theories

Sunday, January 29, 2012

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TWO THEORIES

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My pet theory about self-assessed smart Armenians:

they may be smart in one or two fields

but they are idiots in a thousand others.

*

My second theory:

our genocide was a direct result of this imbalance.

*

THE BIGGEST LIE OF ALL

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The first and biggest lie that every child is taught to believe

is that all the wars his country fought

were just or defensive wars

against a ruthless and cunning enemy.

It’s astonishing how many adults

continue to believe in that crap.

*

B.S.

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The astonishing amount of b.s. in all belief systems

professed even by self-assessed smart men

never ceases to amaze me.

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A GUESSING GAME

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You can easily guess

what a man doesn’t believe

by what he says he believes.

You can also guess

what a man will not do

by what he promises to do.

Teach yourself to ask:

What’s his angle?

What’s his racket?

What’s in it for him?

If only our leaders

at the turn of the last century

in the Ottoman Empire had asked these question

when the Great Powers of the West

promised to support our political aspirations.

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Monday, January 30, 2012
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HONORABLE MEN
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As an obedient child
I was more vulnerable to indoctrination
than a juvenile delinquent.
It was my ambition to be an honorable man,
a role model, a pillar of society.
It never even occurred to me to ask:
What if the society within which
I was brought up and raised
was rotten?
Brainwashing does two things:
(one) it convinces you that wrong is right, and
(two) it moronizes you.
*
“Not all bishops and imams are rotten,” a reader writes.
Maybe not but they all support a power structure
that is rotten in so far as they legitimize
intolerance, divisions, and murder
in the name of God and Country.
In that sense they (imams and bishops)
are more dangerous than serial killers
because they have been successful in placing themselves
beyond the reach of the law.
*
To how many of my fellow men I could say:
“You may well be an honorable man,
but it is not at all unusual for an honorable man
to support the scum of the earth.”
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