Marx

Sunday, October 5, 2008
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CONTROVERSIAL REFLECTIONS
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If a big mouth were a sign of intelligence, courage, and initiative, every other Armenian would be another Napoleon, and probably he is in his own mind.
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Sometimes I am described as controversial. If I am, it is only with the naïve, the uninformed, the ignorant, and the unaware.
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According to some psychologists, the compulsion to speak the truth is neurotic. By contrast, the compulsion to lie is a survival tactic and as such in no need of psychiatric treatment.
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I realized I was growing old when old men treated me as if I were one of them.
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After I die I will be remembered by those I have insulted. This may not be an ideal form of immortality but, as the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers.
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If you think I repeat myself, you can reduce the repetitions by 50% if you read me every other day, and 100% if you quit reading me.
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Yanks have talking heads. We have snarling snouts, and if some readers are right, I am one of them.
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We tend to forget that our propaganda has as much effect on them as theirs on us.
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Woody Allen: “I can't listen to too much Wagner, ya know? I start to get the urge to conquer Poland.”
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Monday, October 6, 2008
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ALL FASCISTS ARE PATHOLOGICAL LIARS
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That's because fascism and truth are mutually exclusive concepts. Even when they speak the truth they lie because their little truths serve to prop up Big Lies.
When in power, they silence all dissent because they are afraid to be exposed as liars to their blind followers. When not in power, they verbally abuse anyone who dares to speak in defense of human rights and free speech.
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Fascism cannot be defeated with arguments. It took a world war to defeat fascism and even then it was only a temporary victory. There are more fascist regimes today than there are democracies, and there are fascists even in democracies. They may not call themselves fascists but they are as fascist as the fascists under Mussolini who was said to be “always right” (“Mussolini ha sempre ragione.”)
Who do you think brainwashes teenage boys and girls to blow themselves up in crowded places and kill as many innocent civilians as possible – all in the name of God, Of course: fascists!
What are skinheads, nationalists, and racists who are brainwashed to believe they know better because they are better?
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And in case you think we are too smart or civilized to be fascists: I just finished reading an article in an American magazine in which it is stated that sixteen journalists have been beaten up recently in Yerevan and so far no arrests have been made. (See “Caucasus Diary” by John O'Sullivan in NATIONAL REVIEW, September 15, 2008, page 28.)
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Our fascists are not only pathological liars but also unspeakable cowards because more often than not they don't identify themselves in discussion forums on the Internet. They adopt instead such revealing pseudonyms as “Twilight Snarl,” “Midnight Growl,” and “Morning Phlegm,” when Jack S. Avanakian would be the most appropriate designation.
When asked why he is afraid to write under his own name, one of these heroic specimens explained, “To avoid being the target of Turkish retaliation.” Which of course is utter nonsense because they hide themselves even when abusing their fellow Armenians. They hide themselves even when they write against me, as if I were some kind of mafia don with a gang of hit men at my disposal. To these gutless mice I say: Even if I were a mafia don I wouldn't waste a bullet on them because they are too contemptible to deserve anything but the words “lying cowards.”
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P.S. Gentle reader: If you recognized yourself in what I just said, you are probably right, which is a good beginning because you are probably right for the first time in your life, and according to an old Macedonian saying (which I just made up): “He who is right once has an average chance of being right again,” -- though I wouldn't bet on it.
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P.P.S. Tomorrow I plan to discuss about a subject that is seldom or never mentioned in Armenian forums: Turks.
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Tuesday, October 7, 2008
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AS I SEE IT
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It is the easiest thing in the world to discriminate a reader with a genuine difference of opinion from one who likes to make a nuisance of himself. Most words in the English language have more than one dictionary definition. It is the context that determines their meaning. By deliberating choosing a definition outside the context, one may disagree with any statement, and this is exactly what smartalecks do.
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Writing became a pleasure on the day I gave up not only all hope of popularity, fame, and fortune, but also of minimum wage.
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One reason I suspect the motives of our academics is that they owe their position and income to “chairs” endowed by our benefactors, that is to say, the very rich, who look down at the very poor as lazy, inferior beings who will never amount to anything.
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Speaking of blood-sucking exploiters and white trash: According to a Canadian pundit, if the McCain-Palin ticket wins, it will be the triumph of the very rich and the white trash – a clear-cut case of politics making strange bedfellows. That's the dark side of the situation. And now the Pollyanna side: If McCain and Palin win, they will usher in a golden age of political satire, the White House will become the stage of a perpetual sitcom, and they will be an endless source of inspiration to stand-up comedians.
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All Armenian political parties are alike in at least two important respects: (one) none of them represents the majority, and (two) all of them are more like clubs of mutual admiration on the outside and a vipers' nest on the inside.
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I promised to write about Turks and I kept my promise because there is a Turk in all of us.
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Wednesday, October 8, 2008
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MARX
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Many nasty things have been said against philosophy by philomorons. But consider the case of Karl Marx who single-handed (with a little help from Plato, Hegel, and Engels) reshaped the worldview of billions of people from China to Cuba, and with it, the political map of the world.
And Marx was wrong.
Now then, imagine if you can the damage a philosopher who is right can inflict on mankind and tremble.
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NAREGATSI
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Only Armenians who have not read a single line by Naregatsi think of me as anti-Armenian, or too self-critical or analytical. There is more self-criticism in a single page by Naregatsi than in everything I have written so far.
Sartre said “Hell is other people.”
Naregatsi could have echoed Flaubert's “Bovary c'est moi,” by saying “L'enfer c'est moi.”
To Dante, hell is an operatic horror show.
To Naregatsi, it's an invisible place deep within us.
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Naregatsi says, “So is the Devil's Empire.”
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DEFINITION
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Literature: Art irritating life.
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SHAKESPEAREA & CO.
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In Shakespeare, we have the confident voice of a rising empire;
in Milton, one of the most eloquent defenders of free speech;
in Narekatsi, the moans and ululations of a disintegrating kingdom;
in Sylva Kaputikian, a political opportunist and dupe
who operated on the assumption that Sovietism was the universal religion of the future;
in Gostan Zarian, the whole gamut of Armenianism:
from intense nationalism bordering on chauvinism
to disenchantment, resignation, rage, and the silence of despair and disgust.
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