Sunday, July 17, 2005
************************************
Some readers tell me to be more diplomatic. They may be said to belong to the more honey and less vinegar school of thought. Others accuse me of going soft on them - they may be said to be partisans of less vinegar and more arsenic. Hard to please everyone. Impossible to please all Armenians. Not that it matters one way or another. In our environment a scribbler, even a thousand scribblers, are as nothing. Can a drop of rain, or a thousand drops, raise the level of the ocean? And if things ever change it will not be a result of what I or far better men than myself have said, but because subservience has its limits. There will come a time when it will erupt into riots and revolution. This final assertion is not mine but that of history. If after 600 years Armenians can rise against the wounded dragon of the Ottoman Empire, what will stop them from doing the same against our own jackals and jackasses?
*
I don't see why I should even make the slightest effort to understand or sympathize with someone who parrots views that were mine twenty or thirty years ago. To do so would mean that I wasted a good fraction of my life learning nothing.
*
What we think of ourselves never coincides with what others think of us. This is where philosophy begins - to understand the incomprehensible or that which is comprehensible to others but not to us.
*
In a totalitarian or fascist environment commissars have the upper hand. In a democratic environment they try and they never give up trying but they don't always succeed.
#
Monday, July 18, 2005
**********************************
PATRIOTISM: A MISCONCEPTION
There are those who think if a blunder is committed in the name of patriotism it is no longer a blunder because patriotism is a noble sentiment beyond criticism.
*
DECEIVERS AND DUPES
I cannot reform deceivers but I can try to enlighten dupes, except dupes whose ambition in life is to join the deceivers.
*
AN UNSPOKEN ARMENIAN MOTTO
If I can't kill my enemy I will insult my brother.
*
AN ARMENIAN PRAYER
Dear God, as a poor sinner I may not deserve to have you on my side. But tell me, in what way is my enemy better than I am?
*
ON KARL MARX
Was Marx right or wrong? An irrelevant question. Marx was one of those thinkers who changed the political map of the world. He cannot be rejected, only understood. Because not to understand him means not to understand the world in which we live.
*
READERS AND WRITERS
As a reader, I hate reading a writer who is infallible, especially if he is in the business of exposing my prejudices and misconceptions; in the same way that as a writer I hate reading infallible critics who trash my work.
#
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
********************************
National pride is an extension of propaganda. Self-esteem on the other hand is on firmer ground. We have pride but not self-esteem.
*
Whenever an Armenian decides he is more patriotic than I am, he automatically assumes my status to be that of an enemy.
*
I define a mortal sin as a lapse of moral judgment whose consequences you suffer to the end of your days. Confession, atonement, and closure are nothing but synthetic and transparent efforts to make the transgressor feel better about himself thus making him a more productive member of the community.
*
In his STUDY OF HISTORY Toynbee calls the Armenian Church "a fossil," that is to say, brain-dead. He says nothing about Armenian political thinking, which, in my view, is derivative, cliché-ridden and slogan-infected, in short, worse than brain-dead.
*
Disagreement is not and cannot be a permanent condition, except in our environment, of course. It has happened to me more than once that readers, who have disagreed with me consistently for months and sometimes-even years, have apologized privately and after a brief hiatus have reverted to their old positions and ways driven not by conviction but by the spirit of contradiction.
*
A dishonest man cannot criticize an honest one; he can only express resentment, contempt, venom and rage.
*
Albert Einstein: "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
#
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
****************************************
Ever since I read in Toynbee something to the effect that nations and civilizations are not killed, they commit suicide, I have been exposing and analyzing our suicidal tendencies. Hence, my doubts about our image as survivors.
*
What if we were meant to be a nation of 70 million instead of 7 million? What if we are in fact 70 million but most of us do not care to identify themselves as Armenians?
*
Propaganda is a lie because its aim is to compensate reality even if it means contradicting it. When Germans decided to behave like swine, they declared themselves to be a superior race. And because we have been dying the death of a thousand cuts (self-inflicted) we brag about our survival.
*
There are two theories about Khachatur Abovian's disappearance: the first says as an ardent nationalist he was probably assassinated by the czar's secret agents; the second says he committed suicide. What if he was pushed into committing suicide by our hidebound and cowardly religious leadership at whose mercy he operated?
*
What if Gomidas went mad only after grasping the role of our leadership in the massacres? Armenians had been massacred before without disturbing his inner balance.
*
Was Avedik Issahakian wrong when he ascribed our misfortunes to our geography, cannibalistic neighbors, and inept leadership?
*
Was Gostan Zarian wrong when he said we survive by cannibalizing one another?
*
I am willing to concede that what I write may be wrong. But what if what you think may also be wrong? One thing is certain: if we both admit fallibility we may learn to be less intolerant, and I see absolutely nothing wrong in that. But if we both assert infallibility, we succeed only in making fools of ourselves in public.
#
************************************
Some readers tell me to be more diplomatic. They may be said to belong to the more honey and less vinegar school of thought. Others accuse me of going soft on them - they may be said to be partisans of less vinegar and more arsenic. Hard to please everyone. Impossible to please all Armenians. Not that it matters one way or another. In our environment a scribbler, even a thousand scribblers, are as nothing. Can a drop of rain, or a thousand drops, raise the level of the ocean? And if things ever change it will not be a result of what I or far better men than myself have said, but because subservience has its limits. There will come a time when it will erupt into riots and revolution. This final assertion is not mine but that of history. If after 600 years Armenians can rise against the wounded dragon of the Ottoman Empire, what will stop them from doing the same against our own jackals and jackasses?
*
I don't see why I should even make the slightest effort to understand or sympathize with someone who parrots views that were mine twenty or thirty years ago. To do so would mean that I wasted a good fraction of my life learning nothing.
*
What we think of ourselves never coincides with what others think of us. This is where philosophy begins - to understand the incomprehensible or that which is comprehensible to others but not to us.
*
In a totalitarian or fascist environment commissars have the upper hand. In a democratic environment they try and they never give up trying but they don't always succeed.
#
Monday, July 18, 2005
**********************************
PATRIOTISM: A MISCONCEPTION
There are those who think if a blunder is committed in the name of patriotism it is no longer a blunder because patriotism is a noble sentiment beyond criticism.
*
DECEIVERS AND DUPES
I cannot reform deceivers but I can try to enlighten dupes, except dupes whose ambition in life is to join the deceivers.
*
AN UNSPOKEN ARMENIAN MOTTO
If I can't kill my enemy I will insult my brother.
*
AN ARMENIAN PRAYER
Dear God, as a poor sinner I may not deserve to have you on my side. But tell me, in what way is my enemy better than I am?
*
ON KARL MARX
Was Marx right or wrong? An irrelevant question. Marx was one of those thinkers who changed the political map of the world. He cannot be rejected, only understood. Because not to understand him means not to understand the world in which we live.
*
READERS AND WRITERS
As a reader, I hate reading a writer who is infallible, especially if he is in the business of exposing my prejudices and misconceptions; in the same way that as a writer I hate reading infallible critics who trash my work.
#
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
********************************
National pride is an extension of propaganda. Self-esteem on the other hand is on firmer ground. We have pride but not self-esteem.
*
Whenever an Armenian decides he is more patriotic than I am, he automatically assumes my status to be that of an enemy.
*
I define a mortal sin as a lapse of moral judgment whose consequences you suffer to the end of your days. Confession, atonement, and closure are nothing but synthetic and transparent efforts to make the transgressor feel better about himself thus making him a more productive member of the community.
*
In his STUDY OF HISTORY Toynbee calls the Armenian Church "a fossil," that is to say, brain-dead. He says nothing about Armenian political thinking, which, in my view, is derivative, cliché-ridden and slogan-infected, in short, worse than brain-dead.
*
Disagreement is not and cannot be a permanent condition, except in our environment, of course. It has happened to me more than once that readers, who have disagreed with me consistently for months and sometimes-even years, have apologized privately and after a brief hiatus have reverted to their old positions and ways driven not by conviction but by the spirit of contradiction.
*
A dishonest man cannot criticize an honest one; he can only express resentment, contempt, venom and rage.
*
Albert Einstein: "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
#
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
****************************************
Ever since I read in Toynbee something to the effect that nations and civilizations are not killed, they commit suicide, I have been exposing and analyzing our suicidal tendencies. Hence, my doubts about our image as survivors.
*
What if we were meant to be a nation of 70 million instead of 7 million? What if we are in fact 70 million but most of us do not care to identify themselves as Armenians?
*
Propaganda is a lie because its aim is to compensate reality even if it means contradicting it. When Germans decided to behave like swine, they declared themselves to be a superior race. And because we have been dying the death of a thousand cuts (self-inflicted) we brag about our survival.
*
There are two theories about Khachatur Abovian's disappearance: the first says as an ardent nationalist he was probably assassinated by the czar's secret agents; the second says he committed suicide. What if he was pushed into committing suicide by our hidebound and cowardly religious leadership at whose mercy he operated?
*
What if Gomidas went mad only after grasping the role of our leadership in the massacres? Armenians had been massacred before without disturbing his inner balance.
*
Was Avedik Issahakian wrong when he ascribed our misfortunes to our geography, cannibalistic neighbors, and inept leadership?
*
Was Gostan Zarian wrong when he said we survive by cannibalizing one another?
*
I am willing to concede that what I write may be wrong. But what if what you think may also be wrong? One thing is certain: if we both admit fallibility we may learn to be less intolerant, and I see absolutely nothing wrong in that. But if we both assert infallibility, we succeed only in making fools of ourselves in public.
#
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