamic philosopher and theologian, the Egyptian Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, excommunicated for criticizing Islam's disregard for human rights.

As Bielefeldt (1995) shows, despite the fact that the death penalty usually applied for apostasy is not mentioned in the contemporary criminal codes of most Islamic states, Sudan and Mauritania being the sole exceptions here, there have been reported numerous imprisonment and execution cases under this charge. Luckily, Abu Zayd did not receive any of these penalties, but his excommunication had quite significant civil law consequences.

His marriage was declared null and he was pushed into leaving Egypt, currently residing in Belgium. This case is a clear example of a violation of human rights and, implicitly, of Article (18) from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The right to religious freedom is frequently violated in the Islamic world, and such actions are often legitimized with Islamic texts exegesis. It is, however, important to acknowledge the ambiguous and even conflicting nature of these texts.

For example, referring to non-believers, a Sura passage from the Qur’an, (2:190), states that they should be slain. However, Sura passage (2:256) states that religion is not compulsory (Khalifa, 2001). Another Muslim teaching calls for peace and equality in the coexistence with non-believers (Malik, 1981).

Confessional inequality is legalized starting from this obvious ambiguity. Monotheists in general and Christians in particular benefitted, throughout history, from religious tolerance up to a certain extent, but they never enjoyed equal rights from the legal and political points of view, they never had full freedom (Bielefeldt, 1995). They were always perceived as second-class citizens (Dalacoura, 2003).

This inequality is recognized and discussed by Tabandeh, who exposes Sharia's encouragement of unequal treatment. He points out that some punishments, like the one for murder, differ according to the victim's religious appurtenance. Moreover, "privileges" are reserved to Ahl al-Kitab, namely the monotheists of the Book, implying that polytheists and atheists should be deprived of all rights (Dalacoura, 2003). 

The same concept of inequality can also be identified in the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, in the 5^th, 10^th, and 11^th articles, and this declaration does benefit from considerable legal recognition in the Islamic World.

The 5^th article protects marriage rights against race, color or nationality restrictions only, ignoring faith-related restrictions. The 10^th article supports Islam's superiority over the rest of the religions and indicates the criminalization potential of missionary activities carried by non-Islamists.

Another one of its presuppositions involves the forbidding of apostasy in Islam. Finally, the 11^th article distinguishes Muslim countries' approach to political and civil rights from non-Muslim countries' approach by its reliance on Sharia.

However, one cannot fail to notice the lack of universally binding Islamic texts, which becomes evident with regard to religious freedom. Mohammed Talbi shows that religious freedom is an ultimate and fundamental proof of respect toward God, towards his sovereignty and his plan for mankind. According to him, respecting this freedom means respecting God's plan, and being Muslim means submitting to this plan (cited in Swidler, 1986).

This leads us to the conclusion that the right subject to the article (18) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights can see implementation in the Islamic world. The contradictions in the Qur’an texts are the proof that Muslims are not actually constrained by those texts (Dalacoura, 2003) and that the interpretations of the Islamic texts are, in fact, a matter of will and choice. Moussalli (2001) states that religious freedom was fundamental to the state led by the Prophet and can be achieved again.

Women's Rights in Islam

Women's rights in the Islamic territories have received considerable attention from the Western media. Muslim women are often considered proofs of the violations of human rights in the region. Their situation is considered unbearable, and gender inequality is a serious reason for international concern.

The Islamic tradition is quite ambiguous, and the idea of equality disregarding gender is completely unknown to Sharia (Bielefeldt, 1995). As Dalacoura (2003) shows, men are allowed to physically abuse their wives, to divorce them without any explanation, to have other wives if they choose to. In case of divorce, they have exclusive custody rights over their children, and their testimony is worth twice more than that of women.

Sexual inequality and intolerance are undisguised in the Islamic world, and it is manifested through striking incidents of chauvinism and misogyny. According to Geraldine Brooks (2007), women are required to give up their own freedom and comfort in order to meet the needs of men.

Faysal al-Mawlawi and other Islamic thinkers made considerable efforts to justify sexual discrimination in general and polygamy in particular with highly debatable, even irrational biological and ecological reasoning.

Polygamy is justified by the higher number of women compared to that of men, and it is said to protect the women from exploitation. It is also presented as a way of protecting women that cannot have children or suffer from severe illnesses – they continue to enjoy their status as married women, while their husbands marry other women in order to have their needs met (cited in Moussalli, 2001).

While such violations of women's rights are alarming, it is important to analyze their origins, because, while the Islamic texts can be interpreted as supporting inequality, it would be inaccurate to consider them the source of these violations. As Dalacoura (2003) reminds, the concept of womanhood confirms the belief that the Islamic tradition is dependent upon the surrounding cultural, political and social factors.

The Qur’an does not teach that women should wear a veil, that they should be punished for adultery by stoning or that they should be circumcised or secluded (Khalifa, 2001). Most of these inhumane practices have tribal or cultural origins, they are not imposed or encouraged by Islam.

Several feminist and liberal activists and thinkers have tried to use Quranic texts in order to prove the lack of restrictions regarding women's freedom and the illegitimacy of the unequal treatment they receive. They claim that the history of umma is the proof that the Prophet's purpose was to strengthen women's position in society.

According to them, it is the followers' responsibility to continue the Prophet's work and eradicate sexual discrimination. Nevertheless, gender inequality remains apparent in numerous modern constitutional and political declarations and texts.

For example, the 20^th article of the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights, referring to married women's rights, foresees that inheritance should be unequally distributed between men and women (Dalacoura, 2003).

Conclusions

The Muslim Middle East is definitely a region where the implementation of human rights is necessary. Unfortunately, these rights are not covered by the Islamic writings, and reconciliation attempts have low success chances, mostly under the influence of the numerous historical, cultural and socio-political factors involved.

The current opposition to the human rights concept in the Islamic world is not so much a reaction against the rights themselves, but one against the negative impact of the West on the local culture and politics. This supports the potential compatibility of human rights with Islam, compatibility that becomes evident when the ambiguity of the Qur’an is recognized.

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