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Sunday, January 16, 2011
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VOODOO
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Don't believe everything you read in the papers or books -- including holy scriptures. Likewise, don't believe everything you are told by men who pretend to know better including so-called experts because for every expert there will be another who will say the exact opposite.
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There is patriotism and there is voodoo patriotism.
Voodoo patriotism may be defined as the fallacy that says “My country, right or wrong,” which is not patriotism but fascism, and fascism is not based on political science (an oxymoron if there ever was one) but on voodoo.
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We wallow in superstitions of all kinds and call it science or faith. That's because mankind has not yet emerged from its primitive state and finds voodoo more accessible and flattering to its powers of comprehension than science, which is based on verifiable facts reached by objective judgment.
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When two experts in the same field contradict each other and make no effort to compromise and reach a consensus, laymen may be justified in concluding they are both engaged in voodoo.
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There is a strong element of voodoo in all organized religions.
The epidemic of child-molesting priests is an extension of the superstitious belief that as men of God, clergymen can do no wrong.
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When capitalists and communists disagree and make no effort to compromise and reach a consensus, it is safe to assume their economic theories are more voodoo than science.
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All organized religions believe all other religions to be voodoo and they are all right.
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Our present economic malaise is a result not of real economic theories but of voodoo economics.
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The objective and irrefutable truth is, imams, popes, and rabbis care more about their own powers and privileges than about God, perhaps because deep down somewhere they know God to be beyond their or anyone else's reach.
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Monday, January 17, 2011
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DIARY
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Reading Thomas Mann's DIARY 1918-1939.
His observations on his fellow Germans could also apply to us.
“The German desire for legend and for myth, which runs counter to truth and counter to intellectual honesty.”
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“The German spirit wallows in the manure of myth.”
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“The Germans' hatred of truth.”
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“We no longer have real history, but only mock semblances and degenerate epilogues, counterfeit history.”
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“...hatred for common sense and progress.”
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His comment on C.G. Jung applies to our own academics:
“He is an example of the irresistible tendency of people's thinking to bend itself to the times. He swims with the current. He is intelligent, but not admirable.”
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“Charming young chaps” are as ubiquitous in Mann's diary as little girls in Nabokov's novels.
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Tuesday, January 18, 2011
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More Quotations from
Thomas Mann's DIARY 1918-1939.
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On Beethoven's MISSA SOLEMNIS:
“Great beauty of the Sanctus; the rest inaccessible.”
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On Peguy:
“A spiritual forerunner of fascism.”
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On Christianity:
“An abject and servile religion of the lowly.”
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On a novel by Sinclair Lewis:
"Too horribly true to life and therefore very powerful.”
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On Spengler:
“A hyena of history.”
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On “an ugly anonymous” letter:
“The vile depths to which the world will perhaps descend...”
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Only one very brief reference to Hegel, and three references to Verdi's REQUIEM (“great music”).
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ON MIRACLES
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Ten thousand biblical miracles don't impress me as much as the existence of the universe does.
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ON GOD
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Since theologians have so far (after two millennia) failed to reach a consensus,
it is safe to assume that only God is qualified to speak about God.
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Wednesday, January 19, 2011
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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There is only one issue about which we are not divided: Turks.
We see them as bloodthirsty barbarians,
they see themselves as avenging angels.
Who is right?
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Our revolutionaries see themselves as heroes,
Zarian saw them as useless cowards who are afraid of free speech.
What a book one could write on the dangers of self-assessment!
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If we judge Christians or Muslims by their holy scriptures and sermons,
they stand for love, tolerance and compassion.
And yet, there is more intolerance and hatred in their history.
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Love and hatred come from a deeper place than commandments and scriptures. One does not have to be a psychoanalyst or a philosopher to see that
“white man speaks with a forked tongue,”
and sermons only “add hypocrisy to our previous list vices” (Bertrand Russell).
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