Ketman
Encyclopedia
Kitman is the act of paying lip service to authority
Authority
The word Authority is derived mainly from the Latin word auctoritas, meaning invention, advice, opinion, influence, or command. In English, the word 'authority' can be used to mean power given by the state or by academic knowledge of an area .-Authority in Philosophy:In...

 while holding personal opposition. It is a sort of political or religious camouflage, for the purpose of survival, in circumstances where open opposition would result in persecution. Kitman can be practised through many generations, and eventually erupt in the form of revolutions, uprisings, etc.

Though the term was originally used exclusively in regard to Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and .   : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic authority, the term is most frequently encountered in reference to Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

 authoritarianism.

Origins

The term originates in Persia, and was studied in Gobineau's book Religions and Philosophies of Central Asia. Czesław Miłosz in his book The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind
The Captive Mind is a 1953 work of nonfiction by Polish writer, academic and Nobel laureate, Czesław Miłosz, translated into English by Jane Zielonko and originally published by Secker and Warburg. The book was written soon after the author received political asylum in Paris following his break...

makes parallels between Kitman and the act of public hypocrisy (that is, publicly professing orthodoxy, while privately believing heterodoxy with the hope of one day being in a position of authority to spread one's hidden ideas) in the name of individual conscience under the Communist régimes of post-war Europe.

See also

  • Sadra
    Mulla Sadra
    Ṣadr ad-Dīn Muḥammad Shīrāzī also called Mulla Sadrā was a Persian Shia Islamic philosopher, theologian and ‘Ālim who led the Iranian cultural renaissance in the 17th century...

     – a famous example of someone who used Kitman to his advantage
  • Czesław Miłosz
  • Taqiyya
    Taqiyya
    Taqiyya , meaning religious dissimulation, is a practice emphasized in Shi'a Islam whereby adherents may conceal their religion when they are under threat, persecution, or compulsion...

  • Fumi-e
  • Doctrine of mental reservation
    Doctrine of mental reservation
    The doctrine of mental reservation, or the doctrine of mental equivocation, was a special branch of casuistry developed in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and most often associated with the Jesuits.- Secular use :...

  • Marrano
    Marrano
    Marranos were Jews living in the Iberian peninsula who converted to Christianity rather than be expelled but continued to observe rabbinic Judaism in secret...

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK