truth

Thursday, April 26, 2012
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TRUTH IS ONE,
LIES MANY
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Where power enters, lies are sure to follow.
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We all praise knowledge and understanding
but prefer to practice ignorance and misunderstanding.
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An ideology of brotherhood is used to sow murderous enmity,
and a religion of love and compassion is exploited
to legitimize intolerance, hatred, and massacre.
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What are wars and revolutions –
revolutions that replace czars with commissars,
and kings with dictators – if not gigantic movements
based on ignorance and misunderstanding?
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We praise Greek contributions to world civilization
and we forget that the real Greece is not represented by Socrates
but by those who condemned him to death.
Philosophers may praise Socrates
but the average man in the street prefers to behave
like a member of his jury and an executioner.
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Notwithstanding the countless crimes committed by religious leaders,
we – the majority at any rate – continue to take their dogmas seriously.
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Is God one or many?
We don’t know.
Nobody does.
But we do know that reality is numberless.
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When two men confront each other
and both say “I am right, you are wrong,”
the chances are both are not just wrong but dead wrong.
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He who speaks does not know
and he who is silent is ignorant.
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At the beginning was the word,
at the end garbage?
What difference does it make if the purpose of words
is to hide meaning?
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Saturday, April 28, 2012
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WHAT IF?
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What if “our betters” are in fact our worst?
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If I am right, why is it that so many are against me?
And if I am wrong, why is it that so many are with me?
Wrong questions.
In our context, or placed in a historic context,
right or wrong might as well be irrelevant.
To be or not to be: that indeed is the right question..
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The 99% are losers because they are disorganized, leaderless, and divided.
Workers of the world have failed to unite
because they have been divided by lies
(among them nationalism) devised by the 1%.
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We have failed to unite because survival is our main concern.
To be on the safe side we have been willing to say “Yes, sir!”
to any power structure that promised to be on our side.
In the USSR we were more Bolshevik than the Russians.
In the Ottoman Empire even our best and brightest
were more Ottoman than Turks.
Consider the ease with which Armenians in America are Americanized.
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We lament our martyrs with total unawareness of the fact that
they are “ours” – in the sense that they are victims
of our own ignorance, blindness, and fanaticism.
You don’t believe me?
Read Naregatsi’s LAMENTATIONS (in which he portrays himself
as “an abusive contradicter ever active in satanic inventions”
(or lies, for short).
Read Zarian (“Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another”).
Read Raffi (“Where Armenian blood flows, search for the Armenian hatchet.”)
If our literature has a central message, this is it:
Our martyrs are our victims.
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Saturday, April 28, 2012
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PROFESSIONAL SECRETS
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Write a page.
Keep the best line,
discard the rest.
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Dissatisfied with what you have written?
Delete the first and last paragraphs. (Chekhov).
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Dissatisfied with the final sentence?
Italicize a word in it. (Kenneth Tynan)
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Your selection of words
is more important than your ideas. (Paul Valery)
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On the subject of ideas: there are no new ones.
We are all in the business of recycling what has been said before
by far better men than ourselves.
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Originality is an illusion.
Clarity is your most important asset.
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Please note that none of the above is mine.
I have cited only the sources that I remember.
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