types

Sunday, October 4, 2009
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OBSERVATIONS
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George Orwell criticized Dickens for “always pointing to a change of spirit rather than a change of structure.” If Dickens did that, it may be because a change of heart or spirit must precede a change of structure. Before you convert swine, you must introduce them to themselves. In the Soviet Union the structure changed but the heart went from bad to worse.
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Dissidents win even when they lose in so far as they keep the tradition of dissent alive.
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Both Tevye the Milkman and Bernard Madoff are members of the same tribe. Now then, go ahead and generalize.
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It is easy to have all the answers if you ask the wrong questions.
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There are two kinds of divisions, (one) dog-eat-dog, and (two) Armenian, and of the two, the second runs deeper.
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Honesty and dishonesty are two painfully acquired habits.
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If perfection cannot be improvised, it can't be worth achieving. God did not create a perfect world. What's good enough for God, it should be good enough for man.
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Power means the power to get away with murder and to have the powerful on your side. Where power enters, justice is orphaned.
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Monday, October 5, 2009
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ARMENIAN TYPES
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The white-haired elder statesman,
the "mi-kich-pogh" Panchoonie,
the apres-moi-le-deluge and
what's-in-it-for-me wheeler-dealer,
the loud-mouth charlatan,
the inbred moron who assesses himself as a genius,
the phony pundit (whose wisdom
is a figment of his imagination --
sometimes even recycled enemy propaganda:
remember our chic Bolsheviks),
the brown-noser,
and the grub-first-then ethics speechifier.
If I speak with some authority on all these types
it's because at one time or another I have been all of them --
all except the white-haired elder statesman --
my hair is black with only a shake of salt in them.
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You begin to acquire a moral compass on the day you feel guilty about acts you committed without a single trace of remorse.
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If some very smart men profess very stupid belief systems, it may be because the aim of belief systems is not to make sense but to satisfy a need, like hunger. The rest is propaganda.
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God is one, but the lies spoken in His name are without number.
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To simplify matters for the simple-minded, let us say there are two kinds of people: (one) the brainwashed dupes, and (two) those whose ambition it is to be a human being.
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Most Greeks and Turks (probably the overwhelming majority) are neither Greeks nor Turks, only citizens of Greece and Turkey. As for my fellow Armenians, I will speak only for myself: On a clear day I can trace my ancestry all the way back to my father.
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History seems to suggest that the most effective way to combat a Big Lie is with bigger lies.
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Tuesday, October 6, 2009
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LIFE IS SHORT
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Life is short,
art long, but even longer
is the list of things
that must be said and done.
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You say, “Me wrong? Never!”
and I say “How I wish I were wrong.”
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I have yet to meet a smart Armenian
who was not self-assessed
and a self-assessed Armenian
who was not a damn fool.
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How to succeed as a writer?
I don't know.
But I can tell you how to fail:
Be an Armenian writer.
Michael Arlen succeeded
because he pretended to be an upper-crust Englishman.
Saroyan succeeded because he wrote about characters
that were as imaginary as Winnie the Pooh.
Compare the characters in PAPA, YOU'RE CRAZY
and MAMA, I LOVE YOU with their real counterparts –
himself and his two children
whom he disowned like an enraged grizzly bear.
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Wednesday, October 7, 2009
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IDIOTS (II)
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Simenon, the author of over 500 books, believed it is law-abiding citizens who create murderers.
In his ANTI-SEMITE & THE JEW, Sartre asserts that Jews are created by anti-Semites.
Goethe once said that he can't imagine a crime he is not capable of committing. But not even he could have imagined that some day his fellow countrymen would be capable of incinerating millions of innocent civilians.
Speaking of the Armenian massacres, Toynbee tells us, given the right combination of circumstances, we, all of us, are capable of behaving like Turks.
In novels like CRIME & PUNISHMENT and THE POSSESSED (sometimes also translated as THE DEVILS), Dostoevsky identifies himself with characters who commit unspeakable acts to such a degree that he leaves no doubt as to his inner drives.
Long before the writers and thinkers mentioned above, our own Naregatsi described himself as someone a respectable citizen wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.
Moral: Only self-righteous and self-satisfied idiots assert moral or racial superiority.
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