notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, November 13, 2005
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WHAT ELSE IS NEW?
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The rich view the poor as lazy and the poor return the compliment by viewing the rich as exploiters, blood-suckers, and crooks motivated by greed.
*
Once in a while I see letters to the editor in our local paper berating the poor for their dependence on government handouts. Surviving on minimum wage in an environment where plumbers can make as much as $40.00 for four minutes' work, and dentists $80.00 for eight minutes' work (I speak from experience) is not easy. And speaking of government handouts: what about grants to corporations and academics, not to mention loopholes in the tax code designed to benefit the rich rather than the poor.
*
I have published thousands of commentaries and written many more letters to readers and friends, and none of them ends with the words "Mi kich pogh oughargetsek" (send us a little money). But every other day I receive a letter from an Armenian organization or church that ends with Panchoonie's punch line. You may now guess who is accused of repeating himself.
*
Money will not save a nation, but accountability, solidarity, and vision may. Consider the fall of empires: it was not lack of money that did it, but too much of it.
*
When two think alike, the chances are either one or both are not thinking.
#
Monday, November 14, 2005
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SOMEBODY UP THERE DOESN'T LIKE US
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Sorry, but I can't come up with any other explanation.
And if Somebody up there doesn't like us
it may be because we are not a particularly likeable people.
If He liked us, why did He abandon us
at the mercy of ruthless tyrants, bloodthirsty savages,
and incompetent bunglers?
Six centuries under sultans
followed by seven decades under Bolsheviks.
Far from being the chosen people,
we may well qualify as the unchosen and the abandoned.
Naregatsi may have a point:
like the stars in the firmament
and the grains of sand in all the deserts
and on all the beaches of the world,
our sins must be numberless.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings.
But no matter how hard I try,
I can't come up with any other explanation.
If you can, I am all ears.
But please, no more sermonizing and speechifying.
No more bragging and lamenting.
I have had enough of both.
And be forewarned that
after decades of exposure
to recycled chauvinist crapola,
I come equipped with a highly sensitive xxxx detector.
#
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
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ON PREJUDICE
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Faith does more than move mountains. It allows an idiot to think he knows better. I was such a thoroughly brainwashed Catholic as a boy that I was sure anyone who did not share my faith was a lesser man.
*
I was taught many things as a boy except to consider my fellow men as equals. Later, when I learned the meaning of the word prejudice, it did not even occur to me to connect it to myself and my attitude towards non-Catholics. And much later when I too was treated with prejudice in a non-Catholic environment, my first reaction was confusion, disorientation, malaise, and alienation. Again, the word prejudice never entered my mind.
*
We begin by thinking we are the center of the world and we end by thinking our nation, or civilization, or race, or religion is superior to all others.
*
What's sinister about religions and ideologies is not what they teach but what they fail to teach.
*
During the last few days I read several commentaries about the French riots, one of which was titled "French Riots are part of global clash of civilizations," and another "Blame French riots on poverty and lack of civil rights." According to the first pundit, the only answer is "for the two civilizations to keep their distance"; according to the second, the elimination of racism and prejudice. The implication in the first pundit's answer: prejudice is as old as mankind and no amount of education and legislation will eradicate it completely. The answer of the second pundit: maybe so but we must move in that direction if we want to avert World War III or a long series of catastrophic clashes.
Who is right? I don't know, but I have the following suggestion to anyone who wants to make a contribution to world peace: Whenever you think your country or god is better than someone else's, ask yourself: By whose criteria? If the answer is by your own or your educators, you can be sure of one thing: you may not be an idiot but you think like one.
#
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
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INTELLIGENT DESIGN
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In our environment flattery will get you everywhere. That too is part of our Ottoman heritage. If you doubt my word, try the following experiment. Write a letter to an editor praising his weekly, and another, under a different name, criticizing it, and see which gets into print pronto.
Once when I wrote a letter critical of an editorial, I received the following message from the editor: "We don't as a rule print letters critical of our editorials." Why not? No explanation was given. As Saroyan's wife writes in her memoirs: "When I say la, you must understand lalabloo."
If the flunkey of a boss, bishop, or benefactor wrote the editorial, criticizing it would amount to heresy, perhaps even sacrilege. As for violating a reader's fundamental human right of free speech: imagine if you can raising the issue in the presence of a sultan.
And speaking of sultans: I will never forget the day I met one of our national benefactors - strike "met," make it, saw him from a distance. Because as soon as his presence became known, he was immediately surrounded by a defensive phalanx of brown-nosers.
And speaking of brown-nosers: when asked to name his role models, this very same benefactor's right-hand man who parades as an intellectual leader, named - you guessed - the national benefactor, who as far as I know has never said or written a single line worth publishing.
There has been a great deal of talk lately about Intelligent Design. As I look back at our history and what's happening today in our Homeland and Diaspora, I can't help asking: Where is the Design? Where is the Intelligence?
#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, November 17, 2005
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SEVEN SYMPTOMS OF FASCISM
1.
When leaders operate on the assumption that they know better than the people, and use their superior brand of knowledge to enhance their power and prestige as opposed to exercising it in the interest of the people. To put it more bluntly, they believe their privileged knowledge authorizes them to behave like masters rather than servants.
*
2.
When they explain the nation's problems by putting the blame on others rather than on the corruption, incompetence, and blunders of their predecessors. Hitler blamed Germany's problems on xxxs, and we blame ours on Turks, the degenerate West, and our own traitors and collaborators with the enemy.
*
3.
When the men at the top assume their personal integrity is such that accountability becomes an irrelevant concept.
*
4.
When they prefer the company of yes-men and brown-nosers to that of critics and dissidents.
*
5.
When they speak in the name of an ideology, which they confuse with theology.
*
6.
When they control the press by setting editorial policy and they confuse dissent with hostility or disloyalty.
*
7.
When a leader and his gang of elitist cronies view their subjects as lesser men.
#
Friday, November 18, 2005
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PROBLEMS AND THEIR SOLUTIONS
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Whenever I speak of our problems, I am told in no uncertain terms, "We know all about them. What we need is solutions," the implication being, unless I make our problems disappear by verbal magic, I might as well shut up and mind my own business.
Common sense, common knowledge, and common decency (rare commodities among us) tell us, the first and most important step in solving a problem is to state it as clearly, objectively, and accurately as possible. But as long as our men at the top reject all charges of incompetence, we will consistently fail to do that.
If one is to believe our leaders, their conduct and the conduct of their predecessors has been beyond reproach. If you dare to question that absurd assertion, you will be labeled an enemy of the people and silenced (I speak from experience).
In such an environment, where denial has become second nature in our leadership, only divine intervention will solve our problems, and so far there is no evidence to suggest that somebody up there is remotely interested in getting involved in our affairs.
#
Saturday, November 19, 2005
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LITERATURE AND POLITICS
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The function of literature is to understand and explain reality. The aim of political parties is to understand and explain only a fraction of reality, and more specifically, the fraction that will enhance their power and popularity. As a result, the medium of politics is not the truth but only a fraction of the truth, which is how propaganda is defined: a fraction of the truth.
*
Like most people I have committed my share of blunders and I spend a fraction of every day regretting them. Which is why I find the conduct of our wheeler-dealers, charlatans, and propagandists incomprehensible. They go about their business of sermonizing, speechifying, and editorializing as if they were role models leading exemplary lives.
*
If I am not a self-righteous and a self-satisfied jackass it may because I can't afford to surround myself with yes-men and brown-nosers who will remind me every day that I am as infallible as the Pope of Rome and as magnificent as Suleiman.
*
And speaking of the Pope: I read the following press release in our local paper today: "The Vatican's chief astronomer said yesterday that 'intelligent design isn't science and doesn't belong in science classrooms.'"
*
If Genghis Khan was to the left of the Vatican, Bush and Co. must be to the right of Genghis Khan.
#

[arabaliozian]

Monday, November 21, 2005
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THE MASSACRE CONTINUES…
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The purpose of the 9/11 Commission was to document and expose American incompetence and intelligence failures, rather than Al Qaida's barbarism and crimes. If so far we haven't had a 4/24 Commission it may be because the blame-game happens to be our favorite national sport.
*
There are those who believe by covering up our failures, we will have a better chance to enhance our prestige and emphasize our infallibility. We should not be surprise if this tactic works only with the very naive and inexperienced.
*
The majority of Americans believe today Bush invaded Iraq on bad intelligence. One could also say that we challenged the might of the Ottoman Empire on the false promises of the West.
*
In politics, as in life, mistakes happen all the time. What doesn't happen with the same frequency is the readiness to admit them. And as Bush hesitates, the massacre continues.
#
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
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First time he cried wolf they rushed to his aid. Second time he cried wolf they said bon appetit to the wolf and good riddance to the little prick who got a kick out of pulling their xxxxs.
From Yeghishe (5th century) to Charents (20th century) our writers have been crying wolf by echoing the Biblical warning "a house divided against itself cannot stand," and they have been ignored.
When on the eve of the Genocide Zohrab said the sky is about to fall, they said, "Zohrab effendi is exaggerating."
Long before Zohrab, when Raffi said the Ottoman Empire was no place for Armenians because Turks had no respect for human life, he too was ignored.
Some people collect stamps. We collect defeats, disasters, and tragedies. We even brag about them. "First nation to suffer a genocide in the 20th century," we declare at every opportunity as if that were something to crow about. We go further and brag about how smart we are, all the while ignoring, sometimes even silencing our writers.
Sartre is right: literature is a useless passion. It saves no one.
To friends who tell me not to give up, I say I haven't so far, but I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. This no doubt will be read with pleasure by readers who think of me as a prick who gets a kick out of pulling their xxxxs.
#
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
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WRITERS
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Treat them like welfare cases in need of handouts. If they don't get the message, reduce them to the status of beggars, then starve and silence them. As a tactic adopted by our bosses in their treatment of writers who refuse to recycle the party line, this may be slow but it is as effective as the tactic adopted by the likes of Talaat and Stalin. That's because power is power regardless of nationality, faith and ideology.
*
Whenever I am asked why is it that so far I have done nothing to encourage a future generation of writers, I say, "More than writers, the nation is in need of readers."
*
In the mail today, a short poem and letter that says: "Do you think my son has talent? Should I encourage him to be a writer?" "Only if you hate him," I am tempted to reply. Instead I say: "No need to encourage him. If he really wants to be a writer he will be one even if you discourage him."
*
One can also understand oneself by first understanding the unspoken assumptions of the community within which one lives.
*
The problem with solutions is not finding them (I could name four solutions in a single line: honesty, transparency, objectivity, mutual tolerance) but implementing them. Never say therefore "we need solutions," but "we need leaders who behave not as bosses but as public servants."
#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, November 24, 2005
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Our prejudices are born with us and they are all rooted in the illusion that we are the center of the universe, our god is the only true god, and our country is always right. We know of course that countries don't think, politicians do, and politicians are always wrong because they are motivated not by love of truth but by greed of power, prestige, and popularity.
*
The only way to acquire a better understanding of the world is to master the difficult art of thinking against oneself. It is not enough to say, "I could be wrong." We should say instead, "As long as we think in terms of us and them, we can't be right."
*
Until very recently most Americans believed Saddam was wrong and Bush right. If they are having second thoughts today it may be because their thinking follows not their prejudices but historic reality.
*
Twenty years ago I wrote a brief essay in which I summed up my convictions and I thought I had reached the end of the line and I had nothing further to say. But on waking up next morning I felt the urge to add a final note to emphasize one of the points made in my final essay. Twenty years later, on waking up this morning, once more I feel the need to underline and expand in the full knowledge that what I say will change nothing, and history will continue to be made by people who are convinced they are the center of the universe, their god is the only true god, and their country is always right.
#
Friday, November 25, 2005
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DIARY
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"He was brainwashed and traumatized," I heard someone say on the radio this morning. One could say that to be educated, or to feel and think as a member of a specific racial, religious, ethnic or tribal group means to be brainwashed and traumatized to some degree.
*
If to hate the many for the crimes of the few is racist, who among us can plead not guilty?
*
I have discovered a wonderful new American detective-story writer, K.C. Constantine (not his real name). His plots advance on dialogue which is fast, furious, often witty, and always profoundly human - Chekhov with a touch of Dostoevsky.
*
On the radio, Muti conducting Brahms's 4th Symphony. In the first movement he emphasized not the charm but the monumental. I could not help thinking that this is what Brahms must have had in mind.
*
Whenever Mother sees me writing, she says "Are you the director of a bank?"
*
In Antranik Zaroukian's NEW ARMENIA, NEW ARMENIANS, I read: "For six or seven centuries Armenia was only a dream in the heart of every Armenian. Dreams are nice if they lead you somewhere, nasty if they take you to a dead end…" He could have added, "…and nightmares when they come true."
#
Saturday, November 26, 2005
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PARALLELS
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In the paper this morning I read the following brief news item: "A 15-year old girl with a peanut allergy has died after being kissed by her boyfriend following his snack of peanut butter."
*
Socrates is right: Ignorance is the source of all evil, and to know is to remember. Didn't the boyfriend know about her allergy? If he knew, did he forget?
*
Ignorance may be the most innocent of all transgressions but in life it is sometimes the most severely punished.
*
What could be more natural for an oppressed people than to want to live in a free and independent homeland? What was it that made us forget the lessons of history? Why is it that before we decided to rise against the Empire we failed to ask the following questions? What did the West do during the Bulgarian and Greek massacres? How many innocent lives did their angry editorials, speeches, and pamphlets save? They didn't even bother sending Lord Byron. He volunteered. And how many lives did he save? He couldn't even save his own.
*
I see no difference between a regime that butchers writers and another that silences them. In both cases a unique perspective that may add to our understanding of the world is rejected and ignored.
##

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, November 27, 2005
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After describing in some detail the rhythmic exuberance and melodic inventiveness of the final movement of a Mozart piano concerto, most of which I no longer remember, the announcer concluded: "This is what it means to be alive!" Sometimes the easiest explanation is also the most unforgettable.
*
According to the press release of a new publisher, he is willing to consider any manuscript that qualifies as "entertaining trash."
*
I have been in the business long enough to know that nothing I write matters, and on the day I start taking myself seriously I will have to declare intellectual bankruptcy.
*
Reason tells me it makes no sense writing for Armenians. Even so, I go on. Don't ask me why because I don't know. Far better men than myself have fallen silent after five, ten, or at most twenty years, because they couldn't take the insults of a vocal minority, the hostility of the establishment, and the apathy of the majority. I have been writing for thirty years now and even if nothing changes, my guess is, I will go on writing for another thirty (if I am lucky enough to live that long). So what if I have only two readers left, both of whom misunderstand and contradict every line I write?
#
Monday, November 28, 2005
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COMPASSION FATIGUE
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A young woman has written a commentary in our paper today the title of which is "Hello I'm a person, not some guy's stereotype." By yakking endlessly about massacres and Turks we have reduced ourselves to the status of a stereotype - a victim nation - and the world is full of them.
*
People judge us by our contributions to the welfare of mankind, or how useful we can be to them, and not by how much we have suffered. This is true of individuals as well as groups. I will never forget the young, cool blonde co-worker of mine, Carol by name, who cut me short once with the words, "Listen, I've got problems of my own." Politicians in need of our votes may not say as much, but they sure as hell think it.
*
"I've got problems of my own!" A good explanation as to why Naregatsi may well be the most praised and least read Armenian writer.
*
If I have learned one sure thing in life it is this: Never challenge the power of someone you are not in a position to kill with impunity. This applies to Turks as well as Armenians because power is power regardless of nationality.
#
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
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I don't trust a writer who belongs to a political party. I don't trust political parties and politics. I trust politicians even less. I will go further and say that I see them as my natural enemies.
*
Being Armenian is an abnormal condition. Being an Armenian writer is compounding the felony.
*
It's all right to be prejudiced as long as you have an open mind.
*
History teaches us that it is easier to learn from it than to change it.
*
All empires are warlike. There has never been a pacifist empire. A pacifist empire might as well be a contradiction in terms. A pacifist empire would cease being an empire before you can say Jack S. Avanakian. That's because an empire is like an attractive wench. Everyone wants a piece of the action and if she doesn't resist she becomes a woman with a past and no future, and in today's parlance, history.
*
The justice of victims can be as ruthless as the justice of victimizers.
#
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
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There came a moment in my life when I suddenly realized that all the knowledge I had acquired until then was worthless. It follows, all the knowledge that I have acquired since may also be worthless sometime in the future. If men in positions of power and authority experience such moments, they must pretend otherwise. The same applies to men of faith. And yet, somewhere in the scriptures we read: "If you think you are wise, behave like a fool so that you may be wise," or words to that effect. I suspect men of faith interpret these lines in such a way as not to question or doubt their faith-based assumptions, knowledge and understanding. And that's another problem with men of faith: not only they must not question their fundamental assumptions, but also their interpretations of scriptures. Not only the Pope must pretend he does not doubt his faith seven times every day (as an Italian adage has it) but also he must pretend he has at no time questioned his own infallibility. The same applies to bishops, mullahs, and televangelists. Hence orthodoxies and heresies; hence religious wars and massacres; and hence Voltaire's dictum, "Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors;" and Bertrand Russell's maxim: "The aim of philosophy is to introduce doubt in an environment of certainties."
*
Speaking of certainties: in a fascist environment the press is exclusively anti-enemy, and if there is no enemy, it invents one. In a democratic environment the emphasis is on exposing corruption and incompetence in one's own power structure. By publishing 19 anti-Turkish articles in a 16-page weekly and ignoring our own filth, our press fully qualifies as a crypto-fascist medium.
Censorship is another prominent feature of fascism and all its crypto- and neo- variants. If I have said this before, it bears repeating. For, according to Socrates, "to know is to remember."
#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, December 01, 2005
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ON INTELLIGENT DESIGN
*******************************
If one takes into account earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, epidemics and many other natural disasters which insurance companies call "acts of god," one may have to admit that the design is deeply flawed and the intelligence not equal to the challenge.
*
ON POLITICIANS
**************************
Paul Johnson, a noted conservative British intellectual, has published an essay in the SPECTATOR (August 20, 2005) titled "Wittgenstein and the fatal propensity of politicians to lie," where he writes that lying has become a routine occurrence in British politics. What about Armenian politics? Shortly after the collapse of the USSR Sylva Kaputikian declared, "I am proud to have been a member of the Communist Party," the very same party that murdered some of our ablest men and bankrupted (economically as well as morally) our homeland. And if you were to ask one of our average partisans or ideologues, don't be surprised if you are informed that the leaders of his party never lie. This to me is another irrefutable proof of the fact that the design is seriously flawed.
*
ON DEMOCRACY
***********************
In the same issue of the SPECTATOR there is a letter to the editor in which I read the following lines: "Our democracy was not imposed from the top, it grew from beneath, well-rooted in our culture." If democracy must grow from beneath, we have not yet begun, and even if we were to begin first thing tomorrow morning, we will have a long way to go. Our Big Brothers have nothing to worry about because the chances that they may run out of dupes are practically non-existent.
#
Friday, December 02, 2005
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Flattering egos is a profitable enterprise, unlike exposing prejudices, which doesn't even pay minimum wage.
*
If by building a cathedral a benefactor thinks he will spend a minute less in purgatory he will build a cathedral. As for helping the poor and feeding the hungry, he will say what one of our brown-nosers once said to me: "There will always be poverty and hunger in the world and I doubt if it is in anyone's power to abolish them."
*
Mistakes are the best teachers. Cursed are those who never make them for they will never learn.
*
American literature welcomes writers from all four corners of the world - Nabokov (Russian), Bellow and Singer (two xxxs and Nobel Prize winners), Saroyan… Something similar could be said of French literature - Zola (Italian), Cioran and Ionesco (Romanians), Beckett (Irish), Adamov and Lubin (Armenians). And I could make a long list of our own writers that we have silenced - among them Voskanian, Massikian, Shahnour, and Zarian. I have yet to meet an Armenian (and I include members of my own family as well as relatives) for whom the demise of Armenian literature rates as a fit subject for conversation.
#
Saturday, December 03, 2005
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Neither the victim's nor the victimizer's versions of the same story will agree with god's version.
*
Some things we are destined to understand only at the hour of our death.
*
Decent Armenians do not parade their Armenianism. It is only the phonies who feel the need to cover their nakedness with the flag.
*
I like this thought by Jean Rostand: "In a future age we shall be just as astonished to find that we have had politicians as leaders as we are, today, to find that we once had barbers as surgeons."
*
He who overestimates himself will underestimate the opposition.
*
It is useless to speak in an environment where fools have succeeded in convincing themselves to be wise.
#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, December 04, 2005
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If what I repeat is worth repeating then it isn't repeating but reminding. For two thousand years Christians all over the world have been reciting the Lord's Prayer. If the Good Lord needs reminding, how much more so poor mortals like us? Every day we beg Him not to lead us into temptation and that's exactly what He does. Even so, we keep reminding Him as history keeps repeating itself ad nauseam…
*
Sometimes you are dead wrong not when you suspect you may be wrong but when the possibility of being wrong doesn't even occur to you.
*
The most effective way to introduce democratic reforms in an authoritarian environment is by teaching our children to disagree in a civilized manner and our adults to disagree without violating someone's fundamental human right of free speech. As long as we fail in these two enterprises, our fascists will continue to think they know better and they are fully qualified to lead us, without even suspecting for a single moment that a hundred years ago they led us straight to hell and, even as I write, history is repeating itself.
#
Monday, December 05, 2005
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QUESTIONS
**********************
By selecting and emphasizing certain aspects of reality and ignoring many others one may construct any number of theories. This may explain why philosophers, historians, theologians and even scientists have formulated many systems of belief and thought, none of which enjoys universal and unanimous support.
What are the choices open to a layman who is defenseless against the sophistries of his so-called "betters?"
What if the tree of knowledge has so far yielded nothing but poisoned fruit?
What if even the wisest among us is no better than a damn fool?
What if millions have killed and died for a belief system that has as much merit as the shadow of a non-existent black hat in a dark room?
*
A favorite political joke of mine goes something like this: A heckler at a rally interrupts the long-winded speech of a Republican presidential candidate by shouting: "My grandfather was a Democrat, my father was a Democrat, I am a Democrat!"
Whereupon the candidate demands to know: "Suppose your grandfather was a jackass and your father was a jackass, what would you be?"
"A Republican!" replies the heckler.
*
A final question: what if the most important decisions in our lives, decisions that are extensions of our identity or belief system, are based not on reason or free choice but accident of birth or geography?
#
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
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Sooner or later all blunders boomerang, and all blunders of policy or deed begin with blunders of thought.
*
When the free speech of a few is violated, the many swim in verbal crap.
*
Our propagandists like to speak of defeats that are moral victories, but not of victories that are moral defeats; and to those who think silencing dissent is a victory, may I remind them that it is also a moral catastrophe.
*
An infallible Armenian is also a self-assessed smart Armenian who knows many things except how to think for himself.
*
Where there is intolerance, there will be dissent; where there is dissent, there will be censorship; where there is censorship, there will be lies; where there are lies, there will be fear; and fear is not good policy.
#
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
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Sometimes I am tempted to affix the following message at the end of everything I write: "Please, do not insult the scribbler, he is doing his best."
*
More often than not all Armenian arguments do is polarize the participants. On reconsideration I wish to amend my answers to all the counter-arguments and questions I have been asked so far to: "You may be right," "I am not sure," "I don't know," and "No comment."
*
Since the Great Powers of the West have not apologized for their meddling in our affairs, in what way are they better than Turks are?
*
Because our dime-a-dozen pundits keep saying Turks are nasty folk, they are okay. But because I keep saying we are not perfect, I am guilty of both repeating myself and being wrong.
#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, December 08, 2005
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In his latest book, THE DRAGONS OF EXPECTATION (London: Duckworth, 256 pages, 2005) Robert Conquest writes about a certain type of idealists or members of "an intellectually semi-educated class," who become so engrossed in present evils which they can see that "their brains entirely fail to register the political evils - so much less easy to discern - of panaceas being peddled to replace them." Thus it was that our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire, while clearly seeing the evil of oppression, chose not to recognize the probability of genocide.
*
It took courage to challenge the might of the Empire; it will take greater courage to admit it was a blunder.
*
Serial killers and crime lords are less dangerous to society than well-meaning and respectable political leaders who do not question their fundamental decency, logic, and infallibility.
*
Nobody is as smart as he thinks he is. I would have been a happier man had I assumed to be an idiot. Likewise, the world will be a better place if leaders assume to be fools.
#
Friday, December 09, 2005
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WRITERS
****************
There are writers that I love to read, and writers, like Dostoevsky and Simenon, that become obsessions.
*
SIMENON
**************
There are two things that fascinate me about Simenon: his profoundly human and universally accessible fictional characters, and the fact that he could write a book in a week. No one knows how many books he has written - some say 500, others 650 - because he wrote under several pseudonyms. His books may be divided into three distinct categories: detective stories (also known as "maigrets"), straight novels (also known as "simenons"), and autobiographical narratives and diaries, not all of which are available in English.
*
DOSTOEVSKY
************************
What I find fascinating about Dostoevsky's fiction is the clash of contradictory characters and the ensuing fireworks. I began reading him as a teenager and by the time I was twenty I had read all his major works in Italian and Greek translations. Though I have tried to reread him in English I have never gone beyond page 3. I prefer to read studies of his life and work, of which there is a steady stream. Generally speaking, I find biographies of the major Russians (Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev) more absorbing than their fiction.
*
MANN AND TOYNBEE
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Two other writers who became obsessions that lasted several years are Thomas Mann and Arnold J. Toynbee. What I value about them both is their thoroughly anti-establishment stance - though they were themselves products of the establishment. But this is true of all authentic thinkers, from Plato to Bertrand Russell.
*
ZARIAN
*****************
Among Armenians, the writer that has fascinated me the most is Gostan Zarian, but unlike the great Russians, so far he has had no biographer, which is a pity since his life on three continents and encounters with many major figures in world literature fully deserves several voluminous studies.
#
Saturday, December 10, 2005
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A VICIOUS CIRCLE
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Q: Who suffers when politicians make a mistake?
A: The people.
Q: How do politicians react when told they made a mistake?
A: They silence critics, they brainwash the young, and they surround themselves with hirelings, yes-men, and brown-nosers.
Q: What happens when they do that?
A: The truth is buried, charlatanism is legitimized, and the press is prostituted.
Q: Who suffers when that happens?
A: The people.
#

[Anonymouse]

Thursday, December 08, 2005
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In his latest book, THE DRAGONS OF EXPECTATION (London: Duckworth, 256 pages, 2005) Robert Conquest writes about a certain type of idealists or members of "an intellectually semi-educated class," who become so engrossed in present evils which they can see that "their brains entirely fail to register the political evils - so much less easy to discern - of panaceas being peddled to replace them." Thus it was that our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire, while clearly seeing the evil of oppression, chose not to recognize the probability of genocide.
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It took courage to challenge the might of the Empire; it will take greater courage to admit it was a blunder.
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Serial killers and crime lords are less dangerous to society than well-meaning and respectable political leaders who do not question their fundamental decency, logic, and infallibility.
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Nobody is as smart as he thinks he is. I would have been a happier man had I assumed to be an idiot. Likewise, the world will be a better place if leaders assume to be fools.
#
Friday, December 09, 2005
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WRITERS
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There are writers that I love to read, and writers, like Dostoevsky and Simenon, that become obsessions.
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SIMENON
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There are two things that fascinate me about Simenon: his profoundly human and universally accessible fictional characters, and the fact that he could write a book in a week. No one knows how many books he has written - some say 500, others 650 - because he wrote under several pseudonyms. His books may be divided into three distinct categories: detective stories (also known as "maigrets"), straight novels (also known as "simenons"), and autobiographical narratives and diaries, not all of which are available in English.
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DOSTOEVSKY
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What I find fascinating about Dostoevsky's fiction is the clash of contradictory characters and the ensuing fireworks. I began reading him as a teenager and by the time I was twenty I had read all his major works in Italian and Greek translations. Though I have tried to reread him in English I have never gone beyond page 3. I prefer to read studies of his life and work, of which there is a steady stream. Generally speaking, I find biographies of the major Russians (Pushkin, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Turgenev) more absorbing than their fiction.
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MANN AND TOYNBEE
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Two other writers who became obsessions that lasted several years are Thomas Mann and Arnold J. Toynbee. What I value about them both is their thoroughly anti-establishment stance - though they were themselves products of the establishment. But this is true of all authentic thinkers, from Plato to Bertrand Russell.
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ZARIAN
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Among Armenians, the writer that has fascinated me the most is Gostan Zarian, but unlike the great Russians, so far he has had no biographer, which is a pity since his life on three continents and encounters with many major figures in world literature fully deserves several voluminous studies.
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Saturday, December 10, 2005
***********************************
A VICIOUS CIRCLE
****************************
Q: Who suffers when politicians make a mistake?
A: The people.
Q: How do politicians react when told they made a mistake?
A: They silence critics, they brainwash the young, and they surround themselves with hirelings, yes-men, and brown-nosers.
Q: What happens when they do that?
A: The truth is buried, charlatanism is legitimized, and the press is prostituted.
Q: Who suffers when that happens?
A: The people.
#

I have read Mann and Toynbee, and I wouldn't go so far as to somehow paint them as "anti-establishment". Flirting with the desire of being anti-establishment, does not necessarily make them anti-establishment.

[arabaliozian]

I have read Mann and Toynbee, and I wouldn't go so far as to somehow paint them as "anti-establishment". Flirting with the desire of being anti-establishment, does not necessarily make them anti-establishment.

all authentic writers, and literature in general, are anti-establishment.
please reread more carefully. / ara