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Thursday, March 5, 2009
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REFLECTIONS
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When I was a total ignoramus, I always assumed I knew more than the average Joe I happened to be dealing with. Now it's the other way around: I always assume to know less.
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You can tell how ignorant a man is by how hard he tries to make you think he knows better.
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The most ungodly people are those who speak in His name, and the most dangerous dupes are those who believe them.
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I reject the notion that to be a good Armenian means to be a bundle of prejudices and nurse an unsettled score. Which amounts to saying, to be a good Armenian means to be a bad human being.
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What's uppermost in the mind of a successful writer is to live up to his reputation. Which is why as a marginal scribbler and a total failure I find my status both liberating and stimulating.
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It is written: “No one can be as dangerous as the man who has nothing to lose.”
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The greatest challenge a country faces is not electing great leaders but leaders who are the least threat to its welfare. As for our unelected bosses, bishops, and benefactors: they might as well be our Bermuda Triangle.
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Our ghazetajis operate on the assumption that the average Armenian reader prefers to read about little successes (no matter how imaginary) than colossal failures (no matter how real). Never underestimate the cunning of idiots.
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Prejudice allows a man to tailor his questions to fit his answers.
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If you don't know, pretend to know. Few people will have the time and appetite to get into a useless argument with a worthless phony. At least, that has been my experience.
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Friday, March 6, 2009
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MOSAIC
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Truth as a mosaic of lies -- like a pleasing design made of worthless pieces of glass or stone.
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God as a point of reference or God as a means to expose our failings and imperfections, yes. But God as a license to do this, that, and the other – I say that's damn close to confusing God with the Devil.
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What could be more absurd than to say, what I believe is true, what you believe is a lie. And yet...
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Let us teach ourselves to question everything, beginning with our own judgment.
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To say that ideas acquire legitimacy only when they serve our interests is to undermine the legitimacy of all ideas.
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What follows is a true story. It happened last year in a Greyhound bus in Canada. A passenger stabs another passenger – a totally unprovoked attack -- and beheads him. When arrested and tried, he pleads not guilty by reason of insanity. God made him do it, he explains.
I suggest the following definition of man: a creature who cannot tell God from the Devil.
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If repetition is a crime, who is the victim? If repetition is a transgression, where is the harm?
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Saturday, March 7, 2009
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QUESTION
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Win an argument and lose a friend.
It has happened to me more than once.
Some of my worst enemies today are former friends; and they have become enemies because of a minor disagreement on an irrelevant topic.
But perhaps they were never friends, and what they lost was much more than an argument.
We are a confused bunch. No doubt about that.
We are confused because we have been shaped by alien, tyrannical, and unjust laws – laws that viewed dissent as a capital offense, and desire for self-determination (i.e. freedom), that most human of all desires, as a crime against humanity or the integrity of the empire.
When contradicted we feel threatened. There are even those among us (I call them skinheads) who see verbal abuse as a legitimate form of counter-argument.
We will be born again as human beings on the day we learn to have a friendly disagreement.
Remember my friends:
free speech is a fundamental human right,
dissent is not treason,
a political party that places its own agenda above the solidarity and welfare of the nation is not democratic but tyrannical,
and our political leaders are not bosses or representatives of god on earth but public servants.
Because I say these things, am I then your enemy?
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