analysis

Sunday, January 25, 2009
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SOME NOTES ON THE ARMENIAN PSYCHE
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Let me begin with a warning to the reader: I don't understand everything, neither do I claim to have truth on my side. I write as I do because those who understand everything or know the truth are either silent or have failed to convince all of us. Therefore, consider what follows only as fragments from a work in progress.
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Why are Armenians mean to one another? What is at the root of our dogmatism, mutual intolerance, and divisiveness which have made of us perennial losers and underdogs? Puzant Granian once quoted to me a teacher of his who used to say, “There is a Turk in all of us.” This may suggest Armenians are not harmless Saroyanesque clowns whose sole aim in life is to entertain and amuse odar audiences, but more like carnivores who “survive by cannibalizing one another” (Zarian).
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We are divided because we lack a common pool of values, customs, traditions, and language. We have as many as 43 dialects, not all of them mutually comprehensible. We might as well be foreigners and barbarians (the Greek word for foreigners) to one another.
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Solidarity is a function of the leadership not of the people. Where leaders disagree, people quarrel.
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Our conquerors divided and ruled us for so many centuries that divisiveness has entered our DNA and become the central component of our identity.
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For millennia we took it from barbarians because we had no choice in the matter. We now have a choice and not only we refuse to take it but we also feel liberated enough to verbally slaughter anyone who dares to disagree with us.
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In his LAMENTATION, Naregatsi (our Dante/Shakespeare) explains that like all men we too are walking encyclopedias of failings (or sins). The only way to come to terms with this fact is by becoming aware of it in the hope that the reality principle (or God) will reward us with understanding, forgiveness, acceptance, and serenity. It follows, when a fellow Armenian arouses the worst in us, we should be grateful to him for making us aware of the Turk within, for, according to Freud, the aim of civilization is to make the unconscious conscious.
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God bless you and God bless the divided tribes of Armenia.
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Monday, January 26, 2009
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ON THE FALLACY OF DOGMAS
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In the USSR the economy was controlled; in the U.S. it was free. Both went bust. This may suggest a number of things, among them:
(one) all systems are open to abuse and corruption, and no system is foolproof;
(two) sooner or later all dogmas are exposed as fallacies by the reality principle;
(three) more often than not crises are created by experts or self-assessed superior intellects;
(four) the stronger an opinion, the weaker its foundation in truth;
(five) to know all there is to know about a specific academic discipline does not mean to know more about life;
(six) next time you run into someone who knows better, consider the possibility that his superior knowledge may be inferior to your ignorance;
(seven) a political party will have a better chance to survive if its party line is a zigzag;
(eight) when it comes to their own expertise, all experts are optimists.
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Tuesday, January 27, 2009
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REPLIES
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“I disagree with you because I have more than one bishop, historian, and professor on my side.”
I could always claim to have God on my side (“A house divided against itself cannot stand”) but I refuse to take the name of the Lord in vain.
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“Has it ever occurred to you that a divided house may have a better chance to survive because if one half perishes the other may continue to live and prosper?”
Maybe so but let's see if this theory applies to us. Once upon a time we had vibrant communities in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, how many of them survive today? And let's consider the Armenian-American diaspora: judging by its rate of intermarriage (80% I believe) and assimilation, the consensus is it may not make it to the next century.
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“The Diaspora may perish, but the Homeland will live!”
If in the Diaspora we have a high rate of assimilation, in the Homeland they have a higher rate of exodus. I have heard it said that the only people who don't want to emigrate are the cops.
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“We have the leadership we deserve.”
No one deserved the likes of Sultan Abdulhamid II, Talaat, and Stalin, not even our leaders.
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“I believe in the immortality of the nation because Armenians are men of faith.”
Faith is not enough. We must also do what must be done. Which means mutual tolerance, solidarity, dialogue, compromise, consensus, and above all respect for human rights, including that of free speech. If our bishops, historians, professors, and pundits don't believe in free speech, even He, whose name I refuse to to take in vain, and all His angels and archangels cannot save us.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
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VICTIMS
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No one, not even Armenians, are interested in Armenians as human beings, only as victims – victims of massacres, earthquakes, wars, and starvation. Whenever Armenians are mentioned in the odar press, the chances are it will be in connection with Turkish criminal conduct during World War I.
Armenians as victims. Speaking for myself as a human being rather than as an Armenian, I say enough of this miserabilism! Enough of our status as perennial victims. What could be more repellent than pity?
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An old friend whom I have not seen or exchanged a single word in fifty years comes to see me. He comes armed with a fat dossier outlining his economic plan. He wants to improve conditions of life in the Homeland. Someone must have told him as a writer I may be in a position to introduce him to benefactors. He goes away a thoroughly disappointed man.
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Once when I expressed a pedestrian wish to a woman (Armenian), she was outraged. “You are a writer!” she said. Did she want a sonnet? I have never written a sonnet in my life. On a good day and with a little bit of luck and daring, I may manage a third-rate haiku, but that's as far I am prepared to go. Even a fourth-rate sonnet I consider altogether beyond my ambitions and capabilities.
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A writer? An Armenian writer? What could be more contemptible! I am only a human being who does some scribbling on the side. If you find what I say irrelevant I suggest you read our writers, who, you may be interested to know, were also victims of both foreign and domestic tyrants.
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