"As the Lebanese sociologist Samir Khalaf summed it up: "Though the average Lebanese derives much ... social support and psychological reinforcement from ... local and communal allegiances, these forces are the same elements that ... prompt him on occasion to violate and betray his society's normative standards. The Lebanese is being demoralized, in other words, by the very forces that are supposed to make him a more human and sociable being ... The formation and deformation of Lebanon, so to speak, are rooted in the same forces." I"