notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Friday, December 08, 2006
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ON BELIEF SYSTEMS AND
RELATED ATROCITIES
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It is an undeniable fact that some of our most cherished ideas about God and Country, or religion and patriotism, were instilled in us at a time when we had not yet mastered the demanding art of thinking for ourselves, and as such they should be rejected as “prejudicial” and “hearsay” because not to do so would mean allowing geography to determine our belief system. It is another undeniable fact that geography or mountains, valleys, and flatlands do not and cannot think. It follows; to allow an unthinking factor to define our thinking is not just wrong but absurd. And yet, this is what the overwhelming majority of mankind does. Result, intolerance, conflicts, wars, massacres, and atrocities with no end in sight; or, to put it more bluntly, lies in the name of truth, and the Kingdom of the Devil instead of the City of God.
*
Having seen this clearly, the eminent historian Arnold J. Toynbee concluded his monumental STUDY OF HISTORY with an appeal to mankind to reconcile all known religions into a single universal religion by granting equal status to all scriptures, prophets, and messianic figures. Needless to add, he was labeled a mystic, a prophet of mumbo jumbo, and a utopian daydreamer.
*
Was Toynbee a utopian mystic or a realist and pragmatist? He was, I believe, both. He was a realist in so far as he saw that what moves tribes, nations, empires, and civilizations is a belief system rather than self-interest, and as long as there are conflicting belief systems there cannot be lasting peace. He was a utopian mystic in so far as he thought man, as a reasonable being would be more than willing to give up his arrogant, not to say, groundless belief that he had a monopoly on truth for whose sake he would rather see the world go down in flames rather than to live in perpetual peace and prosperity.
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[gmd]

Re: notes / comments

Friday, December 08, 2006
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ON BELIEF SYSTEMS AND
RELATED ATROCITIES
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He was a utopian mystic in so far as he thought man, as a reasonable being would be more than willing to give up his arrogant, not to say, groundless belief that he had a monopoly on truth for whose sake he would rather see the world go down in flames rather than to live in perpetual peace and prosperity.
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One of the few things you have written my simple mind can grasp. If I may add my observation that man often defines his prosperity not just in how much he can amass for himself but also in what he can deny others. So I can't believe a universal belief system could create a utopia.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, December 09, 2006
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HUBRIS AND NEMESIS
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Ignorance of the law, including the moral law, especially the moral law, is no excuse. If you commit a transgression you can’t plead not guilty by reason of ignorance or unawareness. When the Greeks were defeated, humiliated, and enslaved by such “barbarians” as Macedonians, Romans, and Turks, it may not have occurred to them that their hubris in assuming to be the most civilized nation on earth may have provoked the retaliation of Nemesis. Have these catastrophes of millennial duration taught the Greeks a lesson? I don’t think so. Even in their present bastardized condition, they think, as the offspring of the greatest people on earth, they have every right to brag about their many contributions to world civilization.
To justify their hubris of considering themselves the Chosen, some learned xxxs explain that they don’t mean it as an enviable privilege but, on the contrary, as a heavy burden and a thankless responsibility. But I agree with Toynbee: no matter how you slice it, baloney is baloney. Greeks, xxxs, Brits, Nazis, Armenians: they are chosen by no one but themselves and no amount of sophistry can cover up or justify their arrogance. Which is why I shiver with disgust when I hear an Armenian bragging about how smart we are, how many languages we speak, how successful we have been in surviving where many others perished, first nation this, and first nation that. Why would anyone brag about being slaughtered by “bloodthirsty savages”? And smart in what? Selling Oriental rugs? It seems our need to brag is such that when we run out of positives, we brag about negatives.
How smart are we when we say the best and only way to solve our many problems is to sit on our collective ass for two or three generations until our problems solve themselves. Human problems do not solve themselves. It takes hard work and sometimes even blood, sweat, and tears. An average idiot with the minimum of political awareness knows this. But leave it to smart Armenians to pretend ignorance and unawareness.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, December 10, 2006
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DIAGNOSE AND ADIOS
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Confronted with an incurable disease, some doctors offer no hope or consolation to the patient. This MO by MDs is known as “Diagnose and adios.” As a veteran of many verbal confrontations, I have learned the hard way that it never pays to contradict an argumentative person whose central concern is to prove his brain, or some other organ more closely connected with his manhood, is bigger than yours. Nothing disarms such a person more than telling him he is right, especially when he is dead wrong. Tell him he is wrong and he will come up with more reasons why you are a damn fool. If Freud were alive today, my guess is, he would diagnose Bush’s intransigence as an extension of his defective manhood. As for Armenian intransigence, he would diagnose it as a trauma sustained during centuries of subjection to brutal foreign tyrants, after which he would say “Auf viedersehen.” I look forward to the day when I too will see the light and say adios to our dupes.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Monday, December 11, 2006
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CANNIBALS AND CHRISTIANS
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To say that I attack or criticize Armenia and Armenians in my writings is a gross distortion of what I have been doing. I write in defense of all victims, underdogs, and men of goodwill (regardless of nationality). To write in defense of victims also means to expose their victimizers, and I don’t mean past victimizers (as our Turcocentric self-appointed pundits do), but present ones. We cannot change the past, but we may have a better chance to change the future. If I write more on wicked men and less on good ones, it’s because they (the wicked) have taken over our leadership. My writings are an expression of concern rather than hostility. To criticize is to expose contradictions. A critic is someone who tells you if you want to travel south, you should not board a northbound train because then you may end up in Alaska where you may freeze your butt. If you want to live to be a hundred, you should not mix yourself a xxxxtail of arsenic and rat poison. If you want to impress others with your high IQ, you may have a better chance of doing so if you keep your trap shut, because if you open it, you may run the risk of exposing yourself as an idiot. If you are in a hole, you should stop digging. If you worry about Armenians being few, you should not support or defend leaders who have no interest in checking the exodus from the Homeland and the assimilation rate in the Diaspora. On the contrary, you should do whatever you can to expose their corruption, incompetence, lies, and wickedness; and if you cannot do that, you should not obstruct the path of those who are trying. This much said, let me conclude by saying that none of us can claim to be beyond criticism, because being human also means being a bundle of contradictions. And speaking of contradictions let me confess one of my own many contradictions: If I want to lecture on the advantages of a vegetarian diet, why do I choose doing so to an audience of cannibals?
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Tuesday, December 12, 2006
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IF THE BLIND…
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When it comes to what to write and how to write it, I find my guidelines not in the speeches and sermons of our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted flunkies and hirelings, who will say and do anything for an empty title or a regular salary, but in our literature. Not everyone who speaks in the name of God acts with His wisdom; and some of the most dangerous fanatics in history have exceled in the art of speechifying in the name of patriotism.
*
I remember during the Soviet era whenever I published a commentary critical of the regime, I would receive nasty and abusive phone calls and letters by our chic Bolsheviks who would remind me that we owe our present prosperity and existence to our big brothers to the North, and if they ever withdrew their support, the Turks would have us for breakfast. Whenever I cited violations of human rights, I would be informed that such violations exist everywhere, including Canada and the United States. They would explain and justify every Soviet crime against humanity the way denialist Turks explain the Genocide by saying even the most so-called civilized nations on earth have been guilty of similar crimes, and like rape and murder, genocide is an integral part of the human condition. It follows no one can afford to adopt a morally superior stance. Ramgavar editors would go further and accuse me of disseminating Tashnak propaganda. That’s the problem with liars and propagandists: they think everyone is either a liar or a propagandist.
*
Let’s not have any illusions about our “betters” who are better only at creating problems rather than solving them. If you have not understood that much about our history and present situation, it may be because you are a product of an educational system whose aim is not to raise consciousness but to lower it by making you say “Yes sir!” when common sense and decency tells you to bellow “A plague on both your houses!” And if you were to ask why I blame Soviet purges and Ottoman massacres on our own leaders, I would reply by saying, for the same reason that sectarian violence in Iraq today is blamed on Bush. Political leadership is a demanding discipline; mediocrity and politics don’t mix; mediocrity in times of crisis may even spell disaster for the nation. Leadership is much more than popularity, charisma, and patriotic speeches. Leadership means the ability to see what’s on the other side of the hill. Our leaders have been better at speechifying than seeing the other side of the hill. The source of all our misfortunes is to be found in their blindness…and “if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Wednesday, December 13, 2006
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CROSS-EXAMINATION
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QUESTION: Would you agree with me when I say that our critics and dissidents have been consistently negative, perhaps even hostile and prejudiced towards our political leadership?
ANSWER: To say that is to completely ignore the fact that our political leaders – be they kings, princes, nakharars, and ideologues -- have been much more negative and hostile towards one another.
Q: What would you say to those of your readers and critics who say you are consistently negative in your judgments?
A: I would say that our “betters” are even more negative in their judgments as well as policies against one another, hence our perennial divisions that have crippled the nation and reduced us to the status of perennial losers. If I am wrong, I can be corrected and contradicted. Can we say the same about them?
Q: If you are right and they wrong, why is it that they have many more supporters, followers, and hamagirs (sympathizers) than you have readers?
A: One reason, they control the media. Another reason, bad ideas make perfect sense to dupes who are easily satisfied with slogans and clichés that flatter their vanity. As for good ideas: history tells us even the best ideas can be manipulated and perverted by cunning operators to such a degree that they become their own contradictions. Hence, such phenomena as dissidents who are labeled as “enemies of the nation,” and contempt for ideas in the name of ideology.
Q: A final question: Why should the average reader trust your ideas more than the ideas of – to use your own expression -- our “betters”?
A: Let’s have the honesty to admit that none of our ideas is original or new. We are all in the business of recycling old ideas. A 20th-century English philosopher has gone as far as saying that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato. Our choice is between the received ideas of politicians with an ax to grind on the one hand, and on the other, the received ideas of thinkers who have dedicated their lives to the selfless and thankless labor of enhancing our understanding. And now, allow me to ask you a question: Can you think of a single memorable sentence spoken by any one of our leaders during the last fifty years?

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, December 14, 2006
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ON A POPULAR DELUSION
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When it comes to god, there are three schools of thought: (one) god created man in his own image; (two) man created god in his own image; and (three) there is no god. In THE GOD DELUSION (New York, 2006), the American biologist Richard Dawkins seems to support the second and third schools. Here is how he describes the god of the Old Testament: “a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully” -- which could also be a fairly accurate description of an average Yankee redneck or a fundamentalist Muslim jihadist.
In her book, THE FORCE OF REASON, the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who like Tolstoy, described herself as “a Christian atheist,” asserts that there is no such thing as a moderate Muslim. Dawkins goes further and says fundamentalists of all faith exist because moderates legitimize and promote faith as a good thing. Which means, moderates create fanatics as surely as man creates god.
He explains the popularity of religions by saying children are “programmed” to believe anything their parents and elders tell them, which happens to be an undeniable biological fact observable not only in man but also in many other forms of animal life. According to Dawkins, a religious education is a form of brainwashing and as such should be equated with child abuse. This may explain why other forms of child abuse come naturally to those directly involved in organized religions.
It is to be noted that the above-mentioned Oriana Fallaci died recently (September 15, 2006) of cancer, aged 77. Her close friendship with Pope Benedict XVI, echoes that of Gandhi’s, a devout Hindu, with Tolstoy.
For more on the god of the Old Testament and Christianity, see also Bertrand Russell’s WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Friday, December 15, 2006
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THE SECRET OF MY SUCCESS
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Readers – they are my only secret:
gentle readers, avid readers, concerned readers
willing to correct me
when I stray from the righteous path,
eager to remind me that
honey catches more flies than vinegar
(so does manure, but never mind about that now).
Writers of the past were not as lucky as I am.
During the Soviet era, for instance,
the only advice our commissars had for our writers
was a bullet in the neck.
Under Talaat in Istanbul
at the turn of the last century
things were no better.
But what’s done is done.
Let bygones be bygones,
and as my readers keep reminding me,
it doesn’t pay to dwell too much
on negative things;
and as the Good Book says,
“Let the dead bury their dead.”
After centuries of brutal oppression
we have finally emerged
from the darkness of the past.
We have seen the light
and no power one earth
can thrust us back into darkness.
My success is not mine alone
but that of Armenian literature as a whole,
and by extension, that of the nation.
For readers create great writers
as surely as great writers create masterpieces.
I have no doubt whatever in my mind
that we now stand on the verge of a Second Golden Age
beside which the First is as nothing.
A new generation of great writers is about to rise
from the ashes and soar
like a phoenix into the stratosphere
where masterpieces are born
and Nobel Prizes awarded.
All because of gentle readers
who are committed body and soul
to the welfare of our literature and culture.
When during a visit to an Armenian community center
I was asked why so far I had shown
no interest in encouraging a new generation of writers
but preferred to live in solitude in the middle of nowhere,
I was dead wrong to reply:
“What the nation needs more today
is not writers but readers.”
The truth of the matter is
I have many more good readers than I deserve,
avid reader, concerned readers,
able literary critics all,
whose sole aim in life
is to raise our esthetic and moral standards.
My gratitude to them knows no bounds.
I am what I am because of them.
My success is not mine but theirs.
I say to them what Samuel said to God:
“Speak, Lord, for Thy servant is listening.”
God bless you.
God bless Armenian literature.
God bless Armenia.
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[jgk3]

Re: notes / comments

are you sure no force on Earth can thrust us back into darkness? No force can destroy readers?