Losing Trust in the Mainstream Media and Popular Social Media Platforms

[Some time ago I decided not to talk about politics in public, but this time I have to make an exception.]

I've never been interested in US politics so much as now. I've been following news on the recent presidential election in the US and its results as well as their implications for not only the US itself but also the rest of the world, including Israel.

As I stumbled upon conservative voices that are often ignored or even silenced on the mainstream media and started listening to them, I've gradually lost my trust in the mainstream media. Now I mostly check the former on US politics, including NTD, Newsmax TV, Daily Wire, Sean Hannity Show, Dan Bongino Show, Mark Levin Show, Dennis Prager Show, Epoch Times, National File, etc., among others.

I'm also losing trust in popular social media platforms, most notably Tw*tter and F*cebook, because of their censorship and double standard. I signed up in P*rler just before it was forced to shut down and am waiting for its reopening. Personally, I found the accusation by *mazon baseless. It's scary that such private companies, on which we have come to depend so much, have also come to control our life and our free speech in such an alarming manner.

In the meanwhile I've made a rather long reading list of books on some crucial (and controversial) aspects of US politics (and related areas) I knew almost nothing about, including Unfreedom of the Press, The Manipulators, Deep State, Inside Trump's White House, God Save Texas, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism, and Hidden Hand.

Linguocultural Literacy

As I look back now how I came to completely lose my interest in linguistics in the past three years or so, I notice that there still remains one area of linguistics that still interests me - interaction between language and culture, whose study is called cultural linguistics, anthropological linguistics, or ethnolinguistics - and this area also happens to be the very thing that first kindled my interest in what I later came to know as linguistics when I stumbled upon one such book as a high school student.

But my interest in ethnolinguistics is more practical than theoretical, especially in the context of my continued study of Russian. Though I still have a lot to learn to improve my grammatical and lexical knowledge of this difficult language, I've also started to learn books and dictionaries for increasing my linguocultural literacy - лингвокультурная грамотность in Russian - of Russian, or literacy of Russian culture that manifests itself in the language.

One of the things I really love and admire in Russian intellectual culture is its investment in and love for good dictionaries. Russia is one of the superpowers in practical lexicography, or dictionary making, in the world, probably together with England and Japan, among others.

Recenly one pedagogical dictionary of linguocultural literacy of Russian was published in Russian - Ключ к русской культуре: словарь лингвокультурной грамотности. I couldn't resist the temptation of acquiring a copy of such a dictionary, so I ordered one and received it within a week or so. Russian has another, more comprehensive and more academic, dictionary of linguocultural literacy - Лингвострановедческий словарь «Россия».

I'm not aware of such pedagogical dictionaries of linguocultural literacy for other languages, at least not in such a learner-friendly manner. But this may also be due to my lack of knowledge.

Leafing through the first dictionary mentioned above, I've been telling myself that such a dictionary can help newly observant Jews, be it for Hebrew or English, especially if they have become haredim. The so-called tshuva also involves acquiring new linguocultural literacy, which, to the best of my knowledge, is documented nowhere, and each new baal tshuva has to acquire this literacy through trial and error.

Rearranging the Personal Library to Better Reflect the Present State of Consciousness

Having realized the impact books we physically face on a daily basis on our psyche, I recently rearranged my personal library. This must be the most drastic rearrangement, reflecting the most drastic (positive) transformation I have undergone in the past three years.

Since I was introduced one book by one of the most important Chabad rabbis three years ago as part of Jewish life coaching I received in a group of about ten frum Jewish men here in Jerusalem, I've become more and more fascinated by the teachings of Chabad Hasidism and the positivity of their followers and more and more engaged with the study of Chabad Hasidism, both formally and privately.

In parallel I've gradually started losing my interest in academic Jewish studies and linguistics though I'm still deeply connected to (Ashkenazic) Hebrew and Yiddish and continue improving my Russian, now by studying Hasidism in it.

The most conspicuous externally visible impact of this change is significant growth - actually from almost none - of the Chabad Hasidic section of my private library. In order to make room for this growing section I discarded many books that not only stopped interesting me but even drain my energy.

In my previous apartment here in Jerusalem my living room, where I also worked, was big enough to hold the whole library (about 1,300 books). But since I moved into a smaller apartment with a much smaller living room, I had to divide my private library into two - the active part in the living room (about 600 books) and the passive part in the bed room (about 700 books).

When I still worked as a linguist in academia, the majority of the books in the active part were on languages and linguistics. After this major rearrangement the majority of the books there are on Judaism, especially Chabad Hasidism. I have only one shelf for Hebrew, Yiddish and Russian respectively there; all the other books on languages and linguistics are now in the passive part of the library in the bed room. There remain few academic Jewish books even in the passive part.

The impact of this rearrangement, not only intellectually but also spiritually, has been enormous. I feel as if my living room became a sacred space. I'm constantly inspired even by the mere presence of all these Hasidic books just by sharing the same space. Of course, I also study them, though little by little to incorporate their profound contents.

If you happen to have seen my private library when it was still dominated by academic books on languages and linguistics, you should visit my apartment so that you, too, may not only see and but also feel the difference.