barbarians

[arabaliozian]

BARBARIANS
*********************
Man is born with the instincts of a savage beast.
Civilization is only a mask.
*
ON BENEFACTORS
************************
If their contribution is financial
and their values tribal,
they should be classified
as carcinogenic agents.
*
A PLACE IN THE SUN
*************************
I don’t hang our dirty linen in public.
I worship the sun.
*
TWO BUTCHERS
**************************
Under Talaat and Stalin
two generations of writers
were betrayed to the authorities.
The worst that can happen to me
is a bad report and no raise in salary.
But since my regular salary is zero,
That won’t make much difference
to my income bracket.
*
THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE
********************************
To survive as an Armenian writer
means to be dependent on the charity of swine.
*
ON SURVIVAL
*********************
Survival of the fittest?
Nonsense!
The triumph of the unprincipled?
That’s different.
*
ON OUR 1%
******************
Like all carnivores,
they survive on the blood of their victims.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: barbarians

NOTES / COMMENTS
****************************
Under Talaat and Stalin
two generations of writers
were betrayed to the authorities.
Talaat and Stalin are dead
but the disposition to betray lives.
*
I paraphrase and repeat
what far better men than myself have said.
Now then, go ahead and say
"You don't know what you are saying."
*
Begin by believing nothing
and proceed by doubting everything.
Truth is the source of all lies.
*
It is a fatal mistake to confuse God
with the god of priests. If the two ever met
they wouldn’t recognize each other.
*
You don't need the support of
bosses, bishops and benefactors.
all you need is a single reader
who has a friend.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: barbarians

Mistakes are the best teachers. Cursed are those
who never make them for they will learn nothing.

[arabaliozian]

Re: barbarians

Monday, January 17, 2011
********************************************
DIARY
************************************************** **
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.”
*
“The German spirit wallows in the manure of myth.”
*
“The Germans' hatred of truth.”
*
“We no longer have real history, but only mock semblances and degenerate epilogues, counterfeit history.”
*
“...hatred for common sense and progress.”
*
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.”
*
“Charming young chaps” are as ubiquitous in Mann's diary as little girls in Nabokov's novels.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: barbarians

ON THE ART OF LEADERSHIP
*****************************************
If your lies don’t work
it may be because they are not big enough.
Make them bigger.
That’s the only secret of charismatic leadership.
*
Remember, a nation is like a woman:
flattery must precede penetration.
*
Problems? What problems?
We don’t have any.
It’s always someone else’s fault.
*
Learning is for the ignorant.
We already know all there is to know.
*
For more on this subject
see THE PRINCE by Machiavelli
and MEIN KAMPF by Hitler.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: barbarians

NOTES / COMMENTS****************************** Turning the other cheek may be good poetry but bad politics.*Reality and fiction speak a language that is mutually incomprehensible.*Objective judgment prevents us from falling into emotional traps in a world where traps comein all sizes and shapes.*If you want to practice black, preach white.*The more he knows about stars and galaxies the less he knows about his own backyard.*They are seduced by their propaganda as surely as we are.#

[arabaliozian]

Re: barbarians

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS / After dividing our communities and corrupting their institutions, they say: “We don’t need critics; we need solutions!”*For the poor, a blunder is a blunder. For the rich it’s a confrontation with unknowable unknowns.*A decade is enough for America to Americanize an Armenian. The Ottoman Empire had six centuries at its disposal and was far more ruthless in its social engineering. Now then tell me: Did we really survive?*The rich, even when moral trash, classify themselves above the poor.*If you are too friendly they will think you are in need of friends.*There is no such thing as Armenian history. Armeno-Turkish, maybe. Soviet Armenian, certainly. But Armenian?*Let your answer be shorter than the question. When asked why he had spent thirty yearswriting his STUDY OF HISTORY, Toynbee replied: “Curiosity.”#

[arabaliozian]

Re: barbarians

Since far better men than myself have written about our problems without any tangible results, what I write should be classified under art for art's sake, or entertainment, or even a waste of time.

[arabaliozian]

Re: barbarians

According to an American pundit,
Americans are such “know-nothings” that
some of them quote lines from Marx's Communist Manifesto
thinking they are quoting the Constitution of the Unites States.

[arabaliozian]

Re: barbarians

If Gulbenkian had been a nationalist
he would have left all his wealth to Armenians.
He didn’t. He knew better than to trust
the judgment and values of our bosses and bishops.