March 28, 2010
***************************************************
WHAT WE ALL WANT
*******************************************
The maximum amount of respect for the minimum amount of effort to earn it.
*
LIES AND LIARS
**************************
According to an old saying, “All men are liars.” But whereas the poor and the weak lie in defense of their survival, the rich and powerful lie in defense of a power structure that allows them to deceive, exploit, and oppress the poor and the defenseless. Only the blind will not see a difference there.
*
ON HISTORY AND HISTORIANS
**********************************************
Where there are two version of the past, both can't be right, though both may contain fractions of truth. What happened, what is described in a book, and what is understood by readers are three different things. Which is why every historian disagrees with every other historian. Which is also why even the greatest historians – from Herodotus to Spengler and Toynbee – have been torn to shreds by other historians. Which may suggest that historians, even the very best, are as fallible as popes, imams, and rabbis.
*
ON REINCARNATION
*********************************
I see reincarnation not as a concept or occurrence that may happen after death, but as a ceaseless, ongoing process in life. The air we breathe and the food we consume are constantly being recycled by our bodies. Which is why scientists tell us we all have within us atoms that once belonged to Socrates and Alexander the Great. In Toynbee's version of the story: “Every human being now alive has links, however tenuous, not only with every one of his contemporaries, but also with every other human being that has ever lived.”
#
March 29, 2010
***************************************************
CONTEXTS
**************************************
In a NEWSWEEK commentary I read the following about THE NEW YORK TIMES: “Could America's greatest newspaper really be led by such vicious, untrustworthy people?” I have been asking that same question about our own weeklies which, compared to THE NEW YORK TIMES, are as nothing!
*
Am I poisoning the well?
You cannot poison a well of lies with a drop of antidote which may contain particles of truth.
*
Whenever I am told a self-important Armenian is too busy to answer his mail – that is to say, to behave like a civilized human being or to do what he is paid to do – the first question that comes up is: “Busy doing what -- beside pulling his d*ck?”
*
Literary immortality, including that of Dante and Shakespeare, lasts only a fraction of a second when placed in the context of cosmic time. I read this in a book on death by Julian Barnes titled NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF (New York, 2008).
*
Are Armenians smart? Maybe, But it is a mistake to use that line as a license to behave like an inbred moron. As Yanks are fond of saying, “That's my philosophy.”
*
"Truth shall set you free," we are told. Not always. Especially not in an Armenian context. An Armenian who thinks truth is on his side behaves more like a slave to his Ottomanism.
*
An assertion and its contradiction are only two steps on a road that stretches to infinity. But in an Armenian context, they might as well be dead ends.
#
March 30, 2010
***************************************************
COMMENTS
**************************************
“This Western Sun-King's [Louis XIV] palace at Versailles weighed as heavily upon the land of France as the pyramids of Gizah weighed upon the Land of Egypt.”
My first thought on reading this passage in Toynbee's STUDY OF HISTORY: “and as our own four religious denominations (Protestant, Catholic, Etchmiadznagan, and Anteliassagan) weigh upon our communities everywhere.”
*
An infallible man or institution does not have to be proven wrong because nothing can be as foolish, to the point of being asinine, as claiming infallibility.
*
I knew Armenian literature and culture were bankrupt on the day I heard the words of a national benefactor and patron of the arts spoken to one of our poets: “I hire and fire people like you every day.”
*
We can truly say of the brainwashed: "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they say because they understand nothing and they know even less."
*
Writes Shahan Shahnour in a letter to a friend (I am now translating and paraphrasing from memory): "Dupes have been the source of our downfall. What we need most today is the kind of common sense that can discriminate right from wrong, and good from evil. What we don't need is the empty verbiage [i.e. propaganda] of partisan rhetoric. In the words of Arpiar Arpiarian, 'If we can't be useful to this nation, let us at least refrain from doing it any harm'."
#
March 31, 2010
***************************************************
READING SARTRE
**************************************
“History is the result of conscious but often shortsighted decisions made by men in face of the problem of scarcity.”
At the turn of the last century in the Ottoman Empire, the problem of scarcity for the people was human rights or freedom, and for the revolutionaries, power. And now that they have the power, what are they doing with it? They run schools and educate a new generation of “decent” Armenians who will support their “cause” (that is to say, their power).
*
And here is Sartre again on the subject of decency in a political context:
“The decent man will make himself deaf, dumb, and paralyzed. He is the most abstract negation. He will define himself narrowly by tradition, by obedience...”
Now you may be in a better position to understand why when Talaat and Stalin felt threatened, the first thing they did was to systematically eliminate the intellectual class. Now you may also be in a better position to understand why under the sultans we had a vibrant literature, and under our own so-called revolutionaries we have nothing.
*
“In order for reality to be revealed, it is necessary for a man to struggle against it.”
The Ottoman and Soviet realities revealed themselves to us when we undertook to struggle against them.
What about our present reality?
It will never reveal itself as long as we allow those in power to brainwash us into being “decent” Armenians – that is to say, deaf, dumb, and stupid dupes who cannot think for himself.
#
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
vandals
March 25, 2010
***************************************************
AS I SEE IT
*******************************************
Negotiating from a position of weakness might as well be synonymous with defeat.
*
We cannot see the dead, but can the dead (or their immortal soul) see us? If they can see us, is it with the indifference of Reality or God? Does our misery spoil their bliss (assuming they are in heaven)?
*
An ideal explanation combines truth (or a semblance of it) with consolation. Hence the popularity of religions – notwithstanding their many contradictions.
*
My views of my fellow men (beginning with myself) are so unflattering that I look forward to the day when someone will prove me wrong.
*
Do I write because I like to annoy the hell out of dupes, bigots, and charlatans?
Why not? Isn’t that as good a reason as any?
*
Where a part-time janitor makes more money than a full-time writer, there will be an abundance of recycled crap and a total absence of ideas. When, in such an environment, they say “We need solutions,” you can be sure of one thing: that's the last thing they need.
*
In all political movements, lust for power is invariably hidden beneath noble slogans: the greater the lust, the nobler the slogans.
*
There are many forms of cowardice, surely one of the worst must be fear of free speech.
*
It is not easy being civil to individuals who in a different time and place would have been my executioners.
#
March 26, 2010
***************************************************
FROM ABC TO Z
*******************************************
Abovian committed suicide, Bakounts and Charents were betrayed to an alien regime and “purged,” and Zarian died with the conviction that he had been murdered. The enormity of this crime against humanity is such that it needs to be repeated again and again and as often as the other great crime committed against us at the turn of the last century. Remember that next time you speak about Armenian literature and culture.
*
When top dogs fail to reach a consensus, the interests of underdogs cease to be a priority.
*
Because I am against a divided, incompetent, and corrupt regime, I am treated as an enemy of the people on the assumption that the people are too alienated or dumb to recognize a friend when they see one.
*
Just because the stars are not visible during the day, it doesn't mean they are not there. Likewise, just because our “betters” are unreasonable, it doesn't mean reason should be abolished.
*
If you insult someone anonymously, you may expose more your cowardice and less your target's failings.
*
Henri Barbusse: “The real and the supernatural are one and the same.”
So are the reasonable and the absurd.
*
Baudelaire: “Life is a disease. This is a widely known secret.”
#
March 27, 2010
***************************************************
VANDALS
*******************************************
To practice medicine, you need a diploma. To drive a car, you must have a license. But any charlatan can be a politician and proceed to dismantle the nation. This is a well-known historic fact. There are still millions of people who believe Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam were great leaders, in the same way that there are many Armenians who believe what they are told by our bosses, bishops, and benefactors, who, after vandalizing the nation's most important possession – namely, its solidarity – dare to speak in the name of patriotism and God. If that's not speaking with a forked tongue, I should like to know what is.
*
At the end of his life, Arthur (DARKNESS AT NOON) Koestler was so disgusted with politicians that at the beginning of every interview he would say, “No politics.”
*
When, a few days ago, I posted a short commentary titled “Metaphysical Speculations,” several readers said such speculations are a waste of time because they never lead to believable final answers. But according to Toynbee: “Comprehension sometimes consists in just a correct understanding of questions that are unanswerable.”
#
***************************************************
AS I SEE IT
*******************************************
Negotiating from a position of weakness might as well be synonymous with defeat.
*
We cannot see the dead, but can the dead (or their immortal soul) see us? If they can see us, is it with the indifference of Reality or God? Does our misery spoil their bliss (assuming they are in heaven)?
*
An ideal explanation combines truth (or a semblance of it) with consolation. Hence the popularity of religions – notwithstanding their many contradictions.
*
My views of my fellow men (beginning with myself) are so unflattering that I look forward to the day when someone will prove me wrong.
*
Do I write because I like to annoy the hell out of dupes, bigots, and charlatans?
Why not? Isn’t that as good a reason as any?
*
Where a part-time janitor makes more money than a full-time writer, there will be an abundance of recycled crap and a total absence of ideas. When, in such an environment, they say “We need solutions,” you can be sure of one thing: that's the last thing they need.
*
In all political movements, lust for power is invariably hidden beneath noble slogans: the greater the lust, the nobler the slogans.
*
There are many forms of cowardice, surely one of the worst must be fear of free speech.
*
It is not easy being civil to individuals who in a different time and place would have been my executioners.
#
March 26, 2010
***************************************************
FROM ABC TO Z
*******************************************
Abovian committed suicide, Bakounts and Charents were betrayed to an alien regime and “purged,” and Zarian died with the conviction that he had been murdered. The enormity of this crime against humanity is such that it needs to be repeated again and again and as often as the other great crime committed against us at the turn of the last century. Remember that next time you speak about Armenian literature and culture.
*
When top dogs fail to reach a consensus, the interests of underdogs cease to be a priority.
*
Because I am against a divided, incompetent, and corrupt regime, I am treated as an enemy of the people on the assumption that the people are too alienated or dumb to recognize a friend when they see one.
*
Just because the stars are not visible during the day, it doesn't mean they are not there. Likewise, just because our “betters” are unreasonable, it doesn't mean reason should be abolished.
*
If you insult someone anonymously, you may expose more your cowardice and less your target's failings.
*
Henri Barbusse: “The real and the supernatural are one and the same.”
So are the reasonable and the absurd.
*
Baudelaire: “Life is a disease. This is a widely known secret.”
#
March 27, 2010
***************************************************
VANDALS
*******************************************
To practice medicine, you need a diploma. To drive a car, you must have a license. But any charlatan can be a politician and proceed to dismantle the nation. This is a well-known historic fact. There are still millions of people who believe Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam were great leaders, in the same way that there are many Armenians who believe what they are told by our bosses, bishops, and benefactors, who, after vandalizing the nation's most important possession – namely, its solidarity – dare to speak in the name of patriotism and God. If that's not speaking with a forked tongue, I should like to know what is.
*
At the end of his life, Arthur (DARKNESS AT NOON) Koestler was so disgusted with politicians that at the beginning of every interview he would say, “No politics.”
*
When, a few days ago, I posted a short commentary titled “Metaphysical Speculations,” several readers said such speculations are a waste of time because they never lead to believable final answers. But according to Toynbee: “Comprehension sometimes consists in just a correct understanding of questions that are unanswerable.”
#
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
#1
March 21, 2010
***************************************************
METAPHYSICAL SPECULATIONS
*******************************************
Perhaps Existence or Reality and God are one and the same
if only because they share one very important quality in common,
namely, total indifference.
One way to explain this indifference is to say that
if we were to add up the positives and the negatives in a man's life,
the result will be zero.
*
The end of being is nothingness,
and from nothingness to being again.
From stardust to existence
and from existence to stardust again.
From here to eternity.
A cycle whose beginning is shrouded in mystery
and whose end is invisible and inconceivable,
very much like God Himself.
*
Scientists speak of the Big Bang.
But so far no scientist has ever ventured to speculate
about the nature or dimension of existence before the Bang.
*
The dead enter a timeless realm
in which a second is as long as a billion years.
In cosmic time, a life lasts no more than a fraction of a second.
The purpose of life – assuming it has one –
is to experience the human dimension,
and of dimensions there may well be an infinite number.
*
Nothing is impossible to an Almighty God,
the creator of the Universe only a small fraction of which
we can see even with the most powerful telescopes and microscopes.
*
Am I trying to explain the meaning of life?
No! Only doing my utmost to come to terms with Reality,
which is beyond our comprehension
and will remain so until we die, perhaps even after...
assuming there is an after.
The rest is propaganda.
#
March 22, 2010
***************************************************
READING TOYNBEE
*******************************************
“Private intellectual enterprise, unlike private economic enterprise, lives by co-operation not by competition.”
Translated into every-day language and applied to us, this simply means, Armenian writers dig their own graves if they continue to crap on one another as Oshagan did on Zarian, and as Oshagan's disciples continue to do so to this day.
*
“It is always easier, both intellectually and morally, to debit one's ills to the account of some outside agency than to ascribe the responsibility to oneself.”
What Toynbee is saying here is this: if you paint the opposition all black and yourself all white, as our dividers and Turcocentric ghazetajis tend to do, you will be believed only by those you have brainwashed and no one else.
*
What follows is one of my favorite passages from THE STUDY OF HISTORY:
“In the life which Man has made for himself on Earth, his institutions, in contrast to his personal relations, are the veritable slums, and that taint of moral obliquity is still more distressing in the least ignoble of these social tenements of the Human Spirit – for instance, in the churches and the academies – than in such unquestionably malignant institutions as Slavery and War.”
As I see it, what Toynbee is saying here: wars and massacres are extensions of the lies taught in schools and preached in churches (including temples and mosques); or again, there is more evil in legitimizing and promoting intolerance than in violations of human rights and in crimes against humanity, including genocide. But whereas war criminals are occasionally arrested, tried, found guilty, and punished, or are assassinated, hanged, or commit suicide, rabbis, bishops, and imams go on preaching their venom unmolested.
#
March 23, 2010
***************************************************
VOODOO
*******************************************
In his VOODOO HISTORIES: THE ROLE OF THE CONSPIRACY THEORY IN SHAPING MODERN HISTORY (New York, 2010, page 340), David Aaronovitch writes, conspiracy theorists are masters of writing “history for losers” in which they try to prove that “their defeat is not the product of their inherent weakness, let alone their mistakes; [but] it is due to the almost demonic ruthlessness of their enemy.”
*
Understanding reality is an endless process. After millennia of thinking and research some of the most important questions in science and philosophy remain unanswered. A partisan (and it makes no difference wheter he is a religious or a political partisan) is one who operates on the assumption that he knows all he needs to know; he has understood reality or its most important aspects, and all that remains to be done is to gather more evidence in order to strengthen his case. He confuses a fraction of reality with reality, his nation with mankind, and one side of an issue with all sides. He is a dogmatist and like all dogmatists he is intolerant, narrow-minded, self-righteous and prone to violence. Even when he speaks for peace and the brotherhood of all men he is prepared to kill and die. He is more of a preacher and propagandist than an observer and analyst. Which is why arguing with a partisan might as well be synonymous with making an enemy.
*
Reason unites. Emotion divides. Reason unites because it is predictable and it obeys laws of universal validity. We all agree that 2+2=4.
Emotion divides because it is unpredictable and inconsistent.
We all do not and cannot agree on matters of taste, faith, or anything else that is outside reason’s orbit.
Even when we disagree, reason tells us "to agree to disagree," because consensus
(which means working together rather than thinking alike) is better than conflict.
I say therefore, Let us reason together.
#
March 24, 2010
***************************************************
TAKING CARE OF #1
*******************************************
A power structure is as invisible as a glass wall. You feel its presence only when you bump into it and shatter your glasses or flatten your nose. That is why, from a very early age, you are taught obedience and respect for authority. That is also why you are constantly reminded you can't fight City Hall, it is heresy to contradict those who speak in the name of God, don't rock the boat, the law is the law...
A power structure knows the only way to take care of itself is by controlling the educational system, and by rewriting history.
And yet, every single privilege we enjoy today as citizens of a democracy we owe to dissenters like Socrates (who dedicated his life to proving those who pretend to know better are ignoramuses), Martin Luther (who dared to question the infallibility of the Pope), and Solzhenitsyn (who by exposing the criminal nature of Soviet despotism, undermined its legitimacy).
What about our own dissidents?
The short answer is: they have been ignored, buried, and forgotten by our commissars, who, with the blessings of our “popes,” continue to be in charge of our destiny as a nation today.
I suspect one reason we are constantly reminded of massacres is to let us know that we owe the fact that we are no longer being massacred to the statesmanship of our leaders. As for the fact that we were massacred at the turn of the last century: we should in no way ascribe it to their abysmal ignorance, arrogance, and incompetence.
They assert their legitimacy is by painting themselves all white and their enemies all black; and their dupes, who invariably outnumber those who can think for themselves, are more than willing to believe them. Hence the popular adage: “There is a sucker born every minute.”
#
***************************************************
METAPHYSICAL SPECULATIONS
*******************************************
Perhaps Existence or Reality and God are one and the same
if only because they share one very important quality in common,
namely, total indifference.
One way to explain this indifference is to say that
if we were to add up the positives and the negatives in a man's life,
the result will be zero.
*
The end of being is nothingness,
and from nothingness to being again.
From stardust to existence
and from existence to stardust again.
From here to eternity.
A cycle whose beginning is shrouded in mystery
and whose end is invisible and inconceivable,
very much like God Himself.
*
Scientists speak of the Big Bang.
But so far no scientist has ever ventured to speculate
about the nature or dimension of existence before the Bang.
*
The dead enter a timeless realm
in which a second is as long as a billion years.
In cosmic time, a life lasts no more than a fraction of a second.
The purpose of life – assuming it has one –
is to experience the human dimension,
and of dimensions there may well be an infinite number.
*
Nothing is impossible to an Almighty God,
the creator of the Universe only a small fraction of which
we can see even with the most powerful telescopes and microscopes.
*
Am I trying to explain the meaning of life?
No! Only doing my utmost to come to terms with Reality,
which is beyond our comprehension
and will remain so until we die, perhaps even after...
assuming there is an after.
The rest is propaganda.
#
March 22, 2010
***************************************************
READING TOYNBEE
*******************************************
“Private intellectual enterprise, unlike private economic enterprise, lives by co-operation not by competition.”
Translated into every-day language and applied to us, this simply means, Armenian writers dig their own graves if they continue to crap on one another as Oshagan did on Zarian, and as Oshagan's disciples continue to do so to this day.
*
“It is always easier, both intellectually and morally, to debit one's ills to the account of some outside agency than to ascribe the responsibility to oneself.”
What Toynbee is saying here is this: if you paint the opposition all black and yourself all white, as our dividers and Turcocentric ghazetajis tend to do, you will be believed only by those you have brainwashed and no one else.
*
What follows is one of my favorite passages from THE STUDY OF HISTORY:
“In the life which Man has made for himself on Earth, his institutions, in contrast to his personal relations, are the veritable slums, and that taint of moral obliquity is still more distressing in the least ignoble of these social tenements of the Human Spirit – for instance, in the churches and the academies – than in such unquestionably malignant institutions as Slavery and War.”
As I see it, what Toynbee is saying here: wars and massacres are extensions of the lies taught in schools and preached in churches (including temples and mosques); or again, there is more evil in legitimizing and promoting intolerance than in violations of human rights and in crimes against humanity, including genocide. But whereas war criminals are occasionally arrested, tried, found guilty, and punished, or are assassinated, hanged, or commit suicide, rabbis, bishops, and imams go on preaching their venom unmolested.
#
March 23, 2010
***************************************************
VOODOO
*******************************************
In his VOODOO HISTORIES: THE ROLE OF THE CONSPIRACY THEORY IN SHAPING MODERN HISTORY (New York, 2010, page 340), David Aaronovitch writes, conspiracy theorists are masters of writing “history for losers” in which they try to prove that “their defeat is not the product of their inherent weakness, let alone their mistakes; [but] it is due to the almost demonic ruthlessness of their enemy.”
*
Understanding reality is an endless process. After millennia of thinking and research some of the most important questions in science and philosophy remain unanswered. A partisan (and it makes no difference wheter he is a religious or a political partisan) is one who operates on the assumption that he knows all he needs to know; he has understood reality or its most important aspects, and all that remains to be done is to gather more evidence in order to strengthen his case. He confuses a fraction of reality with reality, his nation with mankind, and one side of an issue with all sides. He is a dogmatist and like all dogmatists he is intolerant, narrow-minded, self-righteous and prone to violence. Even when he speaks for peace and the brotherhood of all men he is prepared to kill and die. He is more of a preacher and propagandist than an observer and analyst. Which is why arguing with a partisan might as well be synonymous with making an enemy.
*
Reason unites. Emotion divides. Reason unites because it is predictable and it obeys laws of universal validity. We all agree that 2+2=4.
Emotion divides because it is unpredictable and inconsistent.
We all do not and cannot agree on matters of taste, faith, or anything else that is outside reason’s orbit.
Even when we disagree, reason tells us "to agree to disagree," because consensus
(which means working together rather than thinking alike) is better than conflict.
I say therefore, Let us reason together.
#
March 24, 2010
***************************************************
TAKING CARE OF #1
*******************************************
A power structure is as invisible as a glass wall. You feel its presence only when you bump into it and shatter your glasses or flatten your nose. That is why, from a very early age, you are taught obedience and respect for authority. That is also why you are constantly reminded you can't fight City Hall, it is heresy to contradict those who speak in the name of God, don't rock the boat, the law is the law...
A power structure knows the only way to take care of itself is by controlling the educational system, and by rewriting history.
And yet, every single privilege we enjoy today as citizens of a democracy we owe to dissenters like Socrates (who dedicated his life to proving those who pretend to know better are ignoramuses), Martin Luther (who dared to question the infallibility of the Pope), and Solzhenitsyn (who by exposing the criminal nature of Soviet despotism, undermined its legitimacy).
What about our own dissidents?
The short answer is: they have been ignored, buried, and forgotten by our commissars, who, with the blessings of our “popes,” continue to be in charge of our destiny as a nation today.
I suspect one reason we are constantly reminded of massacres is to let us know that we owe the fact that we are no longer being massacred to the statesmanship of our leaders. As for the fact that we were massacred at the turn of the last century: we should in no way ascribe it to their abysmal ignorance, arrogance, and incompetence.
They assert their legitimacy is by painting themselves all white and their enemies all black; and their dupes, who invariably outnumber those who can think for themselves, are more than willing to believe them. Hence the popular adage: “There is a sucker born every minute.”
#
Saturday, March 20, 2010
religion
March 18, 2010
***************************************************
OLD-TIME RELIGION
*******************************************
What does the average Armenian know or understand about the reasons why we are divided? I suspect most Armenians follow the old-time religion routine: if it's good enough for my father, it's good enough for me. It follows the son of a Tashnak will be a Tashnak, the son of a Ramgavar will be a Ramgavar, and so on. It also follows, our divisions are based not on facts or values but on habit and tradition. Which may explain why even our revolutionaries are right-wing conservatives. As a result, instead of renewal we have stagnation, instead if progress paralysis, and instead of dialogue two monologues that never cross.
*
To join a group means to surrender a fraction of one's individuality and uniqueness.
*
In a group it is not always the best that rises to the top but the most cunning and ruthless.
*
Even the most absurd slogan will make sense if it flatters our ego.
*
Sometimes I am accused of repeating myself. If you agree with a slogan, you don't mind to have it repeated countless times. But if you disagree with an idea, being exposed to it even once, it will be a source of annoyance, irritation, and hostility.
*
Who is more guilty? The leader or his dupe (who assesses himself as smart)?
*
The 11th Commandment in the Armenian Decalogue: “Thou shalt not be a dupe.”
#
March 19, 2010
***************************************************
OPIUM
*******************************************
Marx said religion is “the opium of the people.”
The word assassin comes from the Arabic “hashish” (opium).
Voltaire: “Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors.”
*
As a nonbeliever I respect equally both believers and nonbelievers– both Sartre and Schweitzer (who were cousins).
Sartre, the atheist, writes in his memoirs: “I depend on people who depend on God.”
A contradiction?
Walt Whitman: “So what if I contradict myself? I contain multitudes.”
*
Nationalism is defined as an ideology by nationalists, and as pathology by those who have studied its history.
*
Some are too big to fail, and some are too insignificant to register on the consciousness of the world. You may now guess to which category we belong.
*
Incompetence and intolerance of dissent is a lethal combination that might as well be a death warrant.
*
What makes life bearable is the idea of death.
*
Whitman: “Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.”
*
Optimism? Nothing wrong with it, provided you are prepared to be disappointed.
*
Why do I write in short sentences and paragraphs?
The short answer is, fear.
Fear of boring my readers.
#
March 20, 2010
***************************************************
ON PATERNALISM
*******************************************
Our genocide is not only a symptom of man's humanity to man but also of our own misplaced and naïve trust in an alien power structure that we were led to believe to be paternalistic because that is how it had (mis)represented itself to us for 600 years. One reason we don't emphasize this aspect of our past is that paternalism continues to be our favorite mode of perceiving our own leadership.
*
Xenophobia blinds us to the virtues of our adversaries to the same degree that it blinds us to our own vices.
*
In our traumatized partisan environment you are safe only if you parrot the partisan line. But if you dare to think and speak for yourself – that is to say, to give expression to your own thoughts. convictions, and experiences – then prepared yourself to be verbally abused by dupes who know and understand even less than their “educators” -- meaning, those who brainwashed them.
*
Oliver Goldsmith: “The laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law.”
#
***************************************************
OLD-TIME RELIGION
*******************************************
What does the average Armenian know or understand about the reasons why we are divided? I suspect most Armenians follow the old-time religion routine: if it's good enough for my father, it's good enough for me. It follows the son of a Tashnak will be a Tashnak, the son of a Ramgavar will be a Ramgavar, and so on. It also follows, our divisions are based not on facts or values but on habit and tradition. Which may explain why even our revolutionaries are right-wing conservatives. As a result, instead of renewal we have stagnation, instead if progress paralysis, and instead of dialogue two monologues that never cross.
*
To join a group means to surrender a fraction of one's individuality and uniqueness.
*
In a group it is not always the best that rises to the top but the most cunning and ruthless.
*
Even the most absurd slogan will make sense if it flatters our ego.
*
Sometimes I am accused of repeating myself. If you agree with a slogan, you don't mind to have it repeated countless times. But if you disagree with an idea, being exposed to it even once, it will be a source of annoyance, irritation, and hostility.
*
Who is more guilty? The leader or his dupe (who assesses himself as smart)?
*
The 11th Commandment in the Armenian Decalogue: “Thou shalt not be a dupe.”
#
March 19, 2010
***************************************************
OPIUM
*******************************************
Marx said religion is “the opium of the people.”
The word assassin comes from the Arabic “hashish” (opium).
Voltaire: “Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors.”
*
As a nonbeliever I respect equally both believers and nonbelievers– both Sartre and Schweitzer (who were cousins).
Sartre, the atheist, writes in his memoirs: “I depend on people who depend on God.”
A contradiction?
Walt Whitman: “So what if I contradict myself? I contain multitudes.”
*
Nationalism is defined as an ideology by nationalists, and as pathology by those who have studied its history.
*
Some are too big to fail, and some are too insignificant to register on the consciousness of the world. You may now guess to which category we belong.
*
Incompetence and intolerance of dissent is a lethal combination that might as well be a death warrant.
*
What makes life bearable is the idea of death.
*
Whitman: “Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.”
*
Optimism? Nothing wrong with it, provided you are prepared to be disappointed.
*
Why do I write in short sentences and paragraphs?
The short answer is, fear.
Fear of boring my readers.
#
March 20, 2010
***************************************************
ON PATERNALISM
*******************************************
Our genocide is not only a symptom of man's humanity to man but also of our own misplaced and naïve trust in an alien power structure that we were led to believe to be paternalistic because that is how it had (mis)represented itself to us for 600 years. One reason we don't emphasize this aspect of our past is that paternalism continues to be our favorite mode of perceiving our own leadership.
*
Xenophobia blinds us to the virtues of our adversaries to the same degree that it blinds us to our own vices.
*
In our traumatized partisan environment you are safe only if you parrot the partisan line. But if you dare to think and speak for yourself – that is to say, to give expression to your own thoughts. convictions, and experiences – then prepared yourself to be verbally abused by dupes who know and understand even less than their “educators” -- meaning, those who brainwashed them.
*
Oliver Goldsmith: “The laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law.”
#
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
this and that
March 14, 2010
***************************************************
SLOGANS
*******************************************
To be brainwashed is bad enough.
What is infinitely worse is to be brainwashed by idiots who pretend to be smart. And what could be easier for an adult than to appear smart to a child, which is when they get you – when you are a child and cannot yet think for yourself. And they get you not with logic or sentences that make sense or have any connection with reality, but with slogans – slogans like “America the Beautiful,” “The Land of the Brave and the Free,” “Deutschland uber alles.”
Massacres and genocides come naturally to people who are brainwashed to parrot slogans like “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
All slogans should come with a warning or a counter-slogan, such as “Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.”
“Workers of the world unite, provided you don't drop your pants and bend over to murderous morons.”
“Allawa akhbar!”
God may be One.
God may be Great.
God may even be Almighty.
But God is also Incomprehensible, and to speak in His name is to bluff and blaspheme.
#
March 15, 2010
***************************************************
QUESTIONS
*******************************************
Toynbee: “When prophets disagree, are we to give credit to either of their opposing voices?”
Likewise, when our dividers disagree...
*
The difference between an agnostic and a man of faith: the agnostic will not kill and die in the name of an entity whose existence is based on hearsay evidence.
*
Simone Weil: “It is impossible to forgive whoever has done us harm if that harm has lowered us. We have to think that it has not lowered us but revealed our true level.”
*
A noted French philosopher (Merleau-Ponty) once described the German occupation of France during World War II, as being “raped by history.”
How are we to describe our own experience?
After being gang-raped for 600 years we were eviscerated?
Are we dead or alive?
*
Questions that I ask myself seven times every day (which is how many times a pope is said to doubt his faith every day):
Am I wasting my time?
I am.
Why do I go on?
I don't know.
#
March 16, 2010
***************************************************
IF YOU LIE DOWN WITH DOGS....
*******************************************
If you lie down with cannibals, you are sure to end up in their digestive tract. Perhaps genocide was the price we had to pay for being not only subservient to them for 600 years but also their “most loyal subjects.”
*
Winners say they won because God was on their side or it was their “manifest destiny” to win. Losers say they lost because their enemies were predators who spoke with a forked tongue.
*
Prejudice comes as naturally to men of faith as extremism to fanatics and big lies to dupes.
*
The greater the number of divisions, the great the number of panchoonies and letters that end with the words “mi kich pogh.”
*
Who benefits from our divisions? Only our dividers.
*
I plead guilty to the charge that I recycle ideas as opposed to propaganda, and to propagandists, recycling ideas might as well be a capital offense.
*
Our crypto-sultans and neo-commissars are so insecure that they will promote any mediocrity that knows how to flatter them, and silence anyone who dares to question their infallibility.
*
I am not personally acquainted with any one of our leaders but I have dealt with some of their underlings and I am appalled by their intellectual mediocrity (which I am willing to forgive) and moral moronism (which is at the root of all crimes against humanity”).
*
Incompetent leaders might as well be shepherds who drive their flocks in the direction of ravenous wolves.
*
A belief system or faith is a product of man's creative mind as surely as the composition of a great symphony, and man has created many more gods than great symphonies.
#
March 17, 2010
***************************************************
THIS & THAT
*******************************************
The Irish like to say, “There are two kinds of people: the Irish and those who would like to be Irish.” How many kinds of Armenians are there? I would say, as many as there are Armenians; but I could also say there are also two kinds: dividers and their dupes.
*
If I am wrong, I can be corrected. But if those who are in charge of our destiny are wrong, the result may be another massacre – if not “garmir” (red) than “jermak” (white).
If I have said this before, I apologize. I happen to be an addict of reiteration. Or, as Socrates used to say, “To know is to remember.”
*
Awareness of ignorance is better than false knowledge.
*
When an American politician needs a dedicated aide, my guess is, he says: “I need a Young Turk.” I doubt if anyone of them says “I need a rug merchant.”
I read recently that Khrushchev referred to Mikoyan as “my rug merchant.”
*
My English dictionary defines “Young Turk” as “a young person eager for radical change to the established order.”
*
If what you say makes sense,
let your words speak louder than your emotions.
#
***************************************************
SLOGANS
*******************************************
To be brainwashed is bad enough.
What is infinitely worse is to be brainwashed by idiots who pretend to be smart. And what could be easier for an adult than to appear smart to a child, which is when they get you – when you are a child and cannot yet think for yourself. And they get you not with logic or sentences that make sense or have any connection with reality, but with slogans – slogans like “America the Beautiful,” “The Land of the Brave and the Free,” “Deutschland uber alles.”
Massacres and genocides come naturally to people who are brainwashed to parrot slogans like “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
All slogans should come with a warning or a counter-slogan, such as “Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.”
“Workers of the world unite, provided you don't drop your pants and bend over to murderous morons.”
“Allawa akhbar!”
God may be One.
God may be Great.
God may even be Almighty.
But God is also Incomprehensible, and to speak in His name is to bluff and blaspheme.
#
March 15, 2010
***************************************************
QUESTIONS
*******************************************
Toynbee: “When prophets disagree, are we to give credit to either of their opposing voices?”
Likewise, when our dividers disagree...
*
The difference between an agnostic and a man of faith: the agnostic will not kill and die in the name of an entity whose existence is based on hearsay evidence.
*
Simone Weil: “It is impossible to forgive whoever has done us harm if that harm has lowered us. We have to think that it has not lowered us but revealed our true level.”
*
A noted French philosopher (Merleau-Ponty) once described the German occupation of France during World War II, as being “raped by history.”
How are we to describe our own experience?
After being gang-raped for 600 years we were eviscerated?
Are we dead or alive?
*
Questions that I ask myself seven times every day (which is how many times a pope is said to doubt his faith every day):
Am I wasting my time?
I am.
Why do I go on?
I don't know.
#
March 16, 2010
***************************************************
IF YOU LIE DOWN WITH DOGS....
*******************************************
If you lie down with cannibals, you are sure to end up in their digestive tract. Perhaps genocide was the price we had to pay for being not only subservient to them for 600 years but also their “most loyal subjects.”
*
Winners say they won because God was on their side or it was their “manifest destiny” to win. Losers say they lost because their enemies were predators who spoke with a forked tongue.
*
Prejudice comes as naturally to men of faith as extremism to fanatics and big lies to dupes.
*
The greater the number of divisions, the great the number of panchoonies and letters that end with the words “mi kich pogh.”
*
Who benefits from our divisions? Only our dividers.
*
I plead guilty to the charge that I recycle ideas as opposed to propaganda, and to propagandists, recycling ideas might as well be a capital offense.
*
Our crypto-sultans and neo-commissars are so insecure that they will promote any mediocrity that knows how to flatter them, and silence anyone who dares to question their infallibility.
*
I am not personally acquainted with any one of our leaders but I have dealt with some of their underlings and I am appalled by their intellectual mediocrity (which I am willing to forgive) and moral moronism (which is at the root of all crimes against humanity”).
*
Incompetent leaders might as well be shepherds who drive their flocks in the direction of ravenous wolves.
*
A belief system or faith is a product of man's creative mind as surely as the composition of a great symphony, and man has created many more gods than great symphonies.
#
March 17, 2010
***************************************************
THIS & THAT
*******************************************
The Irish like to say, “There are two kinds of people: the Irish and those who would like to be Irish.” How many kinds of Armenians are there? I would say, as many as there are Armenians; but I could also say there are also two kinds: dividers and their dupes.
*
If I am wrong, I can be corrected. But if those who are in charge of our destiny are wrong, the result may be another massacre – if not “garmir” (red) than “jermak” (white).
If I have said this before, I apologize. I happen to be an addict of reiteration. Or, as Socrates used to say, “To know is to remember.”
*
Awareness of ignorance is better than false knowledge.
*
When an American politician needs a dedicated aide, my guess is, he says: “I need a Young Turk.” I doubt if anyone of them says “I need a rug merchant.”
I read recently that Khrushchev referred to Mikoyan as “my rug merchant.”
*
My English dictionary defines “Young Turk” as “a young person eager for radical change to the established order.”
*
If what you say makes sense,
let your words speak louder than your emotions.
#
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Toynbee
March 11, 2010
***************************************************
TOYNBEE
*******************************************
One reason I love to read and reread Toynbee (sometimes more than twice) is that so much of what he says, and the authorities he quotes, are anti-authoritarian and apply not only to me personally but also to mankind in general, including – or should I say, especially – to Armenians.
Random examples follow:
Volney: “The source of man's calamities reside within him; he carries them in his heart.”
Saint Cyrian: “If the foreign enemy were to cease from troubling, would Roman really be able to live at peace with Roman?”
Rabbi Agus: “'Uniqueness' as an innate quality of being is exclusive in character, invidious in intent, invariably offensive.”
Walter Bagehot: “The very institutions which most aid at step number one are precisely those which most impede at step number two.” In Toynbee's own words: “Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.”
And I think of our own political parties whose step number one was love of freedom, and step number two fear or hatred of free speech.” Our own Garabents put it more succinctly when he said: “Once upon a time we fought and shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech.” And to think that Garabents was a thoroughly pro-establishment writer beloved by all.
Another quality that makes Toynbee attractive to me personally is that he quotes the Bible (and he does so frequently – more frequently than any other historian I have read) not as a believer but as a non-believer. In his own words: “I believe that the answers to the questions that matter most to us can be found only beyond the reason's limits, if they can be found at all.” Please note that final “if.”
When asked why he had devoted thirty years of his life to the writing of his magnum opus, STUDY OF HISTORY, Toynbee is said to have replied with a single word: “Curiosity.”
#
March 12, 2010
***************************************************
BLUNT TALK
*******************************************
“The United States was not the golden land of opportunity people thought it was. Blacks were oppressed. The poor were downtrodden. The press told lies. Truth existed nowhere. Everyone was motivated by money.” (THE SHOT, by Philip Kerr. New York, 2000, page 62).
Blunt talk.
That's what I like.
I wish we had more of it.
*
People who are afraid of open spaces are said to suffer from agoraphobia, a word that combines two Greek words – agora (space) and phobia (fear). It seems to me, collectively, we suffer from alithophobia (fear of truth) and pragmatophobia (fear of reality). Which may well be why there are a great many people out there who don't believe us even when we speak the truth, probably because they think we suffer from psematolatria (the worship of lies).
Next time you hear or read one of our pundits or “patriotards” (baloney artists parading as community leaders), I urge you to keep these words in mind even if you can't find them in any dictionary for the simple reason that I just made them up.
*
Please note that Philip Kerr, the author of the above quotation, is not a historian, sociologist, or academic, but a writer of thrillers who was greatly influenced by Raymond Chandler, the only American writer I have enjoyed reading three times – see especially his FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. Like Chandler, Kerr has a brilliant sense of humor. At one point, for instance, his central character, who happens to be a professional assassin, says: “I'm the real careful type. Ava Gardner offered to suck my c*ock I'd probably ask what was in it for me.”
*
The only other American writer I have read three time is Hemingway -- not his novels but his short story “The Killers.”
I don't mention LOLITA because Nabokov was less American and more Russian cosmopolitan.
#
March 13, 2010
***************************************************
REFLECTIONS
*******************************************
My two ambitions in life as a writer:
(one) to explain why many Armenians are alienated, and
(two) to expose the arrogance and incompetence of those who alienate them in the name of patriotism.
*
If rabbis, imams, and bishops were to renounce their monopoly on truth, would the number of their followers go up or down?
Hard to say.
But one thing we can say with certainty: they would be promoting tolerance instead of intolerance.
*
As a reader, I prefer bad dialogue to good descriptions. I should like to read a work of fiction that begins with the words: “In what follows, I will not speak of the appearance and wardrobe of my characters on the assumption that what's most important about them will emerge in what they say.”
*
The trouble with some of my critics is that
they don’t consider me worthy of criticism.
Instead, they insist that I either give up writing
or change my views in such a manner as to jibe with theirs.
In short, they demand that I become a disciple and an echo.
Their disciple and their echo!
My critics are not literary critics in the usual sense of these words,
but messianic figures whose message is
“Abandon your ways and follow me,
for I am the only path to wisdom and salvation.”
To such an Armenian to say anything but “Yes, master!”
would be heresy leading to eternal damnation and hellfire.
#
***************************************************
TOYNBEE
*******************************************
One reason I love to read and reread Toynbee (sometimes more than twice) is that so much of what he says, and the authorities he quotes, are anti-authoritarian and apply not only to me personally but also to mankind in general, including – or should I say, especially – to Armenians.
Random examples follow:
Volney: “The source of man's calamities reside within him; he carries them in his heart.”
Saint Cyrian: “If the foreign enemy were to cease from troubling, would Roman really be able to live at peace with Roman?”
Rabbi Agus: “'Uniqueness' as an innate quality of being is exclusive in character, invidious in intent, invariably offensive.”
Walter Bagehot: “The very institutions which most aid at step number one are precisely those which most impede at step number two.” In Toynbee's own words: “Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.”
And I think of our own political parties whose step number one was love of freedom, and step number two fear or hatred of free speech.” Our own Garabents put it more succinctly when he said: “Once upon a time we fought and shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech.” And to think that Garabents was a thoroughly pro-establishment writer beloved by all.
Another quality that makes Toynbee attractive to me personally is that he quotes the Bible (and he does so frequently – more frequently than any other historian I have read) not as a believer but as a non-believer. In his own words: “I believe that the answers to the questions that matter most to us can be found only beyond the reason's limits, if they can be found at all.” Please note that final “if.”
When asked why he had devoted thirty years of his life to the writing of his magnum opus, STUDY OF HISTORY, Toynbee is said to have replied with a single word: “Curiosity.”
#
March 12, 2010
***************************************************
BLUNT TALK
*******************************************
“The United States was not the golden land of opportunity people thought it was. Blacks were oppressed. The poor were downtrodden. The press told lies. Truth existed nowhere. Everyone was motivated by money.” (THE SHOT, by Philip Kerr. New York, 2000, page 62).
Blunt talk.
That's what I like.
I wish we had more of it.
*
People who are afraid of open spaces are said to suffer from agoraphobia, a word that combines two Greek words – agora (space) and phobia (fear). It seems to me, collectively, we suffer from alithophobia (fear of truth) and pragmatophobia (fear of reality). Which may well be why there are a great many people out there who don't believe us even when we speak the truth, probably because they think we suffer from psematolatria (the worship of lies).
Next time you hear or read one of our pundits or “patriotards” (baloney artists parading as community leaders), I urge you to keep these words in mind even if you can't find them in any dictionary for the simple reason that I just made them up.
*
Please note that Philip Kerr, the author of the above quotation, is not a historian, sociologist, or academic, but a writer of thrillers who was greatly influenced by Raymond Chandler, the only American writer I have enjoyed reading three times – see especially his FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. Like Chandler, Kerr has a brilliant sense of humor. At one point, for instance, his central character, who happens to be a professional assassin, says: “I'm the real careful type. Ava Gardner offered to suck my c*ock I'd probably ask what was in it for me.”
*
The only other American writer I have read three time is Hemingway -- not his novels but his short story “The Killers.”
I don't mention LOLITA because Nabokov was less American and more Russian cosmopolitan.
#
March 13, 2010
***************************************************
REFLECTIONS
*******************************************
My two ambitions in life as a writer:
(one) to explain why many Armenians are alienated, and
(two) to expose the arrogance and incompetence of those who alienate them in the name of patriotism.
*
If rabbis, imams, and bishops were to renounce their monopoly on truth, would the number of their followers go up or down?
Hard to say.
But one thing we can say with certainty: they would be promoting tolerance instead of intolerance.
*
As a reader, I prefer bad dialogue to good descriptions. I should like to read a work of fiction that begins with the words: “In what follows, I will not speak of the appearance and wardrobe of my characters on the assumption that what's most important about them will emerge in what they say.”
*
The trouble with some of my critics is that
they don’t consider me worthy of criticism.
Instead, they insist that I either give up writing
or change my views in such a manner as to jibe with theirs.
In short, they demand that I become a disciple and an echo.
Their disciple and their echo!
My critics are not literary critics in the usual sense of these words,
but messianic figures whose message is
“Abandon your ways and follow me,
for I am the only path to wisdom and salvation.”
To such an Armenian to say anything but “Yes, master!”
would be heresy leading to eternal damnation and hellfire.
#
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
i believe
March 7, 2010
***************************************************
WHAT I BELIEVE
*******************************************
Just because we understand and explain some things, we think we can understand and explain many other things. But so far, and after millennia of speculation by theologians, philosophers, and scientists, we have failed to answer the most important questions and we fool ourselves when we think some day we may at last grasp the meaning of life and the nature of God.
Because in our arrogance (hubris) we think it is within our abilities to do so, we are punished (nemesis) with intolerance, jihads, fatwas, papal encyclicals, ten thousands commandments, belief systems and as many heresies and contradictions that suggest even the wisest among us is no better than a damn fool.
I believe or I would like to believe God to be inaccessible, incomprehensible, and indifferent to both believers and nonbelievers alike. I suspect any Being or Power that can create the universe, only a fraction of which is visible to us, must be too busy creating other universes in an infinite number of dimensions only one of which is accessible to us.
What are the chances that after we die, the incomprehensible will be comprehensible? I would say 50/50. I would also add that after we die we may no longer care whether life makes sense or not.
#
March 8, 2010
***************************************************
REFLECTIONS
*******************************************
Why is an Armenian another Armenian's Turk?
My only tentative answer is: Because his worldview is based on prejudice, propaganda, and lies.
*
Sartre: “Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.”
Or silences them.
Remember Milton's celebrated words in defense of free speech: “Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature. But he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.”
*
I am beginning to see the truth in the old saying, sooner or later our blessings become curses, and everything that contributed to our good fortune, returns to destroy us.
*
There are prodigal fathers as surely as there are prodigal sons.
*
Propaganda is more dangerous than ignorance because it is identified as knowledge -- the kind that paralyzes the mind and moves crowds.
*
The bigger the lie, the greater the number of its dupes.
*
About the protocols: If history is on our side, why are we afraid of historians?
*
Ever since Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, our benefactors have been building churches in the hope of bribing God, thus adding blasphemy to their previous list of sins.
#
March 9, 2010
***************************************************
METAPHORS
*******************************************
“An eye for an eye.”
“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.”
“When the blind lead the blind...”
“In the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king.”
These metaphors – assuming that's what they are – explain so much about human nature and history.
And consider the following by Toynbee: “Any man of forty who is endowed with moderate intelligence has seen – in the light of the uniformity of Nature – the entire Past and Future.”
*
It takes less than a second to see the light. But compared to what we can't see or what God sees, the light we see may well be another form of darkness.
*
The unspoken threat of all authoritarian leaders to dissidents: “Since you refuse to see me as I see myself, I will pluck out your eyes and cut out your tongue.”
#
March 10, 2010
***************************************************
POWER & GREED
*******************************************
What I put into words is the obvious, which may or may not be perceived as such by others, who may or may not wish to jeopardize their position within the power structure. As for our press: it is too dependent on the goodwill of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors for its survival to print anything that may not be flattering to their colossal egos.
*
The French have an untranslatable word for obnoxious, ignorant, brainwashed, narrow-minded, loud-mouth patriots: they call them “patriotards.” I call ours Panchoonies, Jack S. Avanakians, Turcocentric ghazetajis, and during the Soviet era, “chic Bolsheviks.”
*
The only time they are willing to admit blunders is when they want to assert their humanity (“Nobody is perfect”), never their abysmal incompetence.
*
I am resigned to the fact that I will never be popular with our brown-nosers and the source of the brown on their nose.
*
In his POWER & GREED: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD (London, 2002, page 189), Philippe Gigantes writes: “The Christian Armenians in the Caucasus regions of the Muslim Ottoman Empire favoured the Christian Russian Empire and were slaughtered by the Turks, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. How many were slaughtered? The numbers are in dispute, varying between 500,000 and I.5 million.”
This passage has a footnote that reads:
“My father's uncle, Dr Nicholas Vassiliades, living in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and conscripted as a colonel in the Turkish army's medical corps, saw the massacre in Armenia. From the records of the Turkish army's medical corps, he placed the slaughtered at more than 1 million.”
#
***************************************************
WHAT I BELIEVE
*******************************************
Just because we understand and explain some things, we think we can understand and explain many other things. But so far, and after millennia of speculation by theologians, philosophers, and scientists, we have failed to answer the most important questions and we fool ourselves when we think some day we may at last grasp the meaning of life and the nature of God.
Because in our arrogance (hubris) we think it is within our abilities to do so, we are punished (nemesis) with intolerance, jihads, fatwas, papal encyclicals, ten thousands commandments, belief systems and as many heresies and contradictions that suggest even the wisest among us is no better than a damn fool.
I believe or I would like to believe God to be inaccessible, incomprehensible, and indifferent to both believers and nonbelievers alike. I suspect any Being or Power that can create the universe, only a fraction of which is visible to us, must be too busy creating other universes in an infinite number of dimensions only one of which is accessible to us.
What are the chances that after we die, the incomprehensible will be comprehensible? I would say 50/50. I would also add that after we die we may no longer care whether life makes sense or not.
#
March 8, 2010
***************************************************
REFLECTIONS
*******************************************
Why is an Armenian another Armenian's Turk?
My only tentative answer is: Because his worldview is based on prejudice, propaganda, and lies.
*
Sartre: “Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.”
Or silences them.
Remember Milton's celebrated words in defense of free speech: “Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature. But he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.”
*
I am beginning to see the truth in the old saying, sooner or later our blessings become curses, and everything that contributed to our good fortune, returns to destroy us.
*
There are prodigal fathers as surely as there are prodigal sons.
*
Propaganda is more dangerous than ignorance because it is identified as knowledge -- the kind that paralyzes the mind and moves crowds.
*
The bigger the lie, the greater the number of its dupes.
*
About the protocols: If history is on our side, why are we afraid of historians?
*
Ever since Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, our benefactors have been building churches in the hope of bribing God, thus adding blasphemy to their previous list of sins.
#
March 9, 2010
***************************************************
METAPHORS
*******************************************
“An eye for an eye.”
“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.”
“When the blind lead the blind...”
“In the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king.”
These metaphors – assuming that's what they are – explain so much about human nature and history.
And consider the following by Toynbee: “Any man of forty who is endowed with moderate intelligence has seen – in the light of the uniformity of Nature – the entire Past and Future.”
*
It takes less than a second to see the light. But compared to what we can't see or what God sees, the light we see may well be another form of darkness.
*
The unspoken threat of all authoritarian leaders to dissidents: “Since you refuse to see me as I see myself, I will pluck out your eyes and cut out your tongue.”
#
March 10, 2010
***************************************************
POWER & GREED
*******************************************
What I put into words is the obvious, which may or may not be perceived as such by others, who may or may not wish to jeopardize their position within the power structure. As for our press: it is too dependent on the goodwill of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors for its survival to print anything that may not be flattering to their colossal egos.
*
The French have an untranslatable word for obnoxious, ignorant, brainwashed, narrow-minded, loud-mouth patriots: they call them “patriotards.” I call ours Panchoonies, Jack S. Avanakians, Turcocentric ghazetajis, and during the Soviet era, “chic Bolsheviks.”
*
The only time they are willing to admit blunders is when they want to assert their humanity (“Nobody is perfect”), never their abysmal incompetence.
*
I am resigned to the fact that I will never be popular with our brown-nosers and the source of the brown on their nose.
*
In his POWER & GREED: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD (London, 2002, page 189), Philippe Gigantes writes: “The Christian Armenians in the Caucasus regions of the Muslim Ottoman Empire favoured the Christian Russian Empire and were slaughtered by the Turks, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. How many were slaughtered? The numbers are in dispute, varying between 500,000 and I.5 million.”
This passage has a footnote that reads:
“My father's uncle, Dr Nicholas Vassiliades, living in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and conscripted as a colonel in the Turkish army's medical corps, saw the massacre in Armenia. From the records of the Turkish army's medical corps, he placed the slaughtered at more than 1 million.”
#
Saturday, March 6, 2010
more....
March 4, 2010
***************************************************
ON A VARIETY OF UNRELATED THINGS
*******************************************
When someone you love dies, death ceases to be just another word in the dictionary and becomes a special kind of hell designed especially for you by a diabolically cunning sadist who knows you better than you know yourself, and is thus in a position to tell what will hurt you the most. He doesn't just behead you with an ax. Instead, he cuts your throat with a rusty knife and watched you bleed to death in a garbage can.
*
To say “Yes, sir!” to superiors has nothing to do with respect for authority and everything to do with cowardly subservience.
*
As far as I know, no one has ever heard anyone saying that a nation with the ablest Oriental carpet dealers is in a better position to make a valuable contribution to world peace and progress.
*
It is twice as hard to remain silent in two languages; and because most Armenians speak more than two languages, they suffer from chronic verbal diarrhea.
*
Insanity could also be defined as a process in which emotions are allowed to define thoughts.
#
March 5, 2010
***************************************************
CONNECTIONS
*******************************************
Whenever I read about oppression, I hear echoes, see parallels, make connections: Martin Luther King: “It is a strange and twisted logic to use the tragic results of segregation as an argument for its continuation.”
It is almost as strange and twisted as preaching Armenianism and practicing Ottomanism.
*
I see connections where none exist: first genocide of the 20th century and none of the Three Wise Men was Armenian. But then, they also say everything is connected to everything else.
*
Our version of democracy: Say what you like provided you believe what you are told by wiser men than yourself even when they happen to be damn fools.
*
Some of my readers enjoy using me as a punching bag. After Turks, an Armenian's favorite target is another Armenian.
*
Solidarity is a nation's greatest source of wealth and power.
*
If you are defenseless, you will be exploited and oppressed by men who will pretend to be your brothers, protectors, and benefactors. But you will make a big mistake if you think the only way to liberate yourself is by exploiting and oppressing your brothers.
#
March 6, 2010
***************************************************
COMMENTS
*******************************************
If freedom enlarges the usefulness of our faculties (according to Kant), millennial oppression narrows them down to such a degree that it is not at all unusual to see a fool parading as a genius.
*
Dealing with fools is hard enough; infinitely harder is dealing with a fool who has been taken in by another fool.
*
Assessing oneself as infallible may well be the surest symptom of terminal cretinism.
*
The more unwavering a man’s commitment to his own self-interest, the more altruistic the principles he pretends to espouse.
*
Politics is the second oldest profession and in many ways it resembles the first. Fascists agree but they think this does not apply to fascism.
#
***************************************************
ON A VARIETY OF UNRELATED THINGS
*******************************************
When someone you love dies, death ceases to be just another word in the dictionary and becomes a special kind of hell designed especially for you by a diabolically cunning sadist who knows you better than you know yourself, and is thus in a position to tell what will hurt you the most. He doesn't just behead you with an ax. Instead, he cuts your throat with a rusty knife and watched you bleed to death in a garbage can.
*
To say “Yes, sir!” to superiors has nothing to do with respect for authority and everything to do with cowardly subservience.
*
As far as I know, no one has ever heard anyone saying that a nation with the ablest Oriental carpet dealers is in a better position to make a valuable contribution to world peace and progress.
*
It is twice as hard to remain silent in two languages; and because most Armenians speak more than two languages, they suffer from chronic verbal diarrhea.
*
Insanity could also be defined as a process in which emotions are allowed to define thoughts.
#
March 5, 2010
***************************************************
CONNECTIONS
*******************************************
Whenever I read about oppression, I hear echoes, see parallels, make connections: Martin Luther King: “It is a strange and twisted logic to use the tragic results of segregation as an argument for its continuation.”
It is almost as strange and twisted as preaching Armenianism and practicing Ottomanism.
*
I see connections where none exist: first genocide of the 20th century and none of the Three Wise Men was Armenian. But then, they also say everything is connected to everything else.
*
Our version of democracy: Say what you like provided you believe what you are told by wiser men than yourself even when they happen to be damn fools.
*
Some of my readers enjoy using me as a punching bag. After Turks, an Armenian's favorite target is another Armenian.
*
Solidarity is a nation's greatest source of wealth and power.
*
If you are defenseless, you will be exploited and oppressed by men who will pretend to be your brothers, protectors, and benefactors. But you will make a big mistake if you think the only way to liberate yourself is by exploiting and oppressing your brothers.
#
March 6, 2010
***************************************************
COMMENTS
*******************************************
If freedom enlarges the usefulness of our faculties (according to Kant), millennial oppression narrows them down to such a degree that it is not at all unusual to see a fool parading as a genius.
*
Dealing with fools is hard enough; infinitely harder is dealing with a fool who has been taken in by another fool.
*
Assessing oneself as infallible may well be the surest symptom of terminal cretinism.
*
The more unwavering a man’s commitment to his own self-interest, the more altruistic the principles he pretends to espouse.
*
Politics is the second oldest profession and in many ways it resembles the first. Fascists agree but they think this does not apply to fascism.
#
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
notes
February 28, 2010
***************************************************
#1
*******************************************
When it comes to my own self-interest, or taking care of #1, I have an instinctive drive to work against it on the grounds that the difficulties that confront me will become more challenging, and the greater the challenge, the greater the rewards, even if the rewards come not in this life but in the next, and I don't believe in an afterlife. Figure that one out, if you can.
*
It takes faith to see meaning in the meaningless or the incomprehensible. Has anyone ever been successful in explaining if God is love, why does He allow the massacre of the innocent?
*
When the mother of a good friend died a few years ago, to console her, I said: “Think of it this way: God has given you two lives – one with Mother and another without her.”
When my own mother died I said and repeated the same thing to myself, but it didn't work; and I now think of it as one of the dumbest things anyone can say to a friend who has lost a loved one. It's like saying to a blind amputee: “God has given you two lives – one with your eyes and limbs, the other without them.”
*
How easy it is to bear another's grief! And how impossibly hard it is to come to terms with one's own.
#
March 1, 2010
***************************************************
CRITICS
*******************************************
The function of a critic is not to know better or to speak in the name of a superior brand of patriotism or loyalty to the nation, but to expose contradictions. To say, for instance, that it makes no sense to brag about survival when it is the best that perish and the worse that survive. Or, to praise freedom in theory and to ban free speech in practice.
Whether we like it or not, whenever we make an assertion, more often than not we speak in the name of an ideology or belief system whose fundamental principles we refuse to question or doubt.
It is not that ideologies and religions can be wrong, but that they are never right because there are no final answers or answers to the most important questions. And as everyone knows by now, for every belief system there is another that contradicts it.
Which belief system is the best?
It depends where you were born and educated – make it, brainwashed. Which means, belief systems are an extension not of reason but of geography. Mountains, valleys and climate have more to do with what we believe than our brains.
Am I advocating skepticism? No! Only reminding my readers that none of us is infallible, not even the Pope of Rome or, for that matter, the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin or Antelias.
*
It is not easy to see meaning in the meaningless. But what is even infinitely harder is to question the validity of meaning itself. A philosopher (I no longer remember his name) once wrote a book titled THE MEANING OF MEANING. It seems to me, in a historic context, it would be far more accurate to speak of the meaninglessness of meaning, in view of the fact that countless innocent victims were slaughtered in the name of a belief system or heresy that is no longer a heresy.
#
March 2, 2010
***************************************************
...AMONG OTHER THINGS
*******************************************
If a hundred million people believe in a lie, it doesn't follow that lie ceases to be a lie.
*
On more than one occasion I have been given to understand that if my income is below minimum wage I am in no position to negotiate or to say anything but “Yes, sir!”
*
Not all Turks are enemies, and not all Armenians are friends. Some Turks saved our lives by risking their own, and some Armenians betrayed us to the authorities.
*
Think of me as someone who is doing his utmost to be an honest witness in the eyes of an honest jury that may or may not exist.
*
Dividers don't like to speak of solidarity, or bankers of usury, or cannibals of vegetarianism, or pimps of castration.
*
Anyone who trusts someone else's judgment more than his own is a potential dupe.
#
March 3, 2010
***************************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*******************************************
If you want to teach yourself how to lie and deceive, write your memoirs. Even better, if you are a nationalist or a patriot, write a history of your nation. I speak from experience: I have done both.
*
To brag about the fact that we have oppressed no other nation is like a lizard asserting his moral superiority on the grounds that he has never killed and devoured a crocodile.
*
Too many chiefs, no Indians: that's one way to explain our divisions.
*
Memo to readers who like to compare me to Mencken: Please, take the trouble to learn how to spell his name.
*
I am not a good or even a mediocre pianist, but I can brag about one thing: I have been murdering Mozart's and Beethoven's complete Sonatas and so far no cop has ever laid a glove on me.
*
Disraeli claimed he had read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE eighteen times. May I confess that I have read it only three times.
*
A critic once said of Gore Vidal: “He exudes despair and cynical misery and a grudge against society which is really based on his own lack of talent and creative joy.”
I am reminded of Churchill's World War II remark: “Some chicken! Some neck!”
*
No complete bastard ever wrote a decent line. Believable lies, yes!
#
***************************************************
#1
*******************************************
When it comes to my own self-interest, or taking care of #1, I have an instinctive drive to work against it on the grounds that the difficulties that confront me will become more challenging, and the greater the challenge, the greater the rewards, even if the rewards come not in this life but in the next, and I don't believe in an afterlife. Figure that one out, if you can.
*
It takes faith to see meaning in the meaningless or the incomprehensible. Has anyone ever been successful in explaining if God is love, why does He allow the massacre of the innocent?
*
When the mother of a good friend died a few years ago, to console her, I said: “Think of it this way: God has given you two lives – one with Mother and another without her.”
When my own mother died I said and repeated the same thing to myself, but it didn't work; and I now think of it as one of the dumbest things anyone can say to a friend who has lost a loved one. It's like saying to a blind amputee: “God has given you two lives – one with your eyes and limbs, the other without them.”
*
How easy it is to bear another's grief! And how impossibly hard it is to come to terms with one's own.
#
March 1, 2010
***************************************************
CRITICS
*******************************************
The function of a critic is not to know better or to speak in the name of a superior brand of patriotism or loyalty to the nation, but to expose contradictions. To say, for instance, that it makes no sense to brag about survival when it is the best that perish and the worse that survive. Or, to praise freedom in theory and to ban free speech in practice.
Whether we like it or not, whenever we make an assertion, more often than not we speak in the name of an ideology or belief system whose fundamental principles we refuse to question or doubt.
It is not that ideologies and religions can be wrong, but that they are never right because there are no final answers or answers to the most important questions. And as everyone knows by now, for every belief system there is another that contradicts it.
Which belief system is the best?
It depends where you were born and educated – make it, brainwashed. Which means, belief systems are an extension not of reason but of geography. Mountains, valleys and climate have more to do with what we believe than our brains.
Am I advocating skepticism? No! Only reminding my readers that none of us is infallible, not even the Pope of Rome or, for that matter, the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin or Antelias.
*
It is not easy to see meaning in the meaningless. But what is even infinitely harder is to question the validity of meaning itself. A philosopher (I no longer remember his name) once wrote a book titled THE MEANING OF MEANING. It seems to me, in a historic context, it would be far more accurate to speak of the meaninglessness of meaning, in view of the fact that countless innocent victims were slaughtered in the name of a belief system or heresy that is no longer a heresy.
#
March 2, 2010
***************************************************
...AMONG OTHER THINGS
*******************************************
If a hundred million people believe in a lie, it doesn't follow that lie ceases to be a lie.
*
On more than one occasion I have been given to understand that if my income is below minimum wage I am in no position to negotiate or to say anything but “Yes, sir!”
*
Not all Turks are enemies, and not all Armenians are friends. Some Turks saved our lives by risking their own, and some Armenians betrayed us to the authorities.
*
Think of me as someone who is doing his utmost to be an honest witness in the eyes of an honest jury that may or may not exist.
*
Dividers don't like to speak of solidarity, or bankers of usury, or cannibals of vegetarianism, or pimps of castration.
*
Anyone who trusts someone else's judgment more than his own is a potential dupe.
#
March 3, 2010
***************************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*******************************************
If you want to teach yourself how to lie and deceive, write your memoirs. Even better, if you are a nationalist or a patriot, write a history of your nation. I speak from experience: I have done both.
*
To brag about the fact that we have oppressed no other nation is like a lizard asserting his moral superiority on the grounds that he has never killed and devoured a crocodile.
*
Too many chiefs, no Indians: that's one way to explain our divisions.
*
Memo to readers who like to compare me to Mencken: Please, take the trouble to learn how to spell his name.
*
I am not a good or even a mediocre pianist, but I can brag about one thing: I have been murdering Mozart's and Beethoven's complete Sonatas and so far no cop has ever laid a glove on me.
*
Disraeli claimed he had read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE eighteen times. May I confess that I have read it only three times.
*
A critic once said of Gore Vidal: “He exudes despair and cynical misery and a grudge against society which is really based on his own lack of talent and creative joy.”
I am reminded of Churchill's World War II remark: “Some chicken! Some neck!”
*
No complete bastard ever wrote a decent line. Believable lies, yes!
#
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