January 31, 2010
*************************
MORE ONE-LINERS
****************************************
To be a fool means to be at the mercy of worse fools who think they are smart.
*
The lower on the totem pole you are, the more subject to checks and balances you will be.
*
Faceless bureaucrats follow rules not because they believe in them but because their only concern is their source of income.
*
When sacred cows are in charge, they will criminalize the consumption of shish-kebab.
*
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.
*
Everything makes sense if you find the right explanation.
*
The aim of all religions and ideologies is to make you say "Yes, sir!"
*
In theory, religion is meant to civilize; but in practice what it does is legitimize barbarism.
*
To acquire a faith is not the same as to see the light.
#
February 1, 2010
*************************
DIARY
****************************************
There are two Armenians mentioned in Cheever's biography: one of them is a loud-mouth phony and the other Saroyan and his “tax problems.” Elsewhere we are informed Saroyan was popular in communist countries and “all but forgotten in the West.”
Cheever and Updike were thought to be good friends but in his diary Cheever had this to say about him: “He describes erections so exhaustively that he's beginning to look like a big prick with a hair-piece” -- a remark that probably hastened Updike's death.
*
Those who say “We need solutions,” want nothing of the kind because solutions may expose them as dupes or frauds.
*
Politics seems to attract the kind of people whose role model is not Gandhi but Don Corleone.
*
A good fraction of mankind today makes a comfortable living by deceiving their fellow men.”
*
One should judge a religion not by its theology but by its history, which also means, by its crimes against humanity.
*
If I repeat myself it may be because our blunders keep repeating themselves and not repeating myself would amount to either giving up or covering up.
#
February 2, 2010
*************************
IF...
****************************************
If the West were to adopt the methods of the Ottoman Empire, all Muslims within its borders would be deported to Siberia, Sahara, and even Antarctica. This may still happen if things get worse instead of better.
When civilizations clash it is not always the most civilized that prevails but the most ruthless. Democracy and respect for human rights may be noble principles, but life-and-death situations demand not moderate measures but ruthless tactics.
It is true that most Muslims, perhaps even the overwhelming majority, are not for terrorism, they may even be against it, but so were Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I and Jews in Europe during World War II.
Some of us may not live long enough to witness this apocalyptic denouement. That does not mean it may never happen. On the contrary, it may even be thought of as inevitable.
#
February 3, 2010
*************************
FRAGMENTS
****************************************
As children we are brought up not to questions the words and conduct of adults. The trouble is, some of us never quite grow up. That's the only way to explain the popularity of men like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao (who is said to have slaughtered more people than the other two combined, or so I read in today's paper).
One could sum up the work of all great thinkers with two words: “Grow up!” Or, as the Scriptures tell us: “When one grows up, one should put aside the toys of one's childhood.”
*
I am a man without a country and without a neighborhood, if one defines a neighborhood not as a collection of houses but of homes. Every house in which I have lived at one time or another has been torn down by either war or real-estate developers; only my alma mater stands but it is no longer an educational institution but a cheap motel. As for my present neighborhood where I have lived for fifty years: the old are either dead or in nursing homes; the young have moved on to better neighborhoods or have been arrested on drug charges and taken away never to be seen again, and the immigrants have returned to their homeland.
*
Gresham's Law, named after the 16th-century English merchant Sir Thomas Gresham, states, "Bad money drive out good money," meaning: adulterated gold drives out pure gold, for the simple reason that it is cheaper. By extension, opportunists drive out men of principle, and mediocrities drive out those who seek to achieve excellence.
*
An extension of Gresham's Law: Evil knows how to organize itself because it appeals to the selfish instincts of the majority.
*
Likewise, recycled crap drives out objective judgment, and hoodlums and their verbal abuse drive out dialogue.
#
The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
Re: The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
by Ara Baliozian » Wed Feb 03, 2010 6:03 pm
- Ara Baliozian
- Posts: 94
- Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
by Ara Baliozian » Sat Feb 06, 2010 5:43 pm
February 4, 2010
*************************
BORN-AGAIN
****************************************
Somewhere Sartre describes the process whereby a man passively accepts values invented by others as “kneeling down like an animal to be loaded with them.” In other words, to die as a man and be born again as a jackass.
*
In everything I write I try to understand and explain myself hoping thus to understand my fellow men and the world around me. As for changing the world: even when one succeeds in that particular endeavor, one may fail in many others. Consider Marx's dream and the reality of the Soviet Union. If Marx had been a contemporary of Stalin, my guess is either he would have committed suicide or written a treatise in praise of capitalism.
*
Whenever I am insulted anonymously, I say to myself: Let's give the devil his due. Obviously the man knows how to read. He may not always understand what he reads but he has taken an important first step. It would be a mistake to give up on him. In a year or two, or in ten or twenty years, his understanding may catch up with his reading skills. Rome wasn't built in one day. My own understanding took longer than twenty years to reach the present point. What right do I have to make greater demands on others?
#
February 5, 2010
*************************
THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS
****************************************
The most valuable thoughts are those that contradict our emotions.
*
When I wrote what they wanted to read, I was happy and they were happy, until I read Einstein's remark to the effect that to aim at happiness at the expense of truth is to entertain “the ambitions of a pig.”
*
ON SOLUTIONS
********************************
The first step is the realization that, like the kingdom of God, solutions too are within you.
*
MEMO TO READERS
WHO INSULT ME ANONYMOUSLY
************************************************
Your own shadow is a much more serious threat to you than I could ever be. But then, cowards don't need a real threat to experience fear, for their greatest enemy is their own imagination.
*
TOYNBEE'S CONCEPTION OF REALITY
*************************************************
“Every human being now alive has links, however tenuous, not only with every one of his contemporaries, but also with every other human being that has ever lived. In this sense human history is one single seamless web, and any dissection of it is an arbitrary misrepresentation of Reality.”
*
MAX WEBER ON MODERN MAN
*********************************************
“Specialists without vision, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved.”
#
February 6, 2010
*************************
MIKOYAN
*********************
In his 1959:THE YEAR EVERYTHING CHANGED (New Jersey, 2009), Fred Kaplan devotes an entire chapter to Mikoyan's 1959 visit to America. A man of “blunt words, crackling wit, and unfailing good humor,” Mikoyan is also said to have been followed by Hungarian demonstrators who called him “mass murderer!” We also read here that Khrushchev affectionately called him “my Armenian,” and my “rug merchant.”
*
ON NATIONALISM
***********************************
The trouble with nationalists is that they will be as divided as multinationalists because everyone will have his own conception of nation and patriotism that will stand in direct contradiction to another's. Hence the frequency and inevitability of civil wars.
*
SPENGLER ON DEMOCRACY
**************************************
“A small number of superior heads, whose names are very likely not the best-known, settle everything, while below them are the great mass of second-rate politicians selected through a provincially-conceived franchise to keep alive the illusion of popular self-determination.”
This may explain the popularity of conspiracy theories.
*
VERSIONS OF THE PAST
****************************************
Nationalist historians tend to be good at telling one side of the story: their own. The same applies to historians with an ideological or religious ax to grind. Which is why there are as many versions of the past as there are ideologies, religions, nations, tribes, and schools of thought, all of whom assert to have a monopoly on truth.
To say therefore that our own version of the past is true but the French, Russian, American, British, Patagonian, or, for that matter, Turkish versions of their own past is false, is to bury our heads in the sand.
#
*************************
BORN-AGAIN
****************************************
Somewhere Sartre describes the process whereby a man passively accepts values invented by others as “kneeling down like an animal to be loaded with them.” In other words, to die as a man and be born again as a jackass.
*
In everything I write I try to understand and explain myself hoping thus to understand my fellow men and the world around me. As for changing the world: even when one succeeds in that particular endeavor, one may fail in many others. Consider Marx's dream and the reality of the Soviet Union. If Marx had been a contemporary of Stalin, my guess is either he would have committed suicide or written a treatise in praise of capitalism.
*
Whenever I am insulted anonymously, I say to myself: Let's give the devil his due. Obviously the man knows how to read. He may not always understand what he reads but he has taken an important first step. It would be a mistake to give up on him. In a year or two, or in ten or twenty years, his understanding may catch up with his reading skills. Rome wasn't built in one day. My own understanding took longer than twenty years to reach the present point. What right do I have to make greater demands on others?
#
February 5, 2010
*************************
THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS
****************************************
The most valuable thoughts are those that contradict our emotions.
*
When I wrote what they wanted to read, I was happy and they were happy, until I read Einstein's remark to the effect that to aim at happiness at the expense of truth is to entertain “the ambitions of a pig.”
*
ON SOLUTIONS
********************************
The first step is the realization that, like the kingdom of God, solutions too are within you.
*
MEMO TO READERS
WHO INSULT ME ANONYMOUSLY
************************************************
Your own shadow is a much more serious threat to you than I could ever be. But then, cowards don't need a real threat to experience fear, for their greatest enemy is their own imagination.
*
TOYNBEE'S CONCEPTION OF REALITY
*************************************************
“Every human being now alive has links, however tenuous, not only with every one of his contemporaries, but also with every other human being that has ever lived. In this sense human history is one single seamless web, and any dissection of it is an arbitrary misrepresentation of Reality.”
*
MAX WEBER ON MODERN MAN
*********************************************
“Specialists without vision, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved.”
#
February 6, 2010
*************************
MIKOYAN
*********************
In his 1959:THE YEAR EVERYTHING CHANGED (New Jersey, 2009), Fred Kaplan devotes an entire chapter to Mikoyan's 1959 visit to America. A man of “blunt words, crackling wit, and unfailing good humor,” Mikoyan is also said to have been followed by Hungarian demonstrators who called him “mass murderer!” We also read here that Khrushchev affectionately called him “my Armenian,” and my “rug merchant.”
*
ON NATIONALISM
***********************************
The trouble with nationalists is that they will be as divided as multinationalists because everyone will have his own conception of nation and patriotism that will stand in direct contradiction to another's. Hence the frequency and inevitability of civil wars.
*
SPENGLER ON DEMOCRACY
**************************************
“A small number of superior heads, whose names are very likely not the best-known, settle everything, while below them are the great mass of second-rate politicians selected through a provincially-conceived franchise to keep alive the illusion of popular self-determination.”
This may explain the popularity of conspiracy theories.
*
VERSIONS OF THE PAST
****************************************
Nationalist historians tend to be good at telling one side of the story: their own. The same applies to historians with an ideological or religious ax to grind. Which is why there are as many versions of the past as there are ideologies, religions, nations, tribes, and schools of thought, all of whom assert to have a monopoly on truth.
To say therefore that our own version of the past is true but the French, Russian, American, British, Patagonian, or, for that matter, Turkish versions of their own past is false, is to bury our heads in the sand.
#
- Ara Baliozian
- Posts: 94
- Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
by Ara Baliozian » Wed Feb 10, 2010 5:30 pm
February 7, 2010
*************************
EXPOSING A MYTH
*************************************
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, continued, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, pervasive, and unrealistic.” John F. Kennedy
*
There is a type of Armenian patriotism that believes in covering up the incompetence, corruption, and even the criminal conduct of our leadership on the grounds that, if exposed, our image as a nation may be harmed in the eyes of the world.
*
Earthquakes, we are told, are acts of God. But victims of earthquakes are not. Earthquakes don't kill people. Buildings do. How many of our contractors and commissars in charge of constructions are in jail today? What guarantee do we have that the next earthquake, which may happen in ten or twenty years, will not kill many more victims?
*
Our phony patriots are against hanging our dirty laundry out in the open for everyone to see. Americans, on the other hand, believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Who is right?
Who knows better?
*
To those who say I should write in Armenian for Armenian papers, and not in English in open forums: Our writers from Khorenatsi and Yeghishé (5th century) to Zarian and Massikian (20th century) have done exactly that without any discernible results.
When Zarian assumed a critical stance, he was silenced, driven out of the United State and into Soviet Armenia, where he became an abominable no man. There are even those who accuse him today of having been an agent of the KGB and the CIA, and worse, that in his final phase he went mad.
*
Generally speaking the average Armenian dupe respects our bosses, bishops, and benefactors much more than our scribblers and vodanavorjis. Bosses, bishops, and benefactors are perceived as men of power, God, and capital (make it, Capital and god). What do scribblers and vodanavorjis do? They try to cook pilaf with words. Let the buggers shut up; and if they refuse, let them starve! Serve them right.
*
In our environment today Turcocentric ghazetajis are more respected and compensated than writers, even if after a century of verbiage (letters to the editor, commentaries, essays in the foreign press, not to say treatises, documentaries, symposia, and textbooks), they have failed to resurrect a single victim, annex a single inch of historic Armenia, or collect a single red cent as reparation.
When writers fail, they do so on their own and at their own expense. The same cannot be said of our ghazetajis, speechifiers, propagandists, and their assorted fund-raisers and bloodsuckers who survive and prosper by victimizing victims all over again, as if, once a victim, always a victim were their jagadakir.
Amot!
#
February 8, 2010
*************************
DIARY
*************************************
Asked if he had seen Mozart's DON GIOVANNI, Casanova is said to have replied: “Seen it? I have lived it.” Which reminds me of a similar line in reference to Reagan's longevity as president. When asked if he had heard of Marco Polo, he is said to have replied: “Heard of him? I knew him!”
*
An old tactic that seldom fails: when cornered in an argument, assume the air of someone with a large store of inside information not available to ordinary laymen like your adversary, and proceed to lie your head off.
*
Free and fair elections are probably known by corrupt regimes (like our own) as an American disease.
*
It is fashionable to blame the Yanks for dropping the first bomb on Hiroshima. No one says, Thank God the Japs didn't have it first. And some day in the near or distant future if history repeats itself and the bomb is dropped on Muslim fanatics, they will call it a crime against humanity until they realize the only reason Muslims didn't drop the bomb on New York City or Washington or Paris is that they didn't have it.
*
An unspoken Armenian mantra: “Tell me what I want to hear and I will believe it even if you happen to be an habitual and compulsive liar.”
*
A nation that places propaganda above literature is doomed.
#
February 9, 2010
*************************
WINNING AN ARGUMENT --
ARMENIAN STYLE
*************************************
Another tactic that never fails is to make an assertion so untenable and asinine as to make your adversary give up in despair and disgust. Three examples of such assertions that have been leveled against me follow:
“Armenians are incapable of hatred.”
“The only reason people quit their homeland and emigrate to foreign countries is greed for more money.”
“Criticizing Armenians in English in an open forum on the Internet is akin to treason.”
*
Armenians cannot engage in dialogue because their aim is not to get at the truth or to learn from one another's experience and understanding but to assert their intellectual prowess by being invincible in argument. So what if in the process they expose themselves as inbred morons? For perennial losers, victory trumps all other considerations.
*
We like to speak of “the Armenian wound.” What we carefully avoid mentioning is that more often than not this so-called wound is self-inflicted.
If we are at the mercy of unprincipled mediocrities today it's because we betrayed two generations of our ablest men to alien authorities. We could not betray all of them because in the Diaspora free speech is not thought of as a capital offense.
As a result, those who survived were either silenced or treated as parasites and nonentities whose sole contribution to our welfare as a nation has been empty verbiage. After all, who has ever heard of a chef who can cook pilaf and shish-kebab with words?
*
It has been said that for the shoeless, happiness is a pair of shoes, not the complete works of Shakespeare. Likewise, for the starving, happiness is a loaf of bread, not the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. And now that we are neither shoeless nor starving, can we really say we are a success as a nation or a diaspora because we are progressive, civilized and smart? And if we are smart, why do we take pleasure in uttering inanities?
#
February 10, 2010
*************************
ARE JIHADISTS PARAGONS OF VIRTUE?
****************************************************
How does a jihadist justify the slaughter of innocent civilians?
Easy!
“My imam tells me if I act in the name of Allah I will be rewarded with a harem of virgins in paradise.”
*
ARE ARMENIANS SMART?
*****************************************
How does an Armenian justify his stupidity?
Easier.
“Everyone knows Armenians are smart. Whatever I say must therefore be smart. Those who disagree with me are ignoramuses.”
Correction!
Everyone does not know Armenians are smart for the simple reason that everyone does not even know we exist because they tend to confuse us with Romanians and Aramaeans. The very few who think we are smart, they mean smart only in the marketplace or as rug merchants.
*
WOMEN IN LOVE
**********************************
In a biography of Patricia Highsmith, author of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (filmed by Hitchcock and partly scripted by Raymond Chandler) we read: “For most of the 1940s Pat never stops falling in love with women – sometimes for no more than an hour or an evening.” (See THE TALENTED MISS HIGHSMITH: THESECRET LIFE AND SERIOUS ART OF PATRICIA HIGHSMITH, [New York, 2009, page 569].)
*
In a recent issue of LE POINT (Paris, January 2010) one of Brigitte Bardot's old lovers reminisces: “I was 18 when I first met her. She was then a famous star pursued by paparazzi. At one point she whispered to me: 'Listen, I don't go to bed with someone I am not in love with.' Ten minutes later she added: 'But, you know, I can fall in love three times in a single day.'”
#
*************************
EXPOSING A MYTH
*************************************
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie – deliberate, continued, and dishonest – but the myth – persistent, pervasive, and unrealistic.” John F. Kennedy
*
There is a type of Armenian patriotism that believes in covering up the incompetence, corruption, and even the criminal conduct of our leadership on the grounds that, if exposed, our image as a nation may be harmed in the eyes of the world.
*
Earthquakes, we are told, are acts of God. But victims of earthquakes are not. Earthquakes don't kill people. Buildings do. How many of our contractors and commissars in charge of constructions are in jail today? What guarantee do we have that the next earthquake, which may happen in ten or twenty years, will not kill many more victims?
*
Our phony patriots are against hanging our dirty laundry out in the open for everyone to see. Americans, on the other hand, believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Who is right?
Who knows better?
*
To those who say I should write in Armenian for Armenian papers, and not in English in open forums: Our writers from Khorenatsi and Yeghishé (5th century) to Zarian and Massikian (20th century) have done exactly that without any discernible results.
When Zarian assumed a critical stance, he was silenced, driven out of the United State and into Soviet Armenia, where he became an abominable no man. There are even those who accuse him today of having been an agent of the KGB and the CIA, and worse, that in his final phase he went mad.
*
Generally speaking the average Armenian dupe respects our bosses, bishops, and benefactors much more than our scribblers and vodanavorjis. Bosses, bishops, and benefactors are perceived as men of power, God, and capital (make it, Capital and god). What do scribblers and vodanavorjis do? They try to cook pilaf with words. Let the buggers shut up; and if they refuse, let them starve! Serve them right.
*
In our environment today Turcocentric ghazetajis are more respected and compensated than writers, even if after a century of verbiage (letters to the editor, commentaries, essays in the foreign press, not to say treatises, documentaries, symposia, and textbooks), they have failed to resurrect a single victim, annex a single inch of historic Armenia, or collect a single red cent as reparation.
When writers fail, they do so on their own and at their own expense. The same cannot be said of our ghazetajis, speechifiers, propagandists, and their assorted fund-raisers and bloodsuckers who survive and prosper by victimizing victims all over again, as if, once a victim, always a victim were their jagadakir.
Amot!
#
February 8, 2010
*************************
DIARY
*************************************
Asked if he had seen Mozart's DON GIOVANNI, Casanova is said to have replied: “Seen it? I have lived it.” Which reminds me of a similar line in reference to Reagan's longevity as president. When asked if he had heard of Marco Polo, he is said to have replied: “Heard of him? I knew him!”
*
An old tactic that seldom fails: when cornered in an argument, assume the air of someone with a large store of inside information not available to ordinary laymen like your adversary, and proceed to lie your head off.
*
Free and fair elections are probably known by corrupt regimes (like our own) as an American disease.
*
It is fashionable to blame the Yanks for dropping the first bomb on Hiroshima. No one says, Thank God the Japs didn't have it first. And some day in the near or distant future if history repeats itself and the bomb is dropped on Muslim fanatics, they will call it a crime against humanity until they realize the only reason Muslims didn't drop the bomb on New York City or Washington or Paris is that they didn't have it.
*
An unspoken Armenian mantra: “Tell me what I want to hear and I will believe it even if you happen to be an habitual and compulsive liar.”
*
A nation that places propaganda above literature is doomed.
#
February 9, 2010
*************************
WINNING AN ARGUMENT --
ARMENIAN STYLE
*************************************
Another tactic that never fails is to make an assertion so untenable and asinine as to make your adversary give up in despair and disgust. Three examples of such assertions that have been leveled against me follow:
“Armenians are incapable of hatred.”
“The only reason people quit their homeland and emigrate to foreign countries is greed for more money.”
“Criticizing Armenians in English in an open forum on the Internet is akin to treason.”
*
Armenians cannot engage in dialogue because their aim is not to get at the truth or to learn from one another's experience and understanding but to assert their intellectual prowess by being invincible in argument. So what if in the process they expose themselves as inbred morons? For perennial losers, victory trumps all other considerations.
*
We like to speak of “the Armenian wound.” What we carefully avoid mentioning is that more often than not this so-called wound is self-inflicted.
If we are at the mercy of unprincipled mediocrities today it's because we betrayed two generations of our ablest men to alien authorities. We could not betray all of them because in the Diaspora free speech is not thought of as a capital offense.
As a result, those who survived were either silenced or treated as parasites and nonentities whose sole contribution to our welfare as a nation has been empty verbiage. After all, who has ever heard of a chef who can cook pilaf and shish-kebab with words?
*
It has been said that for the shoeless, happiness is a pair of shoes, not the complete works of Shakespeare. Likewise, for the starving, happiness is a loaf of bread, not the music of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. And now that we are neither shoeless nor starving, can we really say we are a success as a nation or a diaspora because we are progressive, civilized and smart? And if we are smart, why do we take pleasure in uttering inanities?
#
February 10, 2010
*************************
ARE JIHADISTS PARAGONS OF VIRTUE?
****************************************************
How does a jihadist justify the slaughter of innocent civilians?
Easy!
“My imam tells me if I act in the name of Allah I will be rewarded with a harem of virgins in paradise.”
*
ARE ARMENIANS SMART?
*****************************************
How does an Armenian justify his stupidity?
Easier.
“Everyone knows Armenians are smart. Whatever I say must therefore be smart. Those who disagree with me are ignoramuses.”
Correction!
Everyone does not know Armenians are smart for the simple reason that everyone does not even know we exist because they tend to confuse us with Romanians and Aramaeans. The very few who think we are smart, they mean smart only in the marketplace or as rug merchants.
*
WOMEN IN LOVE
**********************************
In a biography of Patricia Highsmith, author of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (filmed by Hitchcock and partly scripted by Raymond Chandler) we read: “For most of the 1940s Pat never stops falling in love with women – sometimes for no more than an hour or an evening.” (See THE TALENTED MISS HIGHSMITH: THESECRET LIFE AND SERIOUS ART OF PATRICIA HIGHSMITH, [New York, 2009, page 569].)
*
In a recent issue of LE POINT (Paris, January 2010) one of Brigitte Bardot's old lovers reminisces: “I was 18 when I first met her. She was then a famous star pursued by paparazzi. At one point she whispered to me: 'Listen, I don't go to bed with someone I am not in love with.' Ten minutes later she added: 'But, you know, I can fall in love three times in a single day.'”
#
- Ara Baliozian
- Posts: 94
- Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
by Ara Baliozian » Sat Feb 13, 2010 5:37 pm
February 11, 2010
*************************
COMMENTS
****************************************
The history of deceivers and their dupes has a beginning (the Serpent and Eve) but no end.
*
If we have not been taken in by Patagonians and Zulus it's because we have at no time dealt with them.
*
In the latest issue of the NEW YORKER dealing with the Internet I read: “...pervasive anonymity (which encourages bullying and moblike behavior)...”
*
When I was young I went out of my way to make friends. In my old age I am much better at making enemies. The friends I made were not always worthy of friendship. As for my enemies, I will say this: they make solitude a glorious experience.
*
How much of what we know today would be reduced to ignorance if we were to see reality through the eyes of God?
*
Greed makes a man more cunning as well as stupid: more cunning in his employment of means to achieve his end, and more stupid in thinking he can hide his greed.
*
THOREAU SPEAKS
**************************************
“The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks.”
*
“Society: Pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.”
#
February 12, 2010
*************************
ON LEADERSHIP & NATIONAL IDENTITY
*********************************************
Unlike American “birthers” who believe Obama is a Muslim double agent born in Kenya, I have no interest in questioning the national identity of our leaders some of whom may well be of mixed parentage. But I have every right to question their honesty. So much so that the expression “an honest Armenian leader” sounds to me as absurd as saying the sun rises in the West or one plus one makes eleven.
Speaking for myself: I'd much rather be ruled by an honest Zulu, Patagonian, or even Turk than a pure-blooded Armenian (assuming such a one exists) who speaks with a forked tongue.
*
About the irrelevance of national identity in political leadership: some of the most competent Byzantine emperors spoke Greek with a foreign accent for the simple reason that they were of Armenian descent.
*
To repeat what we have heard is not to say what we think.
*
Honest Armenians prefer to be silent. The louder the speech, the bigger the lies.
When one of our sermonizers died of cancer of the tongue, a friend who was personally acquainted with him said: “That's because he spoke too many lies.”
*
To quote someone does not always mean to agree with him but to point out a different perception of reality.
#
February 13, 2010
***************************************************
THE OTTOMAN CURSE
*********************************
Like all imperial powers, the Turks adopted divide-and-rule tactics in their dealings with us and they appear to have succeeded so brilliantly that we remain divided long after their empire collapsed. Think about that next time you say Armenians are smart.
*
Explaining a phenomenon is easy. What is hard is dealing with it. Armenian literature has failed to convince our leaders in that endeavor. Hence the contempt for our vodanavorjis and scribblers.
*
The dumbest Armenian is capable of inflicting the deepest wounds and the smartest Armenian can voice the dumbest opinions.
*
One reason why our wheeler-dealers – unlike our writers -- have prospered and no doubt will continue to prosper is that they can pretend to be idealistic, committed, and principled much more convincingly than honest men.
#
*************************
COMMENTS
****************************************
The history of deceivers and their dupes has a beginning (the Serpent and Eve) but no end.
*
If we have not been taken in by Patagonians and Zulus it's because we have at no time dealt with them.
*
In the latest issue of the NEW YORKER dealing with the Internet I read: “...pervasive anonymity (which encourages bullying and moblike behavior)...”
*
When I was young I went out of my way to make friends. In my old age I am much better at making enemies. The friends I made were not always worthy of friendship. As for my enemies, I will say this: they make solitude a glorious experience.
*
How much of what we know today would be reduced to ignorance if we were to see reality through the eyes of God?
*
Greed makes a man more cunning as well as stupid: more cunning in his employment of means to achieve his end, and more stupid in thinking he can hide his greed.
*
THOREAU SPEAKS
**************************************
“The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks.”
*
“Society: Pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm.”
#
February 12, 2010
*************************
ON LEADERSHIP & NATIONAL IDENTITY
*********************************************
Unlike American “birthers” who believe Obama is a Muslim double agent born in Kenya, I have no interest in questioning the national identity of our leaders some of whom may well be of mixed parentage. But I have every right to question their honesty. So much so that the expression “an honest Armenian leader” sounds to me as absurd as saying the sun rises in the West or one plus one makes eleven.
Speaking for myself: I'd much rather be ruled by an honest Zulu, Patagonian, or even Turk than a pure-blooded Armenian (assuming such a one exists) who speaks with a forked tongue.
*
About the irrelevance of national identity in political leadership: some of the most competent Byzantine emperors spoke Greek with a foreign accent for the simple reason that they were of Armenian descent.
*
To repeat what we have heard is not to say what we think.
*
Honest Armenians prefer to be silent. The louder the speech, the bigger the lies.
When one of our sermonizers died of cancer of the tongue, a friend who was personally acquainted with him said: “That's because he spoke too many lies.”
*
To quote someone does not always mean to agree with him but to point out a different perception of reality.
#
February 13, 2010
***************************************************
THE OTTOMAN CURSE
*********************************
Like all imperial powers, the Turks adopted divide-and-rule tactics in their dealings with us and they appear to have succeeded so brilliantly that we remain divided long after their empire collapsed. Think about that next time you say Armenians are smart.
*
Explaining a phenomenon is easy. What is hard is dealing with it. Armenian literature has failed to convince our leaders in that endeavor. Hence the contempt for our vodanavorjis and scribblers.
*
The dumbest Armenian is capable of inflicting the deepest wounds and the smartest Armenian can voice the dumbest opinions.
*
One reason why our wheeler-dealers – unlike our writers -- have prospered and no doubt will continue to prosper is that they can pretend to be idealistic, committed, and principled much more convincingly than honest men.
#
- Ara Baliozian
- Posts: 94
- Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
by Ara Baliozian » Wed Feb 17, 2010 5:21 pm
February 14, 2010
***************************************************
DEMONOLOGY
*********************************
If you are not with us, you are against us.
If you are against us, you are against God.
If you are against God, you are with the Devil.
That's not theology but demonology.
One could even say, theological dogmas are the inventions of the Devil.
Hence the countless innocent victims...
*
Loyalty, when it is obedience of the powerless to the powerful, it is a one-way street.
*
Idiots who think they are smart: they are my favorite sources of inspiration. Our world is full of them...and they are full of it. I speak from experience. I was one of them myself. In the eyes of God I still am -- I use the word God as a point of reference that is invisible, inaccessible, incomprehensible, but Almighty.
*
The most powerful people in the history of mankind – those who changed the world and continue to do so -- men like Christ, Marx, and Einstein – were born, raised, and lived without power. They did not command armies and they were not part of a power structure or bureaucracy. Think about that next time you say you cannot cook pilaf with words. Remember, it took a three-letter equation to incinerate Hiroshima.
#
February 15, 2010
***************************************************
UNDERSTANDING HISTORY
*********************************
Some of our ablest writers lacked the faculty of understanding history or of seeing “the other side of the hill” (to use a military metaphor) or “the angularity of time” (Sartre). Face to face with history, even our realists remained romantics at heart. They were more influenced by French literature and less by real events that made headlines in the international press. I am not talking of prophetic insight or vision but simply of deciphering the writing on the wall. I am talking of a myopia so advanced that it might as well have been blindness.
Consider Zohrab as a case in point, without any doubt one of our most sophisticated, experienced, and politically savvy observers of the Ottoman scene. And yet, instead of warning his readers of the coming catastrophe, he wrote fiction about adulterous women, golden-hearted prostitutes, and the death of a salesman. He wrote a pamphlet about the Hamidian massacres, true, but he saw them not as preludes to a greater tragedy but as aberrations that if exposed may not be repeated. His naïve faith in the Ottoman power structure was such that he even saved the life of the future architect of the Genocide by risking his own. If one were to compile profiles of famous Armenian dupes, surely Zohrab would qualify as the greatest of them all.
As for Baronian and Odian: they wrote about the moral bankruptcy of the Armenian community and ignored the apocalypse looming on the horizon.
If the sins of our intellectuals were sins of omission, those of our political leadership were sins of commission. Instead of doing their utmost to prevent the coming catastrophe, they did the exact opposite: they did their best to provoke it.
History repeats itself today. Our academics and pundits prefer to speak of past massacres and are blind to the “spitak chart” (white slaughter) or assimilation in the Diaspora and mass exodus from the Homeland.
It seems to me, we worry too much about our identity and not enough about our soul, and “what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
#
February 16, 2010
***************************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
*********************************
Talaat and Stalin murdered two generations of our best writers. We cannot forget that. But it seems we have forgotten or we don't even like to mention the fact that there is more than one way to slaughter a writer and we are not as innocent as we pretend to be.
*
There are two kinds of Armenians: those who think and those who recycle propaganda. Those who recycle propaganda speak louder and they are never wrong; and armed with that conviction, they persecute and silence anyone who dares to think for himself. Examples from the past: writers from Abovian to Zarian.
*
You can always rely on an Armenian to justify his selfish interests with a verbal avalanche of noble principles and ideals. In the words of a friend: "After fattening themselves on the blood of the innocent and the helpless, our Count Draculas are good at delivering lectures on the virtues of vegetarianism."
*
Celine was a notorious anti-Semite but he is viewed as a great writer even by some Jews (among them Philip Roth) because he had enough hatred in him to cover most of mankind, including his fellow countrymen, about whom he had this to say: “Vicious and spineless, raped, robbed, gutted, and always halfwits. That's France and that's the French.”
*
Beethoven suffered horribly over his deafness, but I doubt if anyone listening to his music thinks of it. I don't. The things that mean most to us may not even register on someone else's consciousness.
#
February 17, 2010
***************************************************
MISTAKES
*********************************
Because I was not a gentleman, I assumed everybody else was. That was a big mistake.
*
If instead of ten thousand belief systems mankind had adopted the Socratic dictum “The only thing I know is that I don't know,” or “Of the gods we know nothing,” history would not have been an endless horror story.
*
The two most frequently abused words in all languages are “I think.” When a brainwashed idiot or, for that matter, a man of faith (but I repeat myself) begins a sentence with the words “I think,” he should be interrupted and informed that perjury is a serious criminal offense.
*
The exercise of power over the powerless is an insult. Hence Hamlet's phrase “the insolence of office.” As for law and order: I am reminded of the Roman saying: “They make a desert and call it peace.”
*
No matter how you describe me, there will be some truth in it. But this is true of all men. We are not a single person but a crowd. There is a particle of all men, both dead and alive, in all of us.
#
***************************************************
DEMONOLOGY
*********************************
If you are not with us, you are against us.
If you are against us, you are against God.
If you are against God, you are with the Devil.
That's not theology but demonology.
One could even say, theological dogmas are the inventions of the Devil.
Hence the countless innocent victims...
*
Loyalty, when it is obedience of the powerless to the powerful, it is a one-way street.
*
Idiots who think they are smart: they are my favorite sources of inspiration. Our world is full of them...and they are full of it. I speak from experience. I was one of them myself. In the eyes of God I still am -- I use the word God as a point of reference that is invisible, inaccessible, incomprehensible, but Almighty.
*
The most powerful people in the history of mankind – those who changed the world and continue to do so -- men like Christ, Marx, and Einstein – were born, raised, and lived without power. They did not command armies and they were not part of a power structure or bureaucracy. Think about that next time you say you cannot cook pilaf with words. Remember, it took a three-letter equation to incinerate Hiroshima.
#
February 15, 2010
***************************************************
UNDERSTANDING HISTORY
*********************************
Some of our ablest writers lacked the faculty of understanding history or of seeing “the other side of the hill” (to use a military metaphor) or “the angularity of time” (Sartre). Face to face with history, even our realists remained romantics at heart. They were more influenced by French literature and less by real events that made headlines in the international press. I am not talking of prophetic insight or vision but simply of deciphering the writing on the wall. I am talking of a myopia so advanced that it might as well have been blindness.
Consider Zohrab as a case in point, without any doubt one of our most sophisticated, experienced, and politically savvy observers of the Ottoman scene. And yet, instead of warning his readers of the coming catastrophe, he wrote fiction about adulterous women, golden-hearted prostitutes, and the death of a salesman. He wrote a pamphlet about the Hamidian massacres, true, but he saw them not as preludes to a greater tragedy but as aberrations that if exposed may not be repeated. His naïve faith in the Ottoman power structure was such that he even saved the life of the future architect of the Genocide by risking his own. If one were to compile profiles of famous Armenian dupes, surely Zohrab would qualify as the greatest of them all.
As for Baronian and Odian: they wrote about the moral bankruptcy of the Armenian community and ignored the apocalypse looming on the horizon.
If the sins of our intellectuals were sins of omission, those of our political leadership were sins of commission. Instead of doing their utmost to prevent the coming catastrophe, they did the exact opposite: they did their best to provoke it.
History repeats itself today. Our academics and pundits prefer to speak of past massacres and are blind to the “spitak chart” (white slaughter) or assimilation in the Diaspora and mass exodus from the Homeland.
It seems to me, we worry too much about our identity and not enough about our soul, and “what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
#
February 16, 2010
***************************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
*********************************
Talaat and Stalin murdered two generations of our best writers. We cannot forget that. But it seems we have forgotten or we don't even like to mention the fact that there is more than one way to slaughter a writer and we are not as innocent as we pretend to be.
*
There are two kinds of Armenians: those who think and those who recycle propaganda. Those who recycle propaganda speak louder and they are never wrong; and armed with that conviction, they persecute and silence anyone who dares to think for himself. Examples from the past: writers from Abovian to Zarian.
*
You can always rely on an Armenian to justify his selfish interests with a verbal avalanche of noble principles and ideals. In the words of a friend: "After fattening themselves on the blood of the innocent and the helpless, our Count Draculas are good at delivering lectures on the virtues of vegetarianism."
*
Celine was a notorious anti-Semite but he is viewed as a great writer even by some Jews (among them Philip Roth) because he had enough hatred in him to cover most of mankind, including his fellow countrymen, about whom he had this to say: “Vicious and spineless, raped, robbed, gutted, and always halfwits. That's France and that's the French.”
*
Beethoven suffered horribly over his deafness, but I doubt if anyone listening to his music thinks of it. I don't. The things that mean most to us may not even register on someone else's consciousness.
#
February 17, 2010
***************************************************
MISTAKES
*********************************
Because I was not a gentleman, I assumed everybody else was. That was a big mistake.
*
If instead of ten thousand belief systems mankind had adopted the Socratic dictum “The only thing I know is that I don't know,” or “Of the gods we know nothing,” history would not have been an endless horror story.
*
The two most frequently abused words in all languages are “I think.” When a brainwashed idiot or, for that matter, a man of faith (but I repeat myself) begins a sentence with the words “I think,” he should be interrupted and informed that perjury is a serious criminal offense.
*
The exercise of power over the powerless is an insult. Hence Hamlet's phrase “the insolence of office.” As for law and order: I am reminded of the Roman saying: “They make a desert and call it peace.”
*
No matter how you describe me, there will be some truth in it. But this is true of all men. We are not a single person but a crowd. There is a particle of all men, both dead and alive, in all of us.
#
- Ara Baliozian
- Posts: 94
- Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
by Ara Baliozian » Sat Feb 20, 2010 5:44 pm
February 18, 2010
***************************************************
INFIDELS
*********************************
Muslims call us infidels. But, it seems to me, the real infidels are Muslims who slaughter other Muslims, and I am not talking about Muslim warriors killing other Muslim warriors but bloodthirsty fanatics killing innocent women and children.
*
Imams share with our bishops and bosses the false assumption that to divide and rule might as well be synonymous. They are too blind to see that their real enemy is themselves; and that a war fought on two fronts against a united enemy is doomed to end in defeat.
*
Let others speak of the long arm of the law. Ours, which was short to begin with, has been amputated.
*
Winston Churchill: “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”
Where were our “rough men” when we needed them most?
Did we ever have them?
*
The fewer the number of “rough men,” the greater the number of sermonizers, speechifiers, and ghazetajis.
#
February 19, 2010
***************************************************
REFLECTIONS
*********************************
We live as though we will never die
and when death knocks on the door
we pretend it's Beethoven's 5th.
*
You want to know why I stress the negative?
Because whenever I take a closer look at a positive,
it reveals itself as propaganda.
*
There are no shortcuts to Golgotha.
*
Civil wars too are fought in the name of patriotism.
*
In theory – truth.
In practice – lies.
A great deal is lost in translation.
*
The difference between mathematics and life is that
in life to solve a problem very often means
creating more of them.
*
Literature: Art irritating life.
*
Life is a harsh taskmaster and being a fool
is a luxury no one,
not even the most powerful man on earth,
can afford.
#
February 20, 2010
***************************************************
IT HAS BEEN SAID...
*********************************
“He who speaks does not know.
He who knows does not speak.”
Does that mean mankind would have been better off
without Socrates, Plato, Christ, and Gandhi?
*
It has also been said:
“Take everything you hear with a grain of salt.”
Why salt? To make the lie more palatable?
*
“He who speaks does not know?”
What if that's only in reference to propagandists and their dupes?
*
There are those who say God does not speak
because He has already said
what must be said, and if our problems persist
it's not His fault but ours.
Does that mean both victimizers and victims
must share responsibility for their (in)actions?
Does that means a child that is raped and murdered
by a cold-blooded serial killer
must share the killer's guilt?
*
Instead of saying
“Give us this day our daily bread,”
the rich should say
“Give us this day our share of compassion.”
And we should all say:
“Our Father, Who art in Heaven,
why don't you come down on earth once in a while?”
#
***************************************************
INFIDELS
*********************************
Muslims call us infidels. But, it seems to me, the real infidels are Muslims who slaughter other Muslims, and I am not talking about Muslim warriors killing other Muslim warriors but bloodthirsty fanatics killing innocent women and children.
*
Imams share with our bishops and bosses the false assumption that to divide and rule might as well be synonymous. They are too blind to see that their real enemy is themselves; and that a war fought on two fronts against a united enemy is doomed to end in defeat.
*
Let others speak of the long arm of the law. Ours, which was short to begin with, has been amputated.
*
Winston Churchill: “We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”
Where were our “rough men” when we needed them most?
Did we ever have them?
*
The fewer the number of “rough men,” the greater the number of sermonizers, speechifiers, and ghazetajis.
#
February 19, 2010
***************************************************
REFLECTIONS
*********************************
We live as though we will never die
and when death knocks on the door
we pretend it's Beethoven's 5th.
*
You want to know why I stress the negative?
Because whenever I take a closer look at a positive,
it reveals itself as propaganda.
*
There are no shortcuts to Golgotha.
*
Civil wars too are fought in the name of patriotism.
*
In theory – truth.
In practice – lies.
A great deal is lost in translation.
*
The difference between mathematics and life is that
in life to solve a problem very often means
creating more of them.
*
Literature: Art irritating life.
*
Life is a harsh taskmaster and being a fool
is a luxury no one,
not even the most powerful man on earth,
can afford.
#
February 20, 2010
***************************************************
IT HAS BEEN SAID...
*********************************
“He who speaks does not know.
He who knows does not speak.”
Does that mean mankind would have been better off
without Socrates, Plato, Christ, and Gandhi?
*
It has also been said:
“Take everything you hear with a grain of salt.”
Why salt? To make the lie more palatable?
*
“He who speaks does not know?”
What if that's only in reference to propagandists and their dupes?
*
There are those who say God does not speak
because He has already said
what must be said, and if our problems persist
it's not His fault but ours.
Does that mean both victimizers and victims
must share responsibility for their (in)actions?
Does that means a child that is raped and murdered
by a cold-blooded serial killer
must share the killer's guilt?
*
Instead of saying
“Give us this day our daily bread,”
the rich should say
“Give us this day our share of compassion.”
And we should all say:
“Our Father, Who art in Heaven,
why don't you come down on earth once in a while?”
#
- Ara Baliozian
- Posts: 94
- Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
by Ara Baliozian » Wed Feb 24, 2010 4:47 pm
February 21, 2010
***************************************************
AUTISM
*********************************
There is an element of autism in even the mildest form of nationalism or patriotism, and autism is defined as “a state of mind characterized by daydreaming, hallucinations, and disregard of external reality.”
It is autism that leads some people to believe they belong to a superior race or they are God's chosen people.
It was autism that led our revolutionaries in the Ottoman empire to believe we were invulnerable because the Great Powers of the West were on our side.
It is autism (what else?) that makes us believe we are survivors par excellence. So what if the best perished and it is the worst that survived?
*
Since I have been a dupe most of my life, I don't particularly care to be duped even if it is for the enhancement of my own self-esteem or for some other nebulous or poorly defined term whose aim is to make me disregard or ignore my perception of reality, and reality tells me in no uncertain terms that God doesn't choose, men do, and when men do the choosing, they invariably choose themselves.
#
February 22, 2010
***************************************************
COMPROMISE
*********************************
To reach a consensus, one must compromise, and compromise has been defined as “the introduction of inconsistency to closed minds.”
The key qualifier here is “closed minds.”
Another symptom of closed minds is to think of criticism as negative and of propaganda as positive. Or to view political speeches and flattery as patriotic and to reject objective assessment and analysis as treason. Also to think of free speech not as a fundamental human right but as a crime against humanity.
Our history is clear on this point.
No writer has ever been in a position to silence a boss, bishop, or benefactor.
And now consider the manner in which we treated our best writers from Abovian to Zarian.
A nation addicted to lies may survive, but can it live?
*
We have become a nation of cynics as defined by Oscar Wilde – people “who know the price of everything but the value of nothing.”
I doubt if there is a single Armenian today who has not heard of Gulbenkian, Kirkorian, or Manoogian. But how many have read or even heard of Massikian, one of our three most brilliant satirists – the other two being Baronian and Odian.
Once more I am reminded of my favorite literary anecdote which I never tire of retelling because it so beautifully exposes the dark side of our ethos. When on his deathbed, community leaders asked him to leave his estate (Massikian was also a successful lawyer, a wealthy man, and a lifelong bachelor) to an Armenian educational foundation, he is said to have replied: “I'd much rather leave it to a Cairo bordello.”
#
February 23, 2010
***************************************************
THERAPY
*********************************
How do you convince someone that he may be smart in the marketplace but a retard in politics?
In psychology, there is a school of thought that believes in “aversion therapy,” which consists in exposing the patient into repellence against his neurotic convictions.
By saying and repeating that we have been moronized into thinking we are smart not just in the marketplace but in all fields of human endeavor, I emphasize not the negative, as some of my critics accuse me of doing, but I engage in the practice of aversion therapy.
I do this because that's how I acquired my objectivity on this issue.
Once, when I said “Armenians are smart” to an alienated Armenian academic (may he rest in peace) whom I respected, he for the first time in our many conversations literally lost his temper, and that made such a powerful impression on me that I suddenly saw very clearly the absurdity of my assertion and the systematic way in which I had been turned into a dupe by our propagandists.
If so far I have failed to expose the lies of our nationalists by aversion therapy, it may be because most ideas, even the best, fail. Violence continues to be popular in films as well as politics notwithstanding Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.
And consider what happened to Marx and his ideas.
#
February 24, 2010
***************************************************
POLITICS
*********************************
To support a leader simply because he is “our” leader is a fascist concept. So is obeying laws because “the law is the law.” To be subservient to a system because “you can't fight City Hall” is not good citizenship but cowardly subservience. We owe all our freedoms and privileges today to men who dared to say “No!” to incompetent or corrupt leaders.
*
LITERATURE
*******************************
We have two kinds of writers: those who look backward (Mesrob Mashdots, Vartan Mamikonian, Turks and massacres) and those who tell us looking backward has turned us into “pillars of salt.” This has been said before and it bears repeating. And I will go on repeating it even if it means being ostracized, unpublished, called “consistently negative,” and “an enemy agent.”
*
PROPAGANDA
*******************************
Propaganda does not solve problems, it creates them. The illusion of moral superiority, for instance, or the illusion that God takes sides in human conflicts is worse than propaganda; it is a Big Lie and a curse that has destroyed nations and empires and continues to do so in our own days. We are people like any other people because “all men are brothers.”
*
RELIGION
*****************************
In POWER AND GREED: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD by Philippe Gigantes (London, 2002) I read the following: “Very early in human history, the autocrat with the big club and the witch doctor with his potions and maledictions, became natural allies. The one with the big club organized the hunt and the defense of the territory. The sorcerer took care of the uncontrollable, the unpredictable and the inexplicable – he took care of God, in other words. The two, king and priest, in modern parlance, ran the tribe through the fear of violence and the fear of 'God.' In that tribal system, they each took a much bigger share of everything.”
To which I will only add: “Nothing further, Your Honor.”
#
***************************************************
AUTISM
*********************************
There is an element of autism in even the mildest form of nationalism or patriotism, and autism is defined as “a state of mind characterized by daydreaming, hallucinations, and disregard of external reality.”
It is autism that leads some people to believe they belong to a superior race or they are God's chosen people.
It was autism that led our revolutionaries in the Ottoman empire to believe we were invulnerable because the Great Powers of the West were on our side.
It is autism (what else?) that makes us believe we are survivors par excellence. So what if the best perished and it is the worst that survived?
*
Since I have been a dupe most of my life, I don't particularly care to be duped even if it is for the enhancement of my own self-esteem or for some other nebulous or poorly defined term whose aim is to make me disregard or ignore my perception of reality, and reality tells me in no uncertain terms that God doesn't choose, men do, and when men do the choosing, they invariably choose themselves.
#
February 22, 2010
***************************************************
COMPROMISE
*********************************
To reach a consensus, one must compromise, and compromise has been defined as “the introduction of inconsistency to closed minds.”
The key qualifier here is “closed minds.”
Another symptom of closed minds is to think of criticism as negative and of propaganda as positive. Or to view political speeches and flattery as patriotic and to reject objective assessment and analysis as treason. Also to think of free speech not as a fundamental human right but as a crime against humanity.
Our history is clear on this point.
No writer has ever been in a position to silence a boss, bishop, or benefactor.
And now consider the manner in which we treated our best writers from Abovian to Zarian.
A nation addicted to lies may survive, but can it live?
*
We have become a nation of cynics as defined by Oscar Wilde – people “who know the price of everything but the value of nothing.”
I doubt if there is a single Armenian today who has not heard of Gulbenkian, Kirkorian, or Manoogian. But how many have read or even heard of Massikian, one of our three most brilliant satirists – the other two being Baronian and Odian.
Once more I am reminded of my favorite literary anecdote which I never tire of retelling because it so beautifully exposes the dark side of our ethos. When on his deathbed, community leaders asked him to leave his estate (Massikian was also a successful lawyer, a wealthy man, and a lifelong bachelor) to an Armenian educational foundation, he is said to have replied: “I'd much rather leave it to a Cairo bordello.”
#
February 23, 2010
***************************************************
THERAPY
*********************************
How do you convince someone that he may be smart in the marketplace but a retard in politics?
In psychology, there is a school of thought that believes in “aversion therapy,” which consists in exposing the patient into repellence against his neurotic convictions.
By saying and repeating that we have been moronized into thinking we are smart not just in the marketplace but in all fields of human endeavor, I emphasize not the negative, as some of my critics accuse me of doing, but I engage in the practice of aversion therapy.
I do this because that's how I acquired my objectivity on this issue.
Once, when I said “Armenians are smart” to an alienated Armenian academic (may he rest in peace) whom I respected, he for the first time in our many conversations literally lost his temper, and that made such a powerful impression on me that I suddenly saw very clearly the absurdity of my assertion and the systematic way in which I had been turned into a dupe by our propagandists.
If so far I have failed to expose the lies of our nationalists by aversion therapy, it may be because most ideas, even the best, fail. Violence continues to be popular in films as well as politics notwithstanding Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King.
And consider what happened to Marx and his ideas.
#
February 24, 2010
***************************************************
POLITICS
*********************************
To support a leader simply because he is “our” leader is a fascist concept. So is obeying laws because “the law is the law.” To be subservient to a system because “you can't fight City Hall” is not good citizenship but cowardly subservience. We owe all our freedoms and privileges today to men who dared to say “No!” to incompetent or corrupt leaders.
*
LITERATURE
*******************************
We have two kinds of writers: those who look backward (Mesrob Mashdots, Vartan Mamikonian, Turks and massacres) and those who tell us looking backward has turned us into “pillars of salt.” This has been said before and it bears repeating. And I will go on repeating it even if it means being ostracized, unpublished, called “consistently negative,” and “an enemy agent.”
*
PROPAGANDA
*******************************
Propaganda does not solve problems, it creates them. The illusion of moral superiority, for instance, or the illusion that God takes sides in human conflicts is worse than propaganda; it is a Big Lie and a curse that has destroyed nations and empires and continues to do so in our own days. We are people like any other people because “all men are brothers.”
*
RELIGION
*****************************
In POWER AND GREED: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD by Philippe Gigantes (London, 2002) I read the following: “Very early in human history, the autocrat with the big club and the witch doctor with his potions and maledictions, became natural allies. The one with the big club organized the hunt and the defense of the territory. The sorcerer took care of the uncontrollable, the unpredictable and the inexplicable – he took care of God, in other words. The two, king and priest, in modern parlance, ran the tribe through the fear of violence and the fear of 'God.' In that tribal system, they each took a much bigger share of everything.”
To which I will only add: “Nothing further, Your Honor.”
#
- Ara Baliozian
- Posts: 94
- Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
by Ara Baliozian » Sat Feb 27, 2010 5:52 pm
February 25, 2010
***************************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*******************************************
Jean Rostand, French biologist and son of Edmond, author of CYRANO DE BERGERAC: “Afterlife? It is the body that survives the mind, for several hours.”
*
John Crowe Ransom, American poet:
“In all the good Greek of Plato,
I lack my roastbeef and potato.”
That's like going to hell for a cold beer.
*
The best I can say about our benefactors and their flunkies is to quote Pushkin's line: “Where there is a trough, there will be swine.”
*
Chinese proverb: “Behind an able man there are always other able men.”
The reverse is also true: Behind a failure...
*
I don't remember any references to Armenians in John Updike's works. I am a little surprised therefore to read the following in TOWARDS THE END OF TIME (New York, 1997, page 124): “The Armenians of the region [Asia Minor] remained loyal to Christianity but were savagely slaughtered during World War I.”
The only other Armenian connection to Updike that I can think of is Cher starring in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK.
*
In the mind of most odars Armenians are invariably associated with slaughter or hunger.
*
Armenian arguments polarize. When two Armenian friends start an argument, the chances are not only will they disagree but they will also end up as enemies. I speak from experience.
#
February 26, 2010
***************************************************
ON POWER
*******************************************
Capitalism is the best system for capitalists.
So is Marxism for communists.
The same could be said of all organized religions and ideologies.
It never fails. As soon as a religion or an ideology is established, it creates and persecutes heretics. That's because men of power hate to share it. Power and corruption might as well be synonymous. To cover up this obvious fact, men of power in a democracy call themselves public servants. But one man's public servant is another's fascist dictator. In the eyes of right-wing racists, Obama is another Hitler.
*
It has been said that a good diplomat can charm a cobra. If only our diplomats had been as good as our carpet dealers.
*
Confucius: “Oppressive government is worse than a tiger.”
*
We disagree like people who have tasted blood. We behave like sharks even if our opponent is a sardine. Which may explain our abuse of writers. I am not voicing a theory, just summing up the history of our literature.
#
February 27, 2010
***************************************************
PLAGIARISM
*******************************************
Shahnour once accused Siamanto of plagiarism and quoted chapter and verse.
Oshagan accused Zarian of plagiarism too but without quoting chapter and verse.
Perhaps because Oshagan thought of himself as the best and refused to consider the possibility of anyone else being as good or even better without foul play.
Sometimes I too am accused of plagiarism minus chapter and verse. But I don't mind pleading guilty as charged.
Nothing I write is original.
Everything I say has been said before if not in the Bible than by Plato.
All I do is paraphrase, expand, and emphasize.
Bertrand Russell used to say that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato. Plato has been accused of being a fascist. There are those who believe Heidegger to be the greatest philosophy of the last century. Not only was he a fascist but also a member of the Nazi party. A coincidence?
It has also been said that if you want to have an idea of infinity, think of human ignorance. Even better, think of human history where ideas are translated into action – that is to say, wars, revolutions, and massacres.
No one wants war, except of course deranged megalomaniacs and their dupes who seem to have their way every time.
How to explain that?
Or rather, what must be done?
This simple question has a simple answer but no one seems to listen or care. Homo sapiens seems to be more easily seduced by lies than by truth – namely that, all men are brothers. And because I say and repeat as much, I am accused of plagiarism. But I shouldn't complain. Far better men than myself have been crucified or assassinated for uttering that blasphemy.
#
***************************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*******************************************
Jean Rostand, French biologist and son of Edmond, author of CYRANO DE BERGERAC: “Afterlife? It is the body that survives the mind, for several hours.”
*
John Crowe Ransom, American poet:
“In all the good Greek of Plato,
I lack my roastbeef and potato.”
That's like going to hell for a cold beer.
*
The best I can say about our benefactors and their flunkies is to quote Pushkin's line: “Where there is a trough, there will be swine.”
*
Chinese proverb: “Behind an able man there are always other able men.”
The reverse is also true: Behind a failure...
*
I don't remember any references to Armenians in John Updike's works. I am a little surprised therefore to read the following in TOWARDS THE END OF TIME (New York, 1997, page 124): “The Armenians of the region [Asia Minor] remained loyal to Christianity but were savagely slaughtered during World War I.”
The only other Armenian connection to Updike that I can think of is Cher starring in THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK.
*
In the mind of most odars Armenians are invariably associated with slaughter or hunger.
*
Armenian arguments polarize. When two Armenian friends start an argument, the chances are not only will they disagree but they will also end up as enemies. I speak from experience.
#
February 26, 2010
***************************************************
ON POWER
*******************************************
Capitalism is the best system for capitalists.
So is Marxism for communists.
The same could be said of all organized religions and ideologies.
It never fails. As soon as a religion or an ideology is established, it creates and persecutes heretics. That's because men of power hate to share it. Power and corruption might as well be synonymous. To cover up this obvious fact, men of power in a democracy call themselves public servants. But one man's public servant is another's fascist dictator. In the eyes of right-wing racists, Obama is another Hitler.
*
It has been said that a good diplomat can charm a cobra. If only our diplomats had been as good as our carpet dealers.
*
Confucius: “Oppressive government is worse than a tiger.”
*
We disagree like people who have tasted blood. We behave like sharks even if our opponent is a sardine. Which may explain our abuse of writers. I am not voicing a theory, just summing up the history of our literature.
#
February 27, 2010
***************************************************
PLAGIARISM
*******************************************
Shahnour once accused Siamanto of plagiarism and quoted chapter and verse.
Oshagan accused Zarian of plagiarism too but without quoting chapter and verse.
Perhaps because Oshagan thought of himself as the best and refused to consider the possibility of anyone else being as good or even better without foul play.
Sometimes I too am accused of plagiarism minus chapter and verse. But I don't mind pleading guilty as charged.
Nothing I write is original.
Everything I say has been said before if not in the Bible than by Plato.
All I do is paraphrase, expand, and emphasize.
Bertrand Russell used to say that all philosophy is a footnote to Plato. Plato has been accused of being a fascist. There are those who believe Heidegger to be the greatest philosophy of the last century. Not only was he a fascist but also a member of the Nazi party. A coincidence?
It has also been said that if you want to have an idea of infinity, think of human ignorance. Even better, think of human history where ideas are translated into action – that is to say, wars, revolutions, and massacres.
No one wants war, except of course deranged megalomaniacs and their dupes who seem to have their way every time.
How to explain that?
Or rather, what must be done?
This simple question has a simple answer but no one seems to listen or care. Homo sapiens seems to be more easily seduced by lies than by truth – namely that, all men are brothers. And because I say and repeat as much, I am accused of plagiarism. But I shouldn't complain. Far better men than myself have been crucified or assassinated for uttering that blasphemy.
#
- Ara Baliozian
- Posts: 94
- Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
by Ara Baliozian » Sat Jun 05, 2010 2:40 pm
June 3, 2010
***************************************************
DIARY
************************
Finished reading Siblin's book on the Bach Cello Suites and Casals.
A remarkable achievement by a remarkable writer.
To write the book, Siblin not only read everything on the subject, he also travelled all over the world, attended lectures and symposia, visited museums and libraries housing Bach manuscripts, interviewed cellists, Bach expert, and Casals biographers, joined a Bach choir and learned to sing a cantata in German, took lessons by a cellist, and studied countless CDs. A veritable Odyssey by a phenomenally brilliant researcher. Reminds me of the dictum that if you want to achieve anything in life you must be a fanatic.
While reading his many footnotes and divagations, I was reminded of Nabokov's translation of Pushkin.
*
READING ZARIAN'S NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
“I have a deep antipathy for Kafka whom I have tried but failed to read.”
And yet his (Zarian's) experiences in the Homeland and Diaspora are quintessentially Kafkaesque.
I suspect like all nationalists Zarian was deeply suspicious of Jews.
*
“The majority of men don't think; they prefer to rely on someone else's thoughts. Thinking is a habit they seem to have lost – probably out of fear, in case they get into trouble by thinking the wrong thoughts.”
*
After our Golden Age and Silver Age we must now be at the summit of our Garbage Age – and as Zarian suggests in his TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD, not even garbage picked up from our own streets.
In the Homeland we are at the mercy of neo-commissars; in the Diaspora, mini-sultans.
*
CHURHCILL TO AN ADMIRAL
**********************************************
“Don’t talk to me about naval tradition! It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash!”
Bravo beh!
#
June 4, 2010
***************************************************
THE PAPACY
************************
I have been reading a book on the Borgias and Renaissance popes, and I can't help wondering why there are still people who take Vatican pronouncements seriously. My only explanation: there is no limit to human ignorance and stupidity.
*
ON FAITH
***********************
Faith is a placebo which, unlike opium, is legal. This is a well-known secret to its administrators but not to its consumers. This may explain why when Mother Teresa lost her faith, she confided only to her confessor.
*
WHY I WRITE
*******************************
When asked why I write, I say: “Writing has become a habit I can't give up.” When told that's not a good enough reason, I have no choice but to agree. On the other hand, if I were to say “I write to save the nation,” I would be accused of megalomania run amok. How dare I think I can succeed where far better men than myself have failed? Not all bad questions have good answers.
*
WHAT HAS MY ARMENIAN IDENTITY
MEANT TO ME
**********************************************************
When I dealt with Armenian publishers, editors, bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted hirelings and flunkies, I became an alcoholic, developed an ulcer, and was hospitalized on several occasions. Now that I keep my distance, I am both healthier and happier. But even more important, I have a more objective view of myself and my fellow men. Also, I can afford the luxury of relying on my own judgment, which fallible as it probably is, it is my own and not someone else's, who in addition to being a fool may also be a crook, a bloodsucker, and a gravedigger.
#
June 5, 2010
***************************************************
BACK TO BACH
**************************************
He composed, he said, “for the greater glory of God and the instruction of his fellow men.” But he was better known as an organist rather than as a composer. Now completely forgotten composers were far better known and compensated than he was. Even his own sons, themselves professional musicians of some renown, looked down on his unfashionable style. Ladies and gentlemen of the court (on whom composers were financially dependent) demanded music that was more easily understood and played, like Haydn and Mozart. As a result, a great many of his works were buried, forgotten, and lost. And when a hundred years after his death, some of his masterpieces were resurrected by among others Mendelssohn, celebrated poets and philosophers like Heine and Hegel failed to appreciate them. I am now told even rock musicians borrow and steal from Bach. Entire books have been written about such marginal works as THE MUSICAL OFFERING and the CELLO SUITES.
*
SARTRE ON BACH
***************************
“He taught how to find originality within an established discipline; actually – how to live.”
*
SCHWEITZER ON BACH
********************************
“In his strict polyphony a volcanic emotion and thought were embedded.”
*
STEVEN ISSERLIS
****************************
I have been listening to his rendition of the CELLO SUITES. Too “correct” and mechanical to be of any interest. I much prefer the “perpetual rubato” of Casals which gives the Suites the natural flow of human speech thus making them more human and accessible.
*
TWO THINGS TO AVOID
****************************************
Clichés – unless in an ironic context.
Self-assessments – unless negative.
*
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
*****************************************
I question the Armenian identity of readers whose every word drips with the concentrated venom of seven Turkish vipers.
*
MONTHERLANT
******************************
“It is important for a man, at least once in his life, to have believed he is about to die: parenthetically, this is one of the gifts war gives to man.”
#
***************************************************
DIARY
************************
Finished reading Siblin's book on the Bach Cello Suites and Casals.
A remarkable achievement by a remarkable writer.
To write the book, Siblin not only read everything on the subject, he also travelled all over the world, attended lectures and symposia, visited museums and libraries housing Bach manuscripts, interviewed cellists, Bach expert, and Casals biographers, joined a Bach choir and learned to sing a cantata in German, took lessons by a cellist, and studied countless CDs. A veritable Odyssey by a phenomenally brilliant researcher. Reminds me of the dictum that if you want to achieve anything in life you must be a fanatic.
While reading his many footnotes and divagations, I was reminded of Nabokov's translation of Pushkin.
*
READING ZARIAN'S NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
“I have a deep antipathy for Kafka whom I have tried but failed to read.”
And yet his (Zarian's) experiences in the Homeland and Diaspora are quintessentially Kafkaesque.
I suspect like all nationalists Zarian was deeply suspicious of Jews.
*
“The majority of men don't think; they prefer to rely on someone else's thoughts. Thinking is a habit they seem to have lost – probably out of fear, in case they get into trouble by thinking the wrong thoughts.”
*
After our Golden Age and Silver Age we must now be at the summit of our Garbage Age – and as Zarian suggests in his TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD, not even garbage picked up from our own streets.
In the Homeland we are at the mercy of neo-commissars; in the Diaspora, mini-sultans.
*
CHURHCILL TO AN ADMIRAL
**********************************************
“Don’t talk to me about naval tradition! It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash!”
Bravo beh!
#
June 4, 2010
***************************************************
THE PAPACY
************************
I have been reading a book on the Borgias and Renaissance popes, and I can't help wondering why there are still people who take Vatican pronouncements seriously. My only explanation: there is no limit to human ignorance and stupidity.
*
ON FAITH
***********************
Faith is a placebo which, unlike opium, is legal. This is a well-known secret to its administrators but not to its consumers. This may explain why when Mother Teresa lost her faith, she confided only to her confessor.
*
WHY I WRITE
*******************************
When asked why I write, I say: “Writing has become a habit I can't give up.” When told that's not a good enough reason, I have no choice but to agree. On the other hand, if I were to say “I write to save the nation,” I would be accused of megalomania run amok. How dare I think I can succeed where far better men than myself have failed? Not all bad questions have good answers.
*
WHAT HAS MY ARMENIAN IDENTITY
MEANT TO ME
**********************************************************
When I dealt with Armenian publishers, editors, bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted hirelings and flunkies, I became an alcoholic, developed an ulcer, and was hospitalized on several occasions. Now that I keep my distance, I am both healthier and happier. But even more important, I have a more objective view of myself and my fellow men. Also, I can afford the luxury of relying on my own judgment, which fallible as it probably is, it is my own and not someone else's, who in addition to being a fool may also be a crook, a bloodsucker, and a gravedigger.
#
June 5, 2010
***************************************************
BACK TO BACH
**************************************
He composed, he said, “for the greater glory of God and the instruction of his fellow men.” But he was better known as an organist rather than as a composer. Now completely forgotten composers were far better known and compensated than he was. Even his own sons, themselves professional musicians of some renown, looked down on his unfashionable style. Ladies and gentlemen of the court (on whom composers were financially dependent) demanded music that was more easily understood and played, like Haydn and Mozart. As a result, a great many of his works were buried, forgotten, and lost. And when a hundred years after his death, some of his masterpieces were resurrected by among others Mendelssohn, celebrated poets and philosophers like Heine and Hegel failed to appreciate them. I am now told even rock musicians borrow and steal from Bach. Entire books have been written about such marginal works as THE MUSICAL OFFERING and the CELLO SUITES.
*
SARTRE ON BACH
***************************
“He taught how to find originality within an established discipline; actually – how to live.”
*
SCHWEITZER ON BACH
********************************
“In his strict polyphony a volcanic emotion and thought were embedded.”
*
STEVEN ISSERLIS
****************************
I have been listening to his rendition of the CELLO SUITES. Too “correct” and mechanical to be of any interest. I much prefer the “perpetual rubato” of Casals which gives the Suites the natural flow of human speech thus making them more human and accessible.
*
TWO THINGS TO AVOID
****************************************
Clichés – unless in an ironic context.
Self-assessments – unless negative.
*
A QUESTION OF IDENTITY
*****************************************
I question the Armenian identity of readers whose every word drips with the concentrated venom of seven Turkish vipers.
*
MONTHERLANT
******************************
“It is important for a man, at least once in his life, to have believed he is about to die: parenthetically, this is one of the gifts war gives to man.”
#
- Ara Baliozian
- Posts: 94
- Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
Re: The review of Ara Baliozian. Canada
by Ara Baliozian » Wed Jun 09, 2010 5:32 pm
June 6, 2010
***************************************************
AN ANGRY OBJECTION
**************************************
A reader writes:
“When you speak of Ottomanism and Sovietism – are you sure you are not projecting your own problems on the rest of us? I too was born and raised in an Armenian family and I feel neither Ottomanized nor Sovietized.”
There may be two explanations for that:
(one) you are either an exception to the rule – and when I write I speak of rules not of exceptions, and (two) you are in denial. Though your inability to entertain ideas that are not your own may well be seen as a symptom of Ottomano-Sovietism.
*
My function as a writer is to make the unconscious conscious; or to light a candle, not to convince you to like what you see. I can give you an explanation. What I cannot give you is understanding.
*
I define Ottomanism and Sovietism as two belief systems that legitimize intolerance and the right to silence those who do not believe in their lies and fallacies. In that sense, both the Sultan and Stalin are not dead; they are very much alive in all of us as assumptions that intolerance is not a vice but one of the cardinal virtues.
*
Ottomanism and Sovietism are not the only two aberrations to which we subscribe and from which we suffer. Even more dangerous and far more insidious is Levantinism – the notion that Capital and God are one, that the profit motive is a respectable one, and that benefactors and their hirelings are not empty suits but royalties.
*
Dzour nesdink shidag khosink.
Very much like the Yanks in the McCarthy era, we too have a HUAC or a House Un-Armenian Activities Committee, whose members belong to a church, political party, or philanthropic organization, and sometimes all three at once, who believe it is their patriotic duty to silence those who, by disagreeing with their dogmas, plot the destruction of the land.
*
In a French magazine I read the following headline about a grizzly murder: “He was the most subservient husband but one day he beheaded her.”
We too were the most loyal, that is to say, subservient subjects of the Empire...But to paraphrase an old Chinese proverb: “No honeymoon under heaven is endless.” To quote another familiar French saying: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
The Sultan and Stalin are dead. Long live our mini-sultans and neo-commissars!
*
As for the charge that I have en eye only for the negative: that's like saying to an oncologist, “You have an eye only for tumors.”
#
June 7, 2010
***************************************************
QUOTATIONS
**************************************
Since I spend most of my time reading, the most enjoyable moments in my daily existence are quotable lines.
*
BALZAC
**********************
“The fate of the house hangs on the wedding night.”
*
“Nature makes only dull animals; we owe the fool to society.”
*
“Love and hatred are feelings that feed on themselves, but of the two, hatred has a longer lifespan.”
*
KURT VONNEGUT
*******************************
“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”
*
DEFINITIONS FROM
A DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY
********************************************
“Generally speaking megalomania is a reaction to failure. The megalomaniac represents himself as he would like to be but as he is not. Megalomania may also be a symptom of the decline of one’s critical faculties.”
*
On dogmatism:
“It stands in direct contradiction to criticism, skepticism, empiricism, and realism.
It fosters intolerance and fanaticism.”
*
ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN
***************************************************
“Who is a Zek’s [an inmate of the Gulag]] worst enemy? Another Zek.”
Zeks too, I thought.
*
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
**********************************************
“And he whose soul is flat – the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.”
*
MARILYN MONROE
**********************************************
"Khruschev looked at me the way a man looks on a woman."
#
June 8, 2010
***************************************************
SUMMING UP
**************************************
Anything that is worth saying is worth repeating.
*
Don't believe everything you are told or everything you read, including what follows. Don't rely on someone else's brain if it means not using your own.
*
Between a lie that flatters and a truth that insults, always choose the insult. You may be wrong in doing so but never as consistently wrong as when you choose flattery.
*
Propaganda works because it flatters by emphasizing the positive. Literature doesn't because it exposes ignorance or emphasizes the negative in those who parade as leaders of men and their dupes.
*
At all times and everywhere, ignorance exceeds knowledge even in the wisest of men. We owe wars that are lost and revolutions that fail to men who refused to acknowledge his simple fact.
*
Another instance of ignorance exceeding knowledge, and arrogance exceeding objective assessment is writers who write for readers who know better.
*
I don't make policy. You have nothing to fear from me. I only expose contradictions. If you cannot see the contradiction, don't blame me. I cannot make the blind see, and no one can be as blind as the man who refuses to see.
*
I suspect all talk of Armenian intelligence and cunning. There is an old Italian saying: “It takes seven Genoese [the smartest Italians] to fool a Jew, and seven Jews to fool an Armenian.” I now see this saying as a warning to all those – including Armenians – who dare to deal with Armenians.
“After shaking hands with an Armenian, count your fingers.”
“After kissing an Armenian, count your teeth.”
If we were half as smart as we like to think we are, our history would not be the disaster area that it is.
*
We have been victimized, true. But to suggest we had no say in shaping our destiny as a nation is a lie created by pathological liars, that is to say, propagandists.
*
Understanding reality is a journey without end.
We can only take small steps in the direction of the truth.
The man who is searching is closer to the truth than the man who says he has found it.
No one can be as brainless as he who claims to have all the answers.
#
June 9, 2010
***************************************************
THE KEY
**************************************
The poor are told the rich will go to hell. This works to the advantage of the rich who are thus left alone to exploit the poor and to enjoy their wealth in peace.
*
Where there is power there will also be tyranny, injustice, and oppression.
*
If you were to add up oppressed or exploited minorities in “the land of the brave and the free,” or anywhere else for that matter, you will end up with a majority. But this majority is powerless to act because it is divided.
*
Dominant minorities are experts in adopting and implementing what were known even to the Romans as “divide and rule” policies. Hence the phenomenon of Armenians whose enemy number one is neither the Turk nor the Russian but their fellow Armenians.
*
What divides us are not truths voiced by honest men, but lies conceived and repeated by charlatans.
The question we must ask at this point is: Do our dividers know what they are doing?
My guess is, the men at the very top do, but their flunkies may not.
The men at the very top may not even be Armenian.
*
Khorenatsi tells us the Mamigonians were of Chinese descent. The Bagratunis identified themselves as Jews. One of our elder statesmen once informed me that some of our community leaders today are not of Armenian but of Turkish descent. “They may speak Armenian fluently, they may know all there is to know about us, but they are not Armenians.”
But i suggest an Armenian does not have to be a Turk to undermine the integrity of the nation. Greed for power (which is also universal) will render him blind – and we all know what happens when the blind lead the blind...
This indeed is the key to understanding our history.
*
A so-called Armenian with so-called leadership qualities is first and foremost a man who is committed to the proposition that greed for power is thicker than loyalty to the tribe or any other principle of honesty, compassion, justice, and fair play. He will preach patriotism and practice treason without batting an eye. And if things go wrong he will come up with a thousand reasons why he should not be held accountable. And he will be believed, in the same way that most honest Christians believe the rich will go to hell and “the meek shall inherit the earth.”
#
***************************************************
AN ANGRY OBJECTION
**************************************
A reader writes:
“When you speak of Ottomanism and Sovietism – are you sure you are not projecting your own problems on the rest of us? I too was born and raised in an Armenian family and I feel neither Ottomanized nor Sovietized.”
There may be two explanations for that:
(one) you are either an exception to the rule – and when I write I speak of rules not of exceptions, and (two) you are in denial. Though your inability to entertain ideas that are not your own may well be seen as a symptom of Ottomano-Sovietism.
*
My function as a writer is to make the unconscious conscious; or to light a candle, not to convince you to like what you see. I can give you an explanation. What I cannot give you is understanding.
*
I define Ottomanism and Sovietism as two belief systems that legitimize intolerance and the right to silence those who do not believe in their lies and fallacies. In that sense, both the Sultan and Stalin are not dead; they are very much alive in all of us as assumptions that intolerance is not a vice but one of the cardinal virtues.
*
Ottomanism and Sovietism are not the only two aberrations to which we subscribe and from which we suffer. Even more dangerous and far more insidious is Levantinism – the notion that Capital and God are one, that the profit motive is a respectable one, and that benefactors and their hirelings are not empty suits but royalties.
*
Dzour nesdink shidag khosink.
Very much like the Yanks in the McCarthy era, we too have a HUAC or a House Un-Armenian Activities Committee, whose members belong to a church, political party, or philanthropic organization, and sometimes all three at once, who believe it is their patriotic duty to silence those who, by disagreeing with their dogmas, plot the destruction of the land.
*
In a French magazine I read the following headline about a grizzly murder: “He was the most subservient husband but one day he beheaded her.”
We too were the most loyal, that is to say, subservient subjects of the Empire...But to paraphrase an old Chinese proverb: “No honeymoon under heaven is endless.” To quote another familiar French saying: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
The Sultan and Stalin are dead. Long live our mini-sultans and neo-commissars!
*
As for the charge that I have en eye only for the negative: that's like saying to an oncologist, “You have an eye only for tumors.”
#
June 7, 2010
***************************************************
QUOTATIONS
**************************************
Since I spend most of my time reading, the most enjoyable moments in my daily existence are quotable lines.
*
BALZAC
**********************
“The fate of the house hangs on the wedding night.”
*
“Nature makes only dull animals; we owe the fool to society.”
*
“Love and hatred are feelings that feed on themselves, but of the two, hatred has a longer lifespan.”
*
KURT VONNEGUT
*******************************
“Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith. I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile.”
*
DEFINITIONS FROM
A DICTIONARY OF PHILOSOPHY
********************************************
“Generally speaking megalomania is a reaction to failure. The megalomaniac represents himself as he would like to be but as he is not. Megalomania may also be a symptom of the decline of one’s critical faculties.”
*
On dogmatism:
“It stands in direct contradiction to criticism, skepticism, empiricism, and realism.
It fosters intolerance and fanaticism.”
*
ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN
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“Who is a Zek’s [an inmate of the Gulag]] worst enemy? Another Zek.”
Zeks too, I thought.
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EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
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“And he whose soul is flat – the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.”
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MARILYN MONROE
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"Khruschev looked at me the way a man looks on a woman."
#
June 8, 2010
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SUMMING UP
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Anything that is worth saying is worth repeating.
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Don't believe everything you are told or everything you read, including what follows. Don't rely on someone else's brain if it means not using your own.
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Between a lie that flatters and a truth that insults, always choose the insult. You may be wrong in doing so but never as consistently wrong as when you choose flattery.
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Propaganda works because it flatters by emphasizing the positive. Literature doesn't because it exposes ignorance or emphasizes the negative in those who parade as leaders of men and their dupes.
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At all times and everywhere, ignorance exceeds knowledge even in the wisest of men. We owe wars that are lost and revolutions that fail to men who refused to acknowledge his simple fact.
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Another instance of ignorance exceeding knowledge, and arrogance exceeding objective assessment is writers who write for readers who know better.
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I don't make policy. You have nothing to fear from me. I only expose contradictions. If you cannot see the contradiction, don't blame me. I cannot make the blind see, and no one can be as blind as the man who refuses to see.
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I suspect all talk of Armenian intelligence and cunning. There is an old Italian saying: “It takes seven Genoese [the smartest Italians] to fool a Jew, and seven Jews to fool an Armenian.” I now see this saying as a warning to all those – including Armenians – who dare to deal with Armenians.
“After shaking hands with an Armenian, count your fingers.”
“After kissing an Armenian, count your teeth.”
If we were half as smart as we like to think we are, our history would not be the disaster area that it is.
*
We have been victimized, true. But to suggest we had no say in shaping our destiny as a nation is a lie created by pathological liars, that is to say, propagandists.
*
Understanding reality is a journey without end.
We can only take small steps in the direction of the truth.
The man who is searching is closer to the truth than the man who says he has found it.
No one can be as brainless as he who claims to have all the answers.
#
June 9, 2010
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THE KEY
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The poor are told the rich will go to hell. This works to the advantage of the rich who are thus left alone to exploit the poor and to enjoy their wealth in peace.
*
Where there is power there will also be tyranny, injustice, and oppression.
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If you were to add up oppressed or exploited minorities in “the land of the brave and the free,” or anywhere else for that matter, you will end up with a majority. But this majority is powerless to act because it is divided.
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Dominant minorities are experts in adopting and implementing what were known even to the Romans as “divide and rule” policies. Hence the phenomenon of Armenians whose enemy number one is neither the Turk nor the Russian but their fellow Armenians.
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What divides us are not truths voiced by honest men, but lies conceived and repeated by charlatans.
The question we must ask at this point is: Do our dividers know what they are doing?
My guess is, the men at the very top do, but their flunkies may not.
The men at the very top may not even be Armenian.
*
Khorenatsi tells us the Mamigonians were of Chinese descent. The Bagratunis identified themselves as Jews. One of our elder statesmen once informed me that some of our community leaders today are not of Armenian but of Turkish descent. “They may speak Armenian fluently, they may know all there is to know about us, but they are not Armenians.”
But i suggest an Armenian does not have to be a Turk to undermine the integrity of the nation. Greed for power (which is also universal) will render him blind – and we all know what happens when the blind lead the blind...
This indeed is the key to understanding our history.
*
A so-called Armenian with so-called leadership qualities is first and foremost a man who is committed to the proposition that greed for power is thicker than loyalty to the tribe or any other principle of honesty, compassion, justice, and fair play. He will preach patriotism and practice treason without batting an eye. And if things go wrong he will come up with a thousand reasons why he should not be held accountable. And he will be believed, in the same way that most honest Christians believe the rich will go to hell and “the meek shall inherit the earth.”
#
- Ara Baliozian
- Posts: 94
- Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 8:24 pm
- Location: Toronto, Canada
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