parallels

June 24, 2010
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MORAL OF THE STORY
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To be brainwashed means to be blind to reality.
I speak from experience.
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If God is love,
why is it that there is so little of it in jungles
(both natural and man-made or asphalt)
or anywhere else for that matter?
Are we to assume gardens are planted by God
and jungles by the Devil?
Who in his right mind
would introduce an evil serpent in a beautiful garden
knowing full well what will happen next?
If we are dealing with symbols
whose intent is to understand and explain reality,
then I suggest the explanation is not a very convicning one.
Which is why it is rejected by the majority of mankind.
God's ways are not our ways?
If so, let us agree once and for all
that He is incomprehensible and unknowable
and theologians who try to explain His actions
are no better than charlatans and blasphemers.
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Moral of the story:
Don't be a dupe!
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June 25, 2010
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REFLECTIONS
ON OUR PRESENT SITUATION
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Nothing can be more misleading than to think the men at the top know better.
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History is made not by people who know better but by charlatans who have mastered the skill of organizing dupes.
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When a member of the Party writes, it is not his brain that speaks but his loyalty. No one can be as brainless as a partisan.
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The moment you surrender your freedom of thought to a closed system, you cease to think for yourself.
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History is the propaganda of the victor, we are told. What we are not told is that losers too have their propaganda line whose intent is to make them look blameless and morally superior.
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To think of oneself as morally superior is the surest symptom of moral bankruptcy.
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If there are those who prefer the victor's propaganda to the loser's boast, it may be because they think winners may know something losers don't.
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The only endeavor in which our Turcocentric ghazetajis have succeeded so far is grooming another generation of haters and braggarts.
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Where the profit motive is supreme, there will be first-class merchants and an abundance of dead poets.
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We have been brainwashed to believe politics is a filthy business, except of course our politics.
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We don't choose our belief system, it is thrust on us.
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It is a well-know fact that you can teach children to believe anything.
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Prejudices are as carefully taught as the multiplication table.
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That which is good for the few is bound to be bad for the many.
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Anyone whose powers and privileges depend on the support of the people, will never say anything remotely critical against a system that allows the brainwashing of children.
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At the root of all crimes against humanity, there will be a generation of brainwashed children.
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As long as we think criticism and dissent are un-Armenian, we will never acquire the status of human beings – or “mart bidi ch'ellank.”
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June 26, 2010
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PARALLELS
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The Palestinians have been so consistently wrong in overestimating their military might and in believing they can defeat the Israelis that nothing they say can be trusted. I am not talking about right and wrong here, or about principles and moral values. I am dealing with facts. Morally superior losers are a dime a dozen. Neither am I talking about the Palestinian people in general, most of whom are no doubt very much like most other people, including ourselves, dupes of their incompetent and megalomaniacal leadership, and as such guilty only of poor judgment.
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When the popes sanctioned the persecution and torture of heretics, what were they defending? God or their own power?
When heretics were willing to die for what they believed in, what were they defending -- beside their freedom of thought?
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To say that those in power are more interested in the truth than philosophers is to ignore such facts as countless wars and massacres.
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A charlatan is one who not only claims to have the final answers but also to know better than you what you should think, feel, and believe.
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Minor errors of judgment are covered up and ignored; but catastrophic blunders are explained, justified, and believed. I suggest truth is not what deceivers and their dupes conspire to believe in.
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When it comes to reading, we tend to reject ideas, feelings, and values that do not spring from our own experience. It is almost as if the purpose of reading were to reinforce and legitimize our limitations, prejudices, and fallacies. Knowing this, propagandists and charlatans (but I repeat myself) are more than willing to adjust their message to the lies that are most in demand.
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