this and that

Sunday, October 12, 2008
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ON WRITING
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Kingsley Amis: “If you can't annoy somebody with what you write, I think there is little point in writing.”
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If I fail to answer some questions or arguments it may be because I am too busy answering my perennial adversary – my former self.
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There is a type of philistine for whom the word culture is almost synonymous with cuisine.
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If shish-kebab and pilaf Armenians were to read a single Armenian book every year, Armenian literature would enjoy another renaissance.
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I am accused of hanging out the nation's dirty linen by the dirty linen.
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Cicero defines freedom as “participation in power.” If we are free, ours is the freedom of ants, birds, and herbivores – free to be stepped on, shot at, and devoured.
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In one of his essays Sartre says that never had French intellectuals been so free as they were under the German occupation during World War II. Something similar could be said of Armenian intellectuals at the turn of the last century in Istanbul under the sultans. A 21st -century Baronian and Odian are unthinkable because they would be immediately and unanimously silenced by editors who are no better than hirelings of our bosses and benefactors.
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Monday, October 13, 2008
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VARIETIES OF PATRIOTIC EXPERIENCE
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If Mother Teresa lost her faith, can any believer be safe in his own? And if I, a thoroughly brainwashed hater of all Turks, can realize that they are human beings like the rest of us, can any Armenian be safe in his hatred of Turks, and by extension, hatred of fellow Armenians who dare to disagree with him?
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Ignorance of history allows a fool to think of himself as wise, a fanatic to be a moderate, and an executioner to be on the side of the angels.
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When I speak of free speech, I speak in defense of all writers who at one time or another were permanently silenced by fascist regimes in the name of patriotism. I speak with the strength of many.
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If you join a club of like-minded idiots and you assess yourself as wise, have at least the common sense and decency not to assess yourself as infallible.
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Because I refuse to believe to be Armenian means to hate Turks in theory and to hate Armenians in practice, am I then an enemy of the people whose tongue should be cut off?
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Diasporan patriotism: they pretend to love the country in order to hate fellow countrymen with a clear conscience.
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Patriotism: which comes first, love of country or hatred of the enemy?
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Solidarity in hatred, divisiveness in love: some may call that patriotism, I call it insanity.
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Those who preach patriotism and violate the human rights of their fellow countrymen are liars, cowards, and partisans of subservience.
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Love of country: mountains, rivers, and valleys are easy to love – they don't reason, neither do they judge. Love of fellow countrymen: a far more demanding enterprise.
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
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TEN YEARS LATER
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When a reader reacts with insults and profanities it may be because he has run out of arguments, or rather he never had any to begin with.
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To meet two old detractors after ten years and to realize they haven't advanced an inch and they are the same horse's arses is a sensation akin to revenge without the guilt.
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If a man's income is forty times your own, it doesn't necessarily follow that he is forty times smarter, though he may think so.
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Sarah Palin claiming to be an expert in foreign affairs because she can see Russia from her porch has a counterpart among Armenians who think they are patriotic because they know “Yes im anoush Hayastani” by heart.
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Let us not confuse hatred of Turks with love of the Homeland, or being slaves of former slaves with freedom.
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St. John: “The one who says that he loves God and does not love his brother is a liar.” So is the Armenian who loves his Homeland but hates his fellow Armenian.
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The contempt of the nouveau riche for the intellectual who can't make ends meet, the loathing of the bourgeois for the white trash, and the scorn of the aristocracy for the bourgeois – Turgenev's of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy's of Shakespeare, Nabokov's of Freud and Sartre....
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St. Paul: “If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise.”
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Wednesday, October 15, 2008
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VIPERS
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Some share their thoughts, others their venom. But in order to share their venom, they must store it somewhere, that is to say, they must make themselves venomous. Unlike vipers that are not harmed by their own venom, however,human venom is stored in the heart and circulates throughout the entire organism. It follows, those who share their venom become its most generous recipients. Hence Gandhi's dictum, “Hatred injures us more than those we hate.”
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PROBLEMS
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Life is an endless succession of problems. Some problems can be solved, others, like death, taxes, and the voice of one's conscience, cannot.
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QUESTIONS
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Can anyone name a single Armenian who has freely relinquished even a tiny fraction of his income, prestige, or power for the sake of solidarity -- that is to say, that which makes of us a nation as opposed to a collection of tribes?
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Sometimes I am asked:
“Why are you so consistently negative?”
My reply: Negative is in the eye of the beholder. To be against lies is positive;
but not to the liar, of course.
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