reflections

June 13, 2010
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CONFESSIONS OF A MEGALOMANIAC
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My megalomania knows no bounds. I remember instances in my life when I thought my arguments were so irrefutable that they had a good chance to change the mind of an Armenian ignoramus. I keep forgetting that dupes of propaganda are never wrong.
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Propaganda is like an old pair of shoes – after you put them, you forget about them. By contrast, a new idea is like a new pair of shoes that pinch.
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Self-interest is the most powerful argument. All Turks have to do to convince Americans is to say that Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were like Indians on the American continent.
Victimizers speak the same language regardless of nationality.
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People can be as smart as dogs when it comes to smelling fear.
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I was brought up to respect authority. I now think there is hardly any difference between respect for authority and fear of authority. A man of authority knows that anyone who respects him is also intimidated by him.
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I have yet to meet a man of authority who was not a contemptible jerk. I assume there are exceptions. But then, I write about rules not exceptions.
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On more than one occasion I have been taken to task (a euphemism for I have been verbally abused) for not being as brilliant as Hagop Baronian. If that were a crime, I deserve to be hanged.
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Giambattista Vico: “Crowded city life produces men who are unbelievers, who regard money as the measure of all things, and who lack moral qualities, particularly modesty…. Emancipated from ethics generally, they live by mutual spying and deceit.”
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If you can’t contradict the idea, insult the man.
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If you play it safe and write about birds serenading the moon or the eternal snows of Mt. Ararat, be prepared to be called a vodanavorji and ignored.
If, on the other hand, you decide to live dangerously and analyze our present situation with some degree of objectivity, be prepared to be reviled by readers who cannot chew gum and fart at the same time.
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June 14, 2010
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CONTEMPLATION VERSUS ACTION
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Christ and Renaissance popes,
Luther and televangelists,
Marx and Stalin:
men of contemplation and men of action are different
to the point of being contradictions.
What one builds the other destroys.
Where one enhances our understanding,
the other bullies and moronizes.
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You have political ambitions?
Teach yourself how to lie and how to believe in your own lies.
Be a sincere hypocrite.
Speak honestly with a forked tongue.
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Men of power are ruthless
because where there is power
there will be those who will want to take it away from you.
Men of power know this
because they suffer from the same disease – greed for power.
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We call our major defeats tragedies
and our minor victories triumphs.
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Intolerance of dissent is a confession of fear –
fear of ideas, fear of words,
and fear of being unmasked for what one really is:
a coward and a fool.
Only idiots cannot see this.
Authoritarianism is a conspiracy of fools and dupes.
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What could be more self-defeating
than an abundance of money and a total absence of ideas?
An abundance of fund-raisers
and a scarcity of intellectuals
is the surest symptom of a morally bankrupt community.
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There are no final answers.
Neither are there perfect answers.
An idea makes perfect sense
only when its contradiction or antithesis is suppressed,
that is to say, when progress is arrested.
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Mankind has always been at the mercy of better organized fools.
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Wars are declared by fools and fought by dupes.
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The only way to understand our enemies
is by being objective about ourselves.
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June 15, 2010
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DEAD END
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When one side says one thing and the other the exact opposite for one hundred years, we have no choice but to conclude either one side or both are obstinate, dogmatic, self-righteous, and intolerant of dissent.
Has anyone ever said we are open-minded, tolerant, willing to engage in dialogue, and eager to develop a consensus by means of compromise?
Has anyone ever said diplomacy is our strong suit?
If Armenian cannot agree with Armenian, can he ever agree with the Turk?
I am not casting aspersions, just asking questions.
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ARMENIAN ETIQUETTE
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When you don't understand what you read, call the writer an idiot.
When you disagree with what he writes, call him a traitor.
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KHRUSHCHEV ON DE GAULLE
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“Was he smart or stupid? For a while he was considered an idiot and a fascist. But in fact he was a very smart fellow.”
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KHRUSHCHEV ON MALRAUX
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“De Gaulle's Minister of Culture was a well-known writer. I think he had the same last name as that other famous French writer, Moliere.”
Which reminds me of the story that when Malraux was named the winner of the Nobel Prize, Mailer received several congratulatory calls from American friends.
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REFLECTIONS
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Some day even the most absurd occurrence may make perfect sense, but by then the perceiver and the occurrence may well be one and the same.
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About Armenians and Turks: There is probably something true in the saying that if you hate somebody too much it may be because you see yourself in him.
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When I was young I was unteachable. Hence my intolerance of phony pundits.
There is an old Spanish saying: “Women and horses: let someone else tame them.”
And I say: “A horse’s ass: let a shrew tame him.”
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June 16, 2010
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RANDOM THOUGHTS
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“The true source of wisdom,” Socrates tells us,
“is not knowledge but moderation.”
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I don’t look for enemies;
they find me.
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Just because a man is not bought and sold
it doesn’t follow he is not a slave.
Likewise, just because we silence critics
it doesn’t follow we are not open to criticism.
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It was Kant who said that very often
ignorance is nothing but cowardice in the face of knowledge.
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Self-criticism is not treason.
Silencing criticism is.
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An insult is as difficult to refute as a massacre,
perhaps because it is verbal massacre.
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According to Buddha:
“That which is spoken, heard, and understood
are three different things.”
What scathing book reviews Buddha would have written
of the Bible and the Koran!
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Our history is an apt illustration of Murphy's Law:
“If things can go wrong
they will go wrong at the worst possible time.”
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The aim of philosophy is to open the mind.
The aim of a belief system is to close it.
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When I hear the word Islam,
the first four words that come to mind are:
giaour, imam, fatwa, and jihad;
and I loathe these words as much I loathe the words
boss, bishop, benefactor, and commissar.
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