Good anthropologists aim to enter into the minds of their subjects, sharing their lifestyle, acquiring their language, studying their moods and responses but always maintaining an objective self-awareness. Pascal Menoret is better than good. Halfway through two years of research in the sprawling, aesthetically bleak, politically and socially stifling capital of Saudi Arabia, the French academic, currently at nyu Abu Dhabi, found himself feeling profoundly tufshan. In Saudi dialect, explains Mr Menoret, the word describes the "subtle and incapacitating torpor" that results from a dawning sense of worthlessness and social inadequacy. Common among the young and working class in Riyadh, a city he calls "a selective El Dorado where only a handful became rich", this state of dejection generates not merely ennui but a detached indifference which itself can be intoxicating and even revolutionary.
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机译：优秀的人类学家的目标是进入受试者的思想，分享生活方式，学习语言，研究情绪和反应，但始终保持客观的自我意识。帕斯卡尔·梅诺雷特胜过一切。这名法国学者目前在努比亚阿布扎比（Nyu Abu Dhabi）进行研究，在沙特阿拉伯这片幅员辽阔，在美学上黯淡，在政治和社会上令人窒息的首都进行了两年的研究中途，他感到自己深深地感到了浮躁。梅诺雷特先生解释说，在沙特方言中，这个词描述的是“微妙而无能的侵权行为”，这是由于黎明时的无价值感和社会不足感造成的。在利雅得这个年轻人和工人阶级中很常见，他称之为“一个只有少数人致富的有选择性的埃尔多拉多”，这种沮丧的状态不仅产生了浪费，而且产生了一种孤僻的冷漠，这种冷漠本身令人陶醉，甚至具有革命性。
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