etc.

Sunday, June 13, 2009
*****************************************
ON KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING
******************************************************
Socrates: “Know thyself.”
The Koran: “He who knows himself, knows God.”
The Bible: “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Three synonymous statement.
Three different ways of saying the same thing.
*
“The Kingdom of God is within you,” and “Our Father Who art in heaven”:
I see a contradiction here. Which may suggest that the Bible cannot be the word of God. God does not contradict Himself. Neither does He speak with a forked tongue. Men do.
*
Men contradict one another because they don't understand; they can only hope to move in the direction of greater understanding.
*
I do not have a quarrel with God, only with men who speak in His name after which they legitimize crimes against humanity.
*
God does not issue licenses authorizing men to speak in His name. Licenses are issued by men to other men against other men.
*
Faith can be an asset as well as a liability. It is an asset when it leads to a greater understand and compassion for our fellow men. It is a liability when it makes us self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant.
*
Diogenes Laertius: “When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said 'to know one's self.' And what was easy, 'To advise another.'”
To advise another: in modern parlance, to sermonize and speechify.
*
Sartre: “We believe that we believe, but we don't believe.”
*
If I bore you, I apologize. If I challenge you, I consider my mission accomplished.
#
Monday, June 14, 2009
*****************************************
ODDS AND ENDS
******************************************************
If I am for honesty it is not because I love truth (which I will never know) but because I hate all those who deceived me when I was young, gullible, and could not yet think for myself.
*
Am I a failure if so far the world has failed to provide me with a friendly audience?
*
A good speechifier knows what the people want to hear and he doesn't mind submitting his intelligence to the rabble.
*
Sometimes our first impressions are more accurate because they are based one a wider and therefore more balanced set of data. Afterwards we can be easily swayed by words.
*
To attack and insult someone from a position of self-assessed infallibility is to openly declare oneself to be unteachable, unreasonable, and unspeakable.
*
Long live fools and fanatics! If it weren't for them, I would run out of inspiration.
*
We like to say there are always two sides to every story after which we readily give in to the temptation of believing our side.
#
Tuesday, June 15, 2009
*****************************************
ETCETERA
******************************************************
The temptation to contradict is one that no Armenian can resist. It is a mental aberration and a pathological condition that only a radical shift in our educational system may cure. To begin with, we should teach our children that far from being smart, we may well be the dumbest people on earth. One reason: for more than a thousand years we have been the slaves of some of the most backward and brutal people on earth, Stalin's USSR being the latest. How can I forget the fact that during the Soviet era I would receive letters and phone calls from Armenian-Americans (I called them chic Bolsheviks) trying to convince me that the Russians were our Big Brothers (literally rather than in the Orwellian sense of these words), Solzhenitsyn was a traitor, the Nobel Prize committee a Jewish conspiracy, Paradjanov a syphilitic black marketeer and pederast, and Zarian a hireling of the CIA. I have myself been accused of being an agent of every secret organization on the planet, including the KGB, the CIA, the Mossad, and the Gray Wolves, whoever the hell they are.
*
In our environment, fanaticism, ignorance, stupidity, and malice speak louder than their counterparts. As for actions: they speak louder than words only when they are directed against defenseless fellow Armenians, the more defenseless the better.
*
If that's what I think about Armenians, why do I bother writing for them?
I go on writing for them because I refuse to believe that only brown-nosers and propagandists qualify as writers, and because I believe no one is beyond redemption. I speak from experience. Once upon a time I too shared all their prejudices, blind spots, and arrogance. If I can see the light, so can anyone else. If this is an illusion, may I never lose it.
*
Michel Sardou: “God? I believe him when I need him. Like the rest of mankind. And if he fails to respond, I appeal to another.”
#
Wednesday, June 16, 2009
*****************************************
OUR FAVORITE MANTRA
******************************************************
A reader writes: “They massacred us because they hated us.”
That's racist talk and that's nonsense.
Not all Turks hated us. Some even risked their lives to save some of us, in the same way that today some of them are willing to risk their freedom to support our cause. No doubt Talaat and his gang of cut-throats were racist, but then, who wasn't? Even Americans of “all men are created equal” fame were racists. They didn't massacre all their minorities, true, only some of them. They were smarter than Turks. They divided and exploited them mercilessly. Where would America be today without its cheap labor? Empires are raised by brute force but maintained by divide-and-rule manipulation.
We are better at dividing ourselves – or rather, allowing others to divide us -- than dividing our enemies. This may explain why almost all talk of Armenians by Armenians ends with the mantra, “Mart bidi ch'ellank.” And because I explain and expand on this mantra, I am silenced. We want flattery, not criticism no matter how objective and honest. But flattery does not solve problems, it covers them up. Flattery does not build character, honesty does.
#