observations

Thursday, July 07, 2011
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OBSERVATIONS
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Sometimes understanding consists
in the sudden realization that
those you trust and respect most
are the least worthy of your trust and respect.
*
More often than not the least trustworthy people
are those whose honesty you are not even allowed to question.
It is not that they are as bad as you
as that they are infinitely different and worse.
*
An exposed lie reorganizes the world.
*
I respect both Marx and Freud
as pioneers in their respective fields of inquiry,
but consider their differences:
Marx would have accused Freud
of using a pseudo-science of his own fabrication
to adjust the individual to an unjust,
dehumanized and essentially evil social order.
In his turn, Freud would have accused Marx
of Jewish messianism and a total inability to predict
the consequences of his own theories
which were fated to be far more dangerous,
lethal, and evil than all the abuses of capitalism.
And the irony is that both would be right.
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Friday, July 08, 2011
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DANCING WITH THE DEVIL
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There are dead-end situations in life
that one ignores at one’s own peril.
Two cases in point:
our position in the Ottoman Empire,
and our present malaise
(divisions, alienation, intolerance of free speech…
among other aberrations).
It is a cowardly illusion to think that
if a dead end situation is ignored,
it will go away.
*
I can recognize a dead end situation when I see one
because I have been in one for a good number years –
since 1975 to be exact, that’s when my firs book,
titled THE ARMENIANS, appeared.
My only consolation is that so far
my failure has harmed no one but myself.
*
How to explain the collapse of the Soviet Union?
Some say it was the Polish Pope.
Others name Reagan.
My own preferred candidate is Gorbachev and his glasnost.
One reason I prefer Gorbachev is that
I believe empires and power structures in general
are not killed, they commit suicide.
Which is what we have been doing –
death by a thousand self-inflicted cuts.
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Saturday, July 09, 2011
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OBSERVATIONS
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You want to know what Turks are really like?
Be an Armenian.
You want to know what Armenians are really like?
Be a writer.
*
Divisions?
There are divisions everywhere;
also sermonizers preaching “All men are brothers.”
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We shout our certainties in public
but we whisper our doubts
in the solitary confinement of our souls
even when there is more truth in them.
*
Memo to a reader:
Either read me with an open mind
or don't read me at all.
And remember, the first victim of a closed mind is yourself.
*
If wrong, I can always rely on my readers to correct me.
I can even rely on them to correct me when I am right –
especially when I am right.
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