notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

January 22, 2010
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OUR REVOLUTIONARIES
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Their dreams were too big,
their ability to realize them too small,
and their faith in the West misplaced.
Result: the perfect storm of genocide.
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MY CRITICS
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They are unanimous in letting me know that
I should bugger off,
get a life, and
mind my own business.
And may I confess that there are times
when I am tempted to do exactly that.
What keeps me going?
Perhaps Abovian knew better.
Instead of getting a life,
he chose death – either that
or death chose him.
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CHILDHOOD
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They were so sure of what they were doing
and I was so confused and uncertain
as to why I felt as I did
that it never even occurred to me to ask:
“Why are you doing this to me?”
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[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

January 23, 2010
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FROM THE MOUTH OF BABES & COMEDIANS
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George Carlin: “Traditional American values: Genocide, aggression, conformity, emotional repression, hypocrisy, and the worship of comfort and consumer goods.”
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RISE & FALL
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In his STUDY OF HISTORY, Toynbee writes: “A growing civilization can be defined as one which the components of its culture [economic, political, intellectual, scientific, etc.] are in harmony with one another; and, on the same principle, a disintegrating civilization can be defined as one in which these same elements have fallen into discord.”
You may now decide whether we are growing or disintegrating.
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TWO KINDS OF MEN
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“Hell is other people,” wrote Sartre. But according to his life-long friend-enemy, Merleau-Ponty: “When a man takes an oath to exist universally, concern for himself and concern for others become indistinguishable for him; he is a person among persons, and the others are other himselves. But if, on the contrary, he recognizes what is unique in incarnation lived from within, the other person necessarily appears to him in the form of torment, envy, or at least uneasiness.”
Wars, revolutions, and massacres are committed by Sartrian men. By contrast, great spiritual leaders from Socrates and Jesus to Gandhi and Schweitzer conform to Merleau-Ponty's definition of men who choose to “exist universally.”
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[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

January 24, 2010
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METAPHYSICS
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Disagreement is inevitable when we search for meaning in the meaningless or
when we reduce an infinite number of factors into only a handful.
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We say God is on our side when we want to do the Devil's work.
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The visible is one; it is the invisible that is legion.
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Newspapers write more about criminals than law-abiding citizens. Doctors deal more with the sick than the healthy. And critics deal more with deceivers than honest men. I am not consistently negative; our reality is.
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What will save us is neither our conception of patriotism nor our degree of self-esteem but our courage to confront and deal with reality.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

January 25, 2010
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A STORY WITH MORALS
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Three friends in a tavern were arguing about the greatest evil in the world, and since they were not Armenian, they were able to reach a consensus: Death, they decided, was the greatest evil. Next they also agreed to search for Death and kill him. During their long search they met an old man who told them where Death lived. They followed the old man's directions but instead of Death they found a pot of gold. To celebrate their good fortune, one of them went to fetch a bottle of wine. While he was gone, the two friends decided to kill him to have his share of gold too. And as soon as he returned they fell on him and killed him, drank the wine, and they died, because the same idea had occurred to their victim.
MORAL I: If you look for Death, long before you find him, he will find you.
MORAL II: If after a long search you find what you were looking for, you will wish you had not found it.
MORAL III: Gold and friendship are mutually exclusive concepts.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

January 26, 2010
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ARMENIAN PHILOSOPHY
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To express his contempt for me, one of our Turcocentric ghazetajis once called me a “philosopher.” It is true, philosophy has at no time been a favorite subject of ours. Our most famous medieval philosopher, David Anhaght, is remembered for his invincibility in argument, not his originality of ideas. And as far as I know, none of our academics (of which we have over a thousand) has ever produced a text on 20th-century Armenian philosophy, probably because it is not easy to write about nothing. If I were to sum up the dominant philosophical idea of the past century, it would have to be “I hate Turks, therefore I am.”
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AN AMERICAN FALLACY
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With big bucks, you can hire the best brains. But only the kind of brains willing to conform to big bucks.
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THIS AND THAT
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I love my fellow Armenians as much as a good Christian loves his executioner -- with one difference: I am not a good Christian.
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Speaking of good Christians: There are those who define a good Muslim as one who goes about murdering infidels. Christians used to do that too but not anymore. These days some good Christians murder only homosexuals, Blacks, abortionists, xxxs, and Communists – remember the slogan, “Kill a commie for Christ”).
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It is a well-known fact that swine don't have self-esteem problems.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

January 27, 2010
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INSANITY
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Somewhere Jung explains that there is a woman in every man and a man in every woman, and that this becomes apparent when one reaches middle age.
I once had a friend (may he rest in peace) who believed one reaches middle age only by adopting some form of insanity.
Whereas I am of the opinion that we are born and raised into an insane world and we survive only by adapting ourselves to it.
(To be noted: Jung harbored pro-Nazi sentiments.)
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Under the Sultan, our writers were free to tear our institutions to shreds. Under our own mini-sultans they are free to do so too but only to the opposition and to brainwash children into believing their side is good, the other bad.
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I have never been psychoanalyzed. One could say avoiding shrinks is a luxury only the poor can afford.
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Whenever I think I am smart, I remind myself of the number of times I have been taken in by idiots.
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To believe in miracles is bad enough. To believe one is worthy of them is infinitely worse.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

January 28, 2010
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AN HONEST ANSWER
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Asked how he had managed to survive the Stalinist purges when so many of his contemporaries had perished, Avedik Issahakian is said to have replied: “By applauding the murderers.”
For more on this remarkable interview, see Antranig Chalabian, DRO (DRASTAMAT KANAYAN), page 269.
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To be read by friendly readers: nothing unusual in that.
To be read by hostiles: That’s where the money is,
because it means being allowed the opportunity
to introduce thoughts where none exist.
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Even after you prove to him that his position is untenable,
an Armenian will go on defending it to the bitter end,
like a captain going down with the ship.
That’s his way of asserting his manhood.
I don’t write for readers whose central concern is their own manhood.
That would be like writing about hallucinations.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

January 29, 2010
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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Even when we speak of others, we speak of ourselves.
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Martin Luther (1483-1546): "I am more afraid of my own heart than of the Pope and his cardinals. I have within me the great Pope, Self."
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If the Turks say what really matters is only their side of the story, we should not say the same about our side of the story.
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The cruelest thing that has happened to Armenian writers after they were systematically and ruthlessly slaughtered by Talaat and Stalin was to become dependent on the charity of swine.
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There are those who think membership in a party qualifies them as experts on Armenian history, culture, and human nature.
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I believe in progress. I believe in human perfectibility. I believe in the ultimate triumph of reason. These are my three greatest illusions.
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I wish God existed so that He would punish all those who dared to speak in His name.
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To speak the truth privately but not publicly is to compound the felony of perjury with cowardice.
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Gordon W. Allport: "Many studies have discovered a close link between prejudice and patriotism. Extreme bigots are almost always super-patriots."
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It is only by confronting our dark side that we may see the light.
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Commissars and mullahs are philistines, that is to say, killers who adopt an ideology or religion to legitimize their killer instincts.
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It is the height of non sequitur to call Turks barbarians and to demand justice from them.
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There will come a time when people will reject all religions and ideologies simply because imams and commissars believe in them.
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Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), political philosopher: "Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think."
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Kingsley Amis (1922-1995), English novelist: "If you can't annoy somebody with what you write, I think there's little point in writing."
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[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

January 30, 2010
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ONE-LINERS
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A good diplomat can charm a cobra or it takes one to know one.
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“Armenians of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your dividers.” What if this slogan succeeds only in producing our own Stalin?
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My favorite genre: brevity.
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To be self-righteous and to be wrong might as well be synonymous.
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Arrogance allows a man to think he has all the answers even when none of them is right.
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To be sure means to ignore one's doubts.
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One way to define freedom of speech is by saying even the ablest statesman is not qualified to tell even the worst scribbler what to write.
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The spirit of contradiction in some Armenians is so highly developed that if you were to agree with them they would disagree with you.
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It is now time that we think of lamentation and hatred as experiments that failed and try another approach.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

January 31, 2010
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MORE ONE-LINERS
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To be a fool means to be at the mercy of worse fools who think they are smart.
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The lower on the totem pole you are, the more subject to checks and balances you will be.
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Faceless bureaucrats follow rules not because they believe in them but because their only concern is their source of income.
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When sacred cows are in charge, they will criminalize the consumption of shish-kebab.
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The truth? Let us say, we may never know it and as human beings we were not meant to know it. All we can hope to do is move in its direction by discarding half-truth and lies.
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Everything makes sense if you find the right explanation.
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The aim of all religions and ideologies is to make you say "Yes, sir!"
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In theory, religion is meant to civilize; but in practice what it does is legitimize barbarism.
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To acquire a faith is not the same as to see the light.
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