notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Tuesday, December 11, 2007
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THE TRAGEDY OF OEDIPUS
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If Armenians and their endless petty little problems bore you, join the club. If I go on writing about them it’s not because I am overly fond of them or would like to solve their problems (no one can do that except themselves) but because I want to understand my fellow men. To be bored with Armenians means to be bored with mankind, and ultimately with oneself.
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We are a microcosm. If we are a failure as a nation, so is mankind. The history of mankind is a disaster area because the average man is a dupe at the mercy of megalomaniacal, self-satisfied frauds who will say and do anything in defense of their powers and privileges. The list of sultans, kings, presidents, popes, and chief executive officers who abused their positions of trust or preached virtue and practiced vice stretches to infinity.
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Athens executed Socrates, Florence exiled Dante, Russia excommunicated Tolstoy, India assassinated Gandhi. You may now draw your own conclusions.
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When charlatans and dupes conspire, they end up praising honesty and burying honest men.
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To say that God punishes men for their transgressions is to misrepresent reality. It is man that punishes himself. The real tragedy of Oedipus is not that he killed his father and had sex with his mother but that he thought by blinding himself he could avoid seeing reality.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

When we stop pointing our fingers every single chance we get, what will we become?

I wonder... is cool-headed nationalism a possibility for Armenians? We are not uneducated villagers anymore, we have access to universities all around the world. This should mean that we can speak at a higher level than an emotional cry or yell. Perhaps if we, as a nation, made proper use of our educational institutions, to enhance our industries and our stature in all sorts of fields, we'd achieve more than we ever have. Maybe then we can finally surpass the Diaspora's current national stature, historic slaves of Turks.

Am I a dreamer to imagine such a thing?

at the turn of the last century we had intellectuals but not academics. today we have academics but not intellectuals, and academics are as a rule pro-establishment hirelings. / ara

[jgk3]

Re: notes / comments

Tuesday, December 11, 2007
************************************************
THE TRAGEDY OF OEDIPUS
*********************************************
If Armenians and their endless petty little problems bore you, join the club. If I go on writing about them it’s not because I am overly fond of them or would like to solve their problems (no one can do that except themselves) but because I want to understand my fellow men. To be bored with Armenians means to be bored with mankind, and ultimately with oneself.
*
We are a microcosm. If we are a failure as a nation, so is mankind. The history of mankind is a disaster area because the average man is a dupe at the mercy of megalomaniacal, self-satisfied frauds who will say and do anything in defense of their powers and privileges. The list of sultans, kings, presidents, popes, and chief executive officers who abused their positions of trust or preached virtue and practiced vice stretches to infinity.
*
Athens executed Socrates, Florence exiled Dante, Russia excommunicated Tolstoy, India assassinated Gandhi. You may now draw your own conclusions.
*
When charlatans and dupes conspire, they end up praising honesty and burying honest men.
*
To say that God punishes men for their transgressions is to misrepresent reality. It is man that punishes himself. The real tragedy of Oedipus is not that he killed his father and had sex with his mother but that he thought by blinding himself he could avoid seeing reality.
#

I'm happy to have read what you posted. Thank you.

I wonder why an Armenian nationalist should see your words as self destructive... I see them as words of caution based on your personal experience. Why must nationalism continue to be associated with all the evils it has bred in the past? Why can't there be a new kind of nationalism that can still fight very strong for a common heartfelt cause, yet excuse itself from slandering others? If we could achieve this, we'll become like Norwegians, a very respectable nation of high standard.

Are we animals? Do we really have to yell and scream at each other to get our point across? Are we so vile as to have to propagate whatever negative we can see in our opposition, so that we can manipulate others to turn against them?

I myself am yelling in my mind. This seems to be what happens when I pay too much attention to a single aspect from the aggregate of human behavior. I guess on these forums, I see this single aspect, slander, more often. I won't let it get to me as it has in the past (which was probably one of the reasons I left for a while).

[jgk3]

Re: notes / comments

at the turn of the last century we had intellectuals but not academics. today we have academics but not intellectuals, and academics are as a rule pro-establishment hirelings. / ara

I agree, though I haven't read much about the intellectuals we apparently had at the turn of the last century. Who should I look up as a starter?

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Wednesday, December 12, 2007
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CONFESSIONS OF A LIBERAL
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In one of his books Ben Bagdikian says that conservatives like Murdoch, Conrad Black, and Buckley control most of the media in America, and yet they xxxxx about the liberal media. Something similar could be said about our own pro-establishment right wingers, who control not only our media but also our community centers, schools, university chairs, and institutions. Hence the misconception that we never had it so good because we are in good hands. As for the one or two minor problems, like our mafia democracy in the Homeland: they will fix themselves in twenty or thirty years. What about dissenting voices? What dissenting voices? I don’t hear them. They don’t hear them because they have been ruthlessly and systematically silenced.
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There is a tendency in America to exaggerate the importance of words spoken in anger – Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic tirade when arrested for drunk driving, for instance. When angry we say things we don’t always mean. I have myself said many harsh things in anger even about my mother whom I love very much. That doesn’t make me anti-motherhood or for that matter, God forbid, anti-apple pie.
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Speaking of motherhood: some Armenians look down at fellow Armenians who cannot speak their mother tongue. To them I ask: What’s the use of speaking Armenian if the sentiments you express are Ottoman?
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I have been called a variety of names, none of them remotely close to honest. And yet, that has been my sole aim in life: to be an honest witness.
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If you think you are a better Armenian, it is of course your privilege to do so and I will say nothing to disabuse you -- only warn you: if you expect all Armenians to agree with you, be prepared to be disappointed and end your days as a bitter old man.
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As for our ultra-conservative Turcocentric pundits and their ubiquitous, predictable, and cliché-ridden commentaries: the only way to describe them is to say they are ideal instances of diarrhea of words and constipation of ideas.
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As Brahms used to say on his way out from a party: “I apologize to anyone I may have neglected to offend.”
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

I agree, though I haven't read much about the intellectuals we apparently had at the turn of the last century. Who should I look up as a starter?

Zohrab, Baronian, Odian, Voskanian are only 4 random names. most of their works remain untranslated, alas! / ara

[jgk3]

Re: notes / comments

looks like I have a lot of learning to do of our language first! But it is a goal of mine to be able to read their works. It's part of the reason why I'd like to learn many languages actually, so that I can read works that are only published in those languages.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, December 13, 2007
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CAIN’S ANSWER
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Political lies have been with us for a long time. Even Plato discusses them in his Dialogues, which where written 2500 years ago.
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No one lies as surely as he who speaks in the name of truth or God. In the Bible we read that God asked Cain where Abel was, the implication being that Cain knew something God did not. And Cain replied: “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).
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Speaking of lies, murder, and brotherhood: Our Turcocentric ghazetajis tell us they don’t hate Turks. Their sole aim, they say, is justice. But justice, like truth, is an abstraction. No one has ever laid eyes on it. Instead of abstractions, let’s speak of reality. The truth about reality is that we cannot speak about it, only fractions of it. That’s because we have only a limited number of words and reality has an infinite number of levels and complexities. That’s one reason why when we speak we lie.
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Does that mean Cain did not kill Abel? No. Of course not! It only means we don’t know why Cain became a murderer. Was it envy? Why should envy lead to murder? What is envy? What has made us capable of envy? Or rather, who has instilled envy in man? For what purpose? The infinite number of complexities generates an equal number of questions until the final one, which is also Cain’s: We don’t know because we are not God’s keeper.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Friday, December 14, 2007
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FRAGMENTS
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When nine out of ten are unanimous in believing one thing, go with the tenth, for believing and thinking are mutually exclusive concepts.
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I disagree with anyone who holds views that were mine thirty years ago; and if I don’t stand on ceremony with them it may be because I don’t stand on ceremony with myself.
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The man who views the world and his fellow men in black and white terms, as opposed to shades of gray, will invariably classify himself as all white even when he is pitch black.
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If character is destiny, as the ancient Greeks thought, the question we should ask is: To what extent our character as a nation has been shaped by 600 years of Ottoman oppression followed by 60 years of Bolshevik tyranny? If this question has so far gone unanswered it may be because our nationalists and masters of the blame-game have done their utmost to ignore or cover up that aspect of our identity.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, December 15, 2007
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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Where charlatans are in charge,
honest men will be silenced.
Where ignoramuses are in charge,
knowledge will be outlawed.
Where the blind are in charge,
the one-eyed will be blinded.
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I don’t tell you things I already know.
I tell you things that I discover as I write.
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Why should I trust the judgment of underdogs whose sole ambition in life is to be top dogs so that they will have the pleasure of stepping on underdogs, even when the underdogs happen to be their brothers?
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The worst mistake we can make is to assume that Comrade Panchoonie is a character in a satirical novel by Yervant Odian written a century ago. Every other day I get a letter from him that ends with the word “mi kich pogh…” something similar could be said of Hagop Baronian’s “honorable beggars.” Characters in great literary works live much longer than their creators. Or rather, great writers achieve immortality through the characters they create.
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Our standards have fallen so low that every panchoonie, honorable beggar, and ghazetaji parades as a defender of the faith and the savior of the nation.
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What if I am wrong? There is always that possibility, of course. In my defense I will say that if only the infallible were allowed to speak, the only voice would be that of the Pope of Rome, we would all be Catholics, and Latin would be the most widely spoken language in the world.
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I.B. Singer: “I am not a vegetarian for the sake of my health, but for the health of the chickens. For animals, every day is Treblinka.”
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Of all fears, fear of free speech is the most cowardly.