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Sunday, November 14, 2010
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TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
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In a dishonest environment nothing is as severely punished as honesty.
Socrates, Christ, Luther, Gandhi, Martin Luther King:
what was their offense?
By being honest they exposed the dishonesty of those in power.
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What is criminal in dissent?
What else but the daring to suggest that
when the mighty of this world speak in the name of truth or God
(whom they neither know nor understand) they lie.
They say all men are brothers
but they divide mankind into those who are for them
and those who are against them.
They say God is love
but they behave as thought He hated infidels unto death.
They speak of eternal life
but what they say has the stench of death
(if not of the body than of the spirit).
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Only damn fools persecute and kill in the name of love.
Only charlatans invent dogmas that legitimize intolerance.
If I could, I would replace the word “God”
with “the Powers that be,”
and if I knew how to pray,
I would introduce my prayers with the words:
“To whom it may or may not concern.”
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Monday, November 15, 2010
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SUMMING UP
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We disagree for two important reasons:
(one) we use only an extremely small fraction of our brain; and
(two) we perceive only an extremely small fraction of reality.
Science tells us the eye is like a camera, it takes in an infinite number of details (countless droplets of water, for instance), but the brain is satisfied to see only a single occurrence (rain).
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Disagreements will always outnumber agreements; and the agreements will likely be of the a priori kind – that is, judgments rendered before the evidence is in, or decisions based on predisposition and prejudice.
We will be predisposed to agree with friends and disagree with enemies even when friends are wrong and enemies are right.
We will be predisposed to say “Yes, sir!" to those we view as our betters, and to say “No way!” to those we believe to be against us.
Catholics will trust the judgment of the Pope as surely as Muslims will chant “Allawa akhbar! with their imams.
As a result, our judgments will be based more on hearsay and less on admissible evidence.
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It is the absence of admissible evidence that makes wars and massacres possible. We may have the semblance of law, order, and peace where we live (only a small fraction of the world) but anarchy, insurrection, and war in the world.
The men at the top may be fully aware of what I am saying here but in politics and diplomacy self-interest and power will invariably trump reason and common sense.
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On the day mankind is civilized, all men that place self-interest or their own powers and privileges above reason and the common good will be perceived and treated as enemies of mankind.
But as long as we place our trust more on charlatans and crooks and less on that most valuable of all possessions that God or nature has bestowed on us (our brain) we will have wars and massacres, and the first victims of our lies and misconceptions will be peacemakers and dissidents – Socrates, Christ, Gandhi, Solzhenitsyn.
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THE MOUSE IN THE ROOM
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A cartoon: two elephants having a drink as one says to the other: “Notice how everyone is avoiding the mouse in the room.”
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THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM
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Gore Vidal in a recent interview:
“What I like about Montaigne is that he devoted one of his greatest essays on lying, which is the American malady. If we go down crashing one day, it's because everybody lies about everything.” (NEW STATESMAN, October 11, 2010, page 27.)
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Tuesday, November 16, 2010
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POLITICALLY INCORRECT OPINIONS
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Those who are against abortion are as a rule for war
on the grounds that to kill the unborn is murder
but to kill the born is one's patriotic duty.
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To speak of organized religions objectively
is to be politically incorrect
and nothing gives me more pleasure
than to infuriate fascists – both political and religious.
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Most believers (regardless of their belief system)
are convinced that anyone who is not a member of their club
must be either a heretic or an infidel.
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It is a serious error in judgment
to dismiss idiots as irrelevant.
I take idiots seriously
because I take the study of history seriously.
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If you have power and God on your side,
reason and tolerance become subversive commodities.
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A history of human rights in a religious context
would be an endless catalogs of crimes against humanity.
One is therefore justified in suspecting that
to subscribe to a belief system
is to be a dupe and an idiot,
and a dangerous idiot at that – judging
by the number of victims
that religions have generated.
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Wednesday, November 17, 2010
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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All propaganda is open to criticism
except our propaganda.
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God created man in His own image --
except Hitler, Stalin, Talaat, serial killers, rapists,
child molesters, racists, liars, dupes...
Is that 99% or 98% of mankind?
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I take myself seriously only when others do.
Deep inside somewhere I am flattered
when I am silenced by our bosses, bishops, benefactors,
and their hirelings.
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As an underdog I hate no one but top dogs;
and I feel sorry for dupes who, like dogs,
will be grateful to anyone who feeds them,
thus allowing their brains
to become an extension of their intestines.
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Nobody but Armenians believe
in the Armenian version of history.
The same applies to Turks, Americans, Zulus,
Patagonians, Bolsheviks, capitalists...
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History may be defined as a big lie told by top dogs
and believed by dupes with single-digit IQs.
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