Twilight Bark

Uh huh ... [strike 1] Hmm. [strike 2] I already explained why the superficial similarities remained superficial under the Turks. Please read again. Even today, Armenians living under Turkish rule follow two main paths (with a few exceptions): 1. Stay cowed and subservient. The continuation of Ottoman conditions. 2. Turn off higher faculties of one's brain, join the party and go down the path of eventual assimilation. When the process is complete, they will indeed be ordinary Turks. It is much more feasible now than it used to be. This is not inconsistent with what I said at all. What you observe as "Armenian" would still be mostly the relatively unassimilated ones (and still following more or less the Ottoman model), until no one is left. The key difference from other cases of assimilation is the intense hostility of the "host" culture. It changes the game.

Sorry about the digression, but ... True enough. That is actually more noble than trying to scrape enough to keep up with your acuaintances, and showing off with stupid status symbols. Why do you dislike success? These people did not make that much money to pleasure themselves. Pretty quickly "money" simply becomes a tool to accomplish nonmonetary goals. Often, it is a desire to make a difference, to matter. And that is one of the noblest things a sentient being can do. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett gave away virtually their entire wealth to charity foundations. And becoming rich is not a zero-sum game. The process that leads someone to become a multi-billionaire almost always involves improving the lives of many thousands or millions of people. You need to re-assess your world view very seriously. The future of Armenia depends on whether we collectively get this.

Fake humility is unnecessary. You certainly demonstrate a self-confidence, if not cockiness, to speak on behalf of whomever you feel like, and that's fine. Who cares if you or I are qualified. Who gets to grant the "qualification"? The Central Committe on Cultural Spokespersons? I declare that I am plenty qualified to have an informed opinion on the subject, because I have had the experience of being immersed in both cultures, and not simply as an unthinking drone at that. That is a breathtakingly naive and thoughtless comparison. Armenians in America are assimilating because the country is specifically designed to do just that. Its methods have evolved from ridicule to mild coercion with a smile, taking a bit longer these days. Ottoman Empire depended on a division of labor between different "millets", and actually exaggerated diferences in order to clarify the place and role of each group. When that caused problems at a particular place or time, their solution was extermination or forced assimilation of a particular area or group of individuals into the the muslim-turk background identity of the empire. What remained of the subservient group still carried on distinctly and with its exaggerated traits imposed by the evolutionary pressures put by the structure of the empire. What the two cultures specifically suppress as well as how they go about it are quite different. I am not making a comparative value judgement here. And I am not defending for a second the banality and sterility of current Armenian culture. I am simply stating that the two "suppressions" are demonstrably different, as proven by the different results they have produced.

You object to my critique, and yet proceed to repeat the "similarities" that I called superficial (and therefore ultimately incosequential and thus in support of my stated view) in order to "demonstrate" the falsity of what I said, without demonstrating that the said similarities were indeed not superficial, but instead profound and fundamental. I am usually hesitant to continue when the plumbings of logic and reason break during a discussion -- and so early in this case. However, I will try to keep with this for a round or two. Looking broadly alike physically is incosequential. Turks are made up of dozens of assimilated nationalities, cowed into believing or pretending to believe their national origination myth. Some look like Armenians, most do not. I don't care much about it at the intellectual level. At an emotional level, when I see an Armenian face on a Turk, it doesn't give me warm and fuzzy feelings of oneness and brotherhood. It reminds me of the mechanism through which that face ended up on a Turk. As for mannerisms. The vulgarities and other mannerisms caried over from the village or small-town life in Asia Minor still survive in the now "urban" Armenian remnants. Just like the cuisine. But these are all superficial, even at the individual level. To give an example, just because one uses the same pen, same kind of paper, have a similar handwriting, and by golly even makes up similar sounding sentences doesn't make one fundamentally "similar" to Shakespeare. It's in the nature of what's written with the "similar" hardware that decides whether a given writer is indeed similar and comparable to another. And this is still only about comparing individuals. Then something counterintuitive and interesting happens when you put individuals into a collective. The collective behavior you get from lumping Armenians together is drastically different from what you get when you lump Turks together into a collective. I know from simulations of physical systems that you can get wildly different collective behaviors from the same particles if you arrange them differently, thus changing the way they interact with one another. Furthermore, collective behavior, although ultimately coming from the superposition of individual responses, is wildly different from the individual behavior. It all depends on how individuals are "arranged", which influences how they interact with one another, how strongly they are coupled, and whether or not their interactions are confused by the force of a central field with a different symmetry. I know this sounds like gibberish, but I can't do better than that for now. The take-home message is that superficial similarities at individual level have no bearing in determining similarity in the fundamental natures of two cultures, which by definition are collective traits.

For better or worse, and surprisingly Armenians are quite different from Turks. Yes, I have seen "patriotic" Armenians live their daily lives surrounded with Turkish music, artifacts, and even mannerisms. I have heard silly Armenians claiming Turks must be similar because their food is so similar to those of Armenians. Leaving aside the stupid obsession and identification with food and putting it on a pedestal, such superficial "similarities" hide the stark differences between Turkish and Armenian cultures and world views. As I imply above, you are not alone in your failure to distil the essence of these two cultures, and how they differ at a fundamental level. By objecting to your quote I do not mean to contest the fact that Armenian culture as it survived to the present time is full of goofiness and self-sabotage. Your quote, however, is superficial, and more importantly it is wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Kars

Diplomacy doesn't involve "buying into" things. It involves "getting away" with things. There is a big difference between saying "we are peaceful, and do not have any demands", and "we hereby sign away the right of all Armenians, present and future, to demand anything from you". The latter would only be justified under two circumstances: 1. A huge compromise from Turkey and forever-enforcable (how?) economic and cultural rights given to Armenians and Armenia in former western Armenia. 2. A gun pointing to the heads of every Armenian citizen in Armenia. Item 1 is quite unlikely, and I hope we never see Item 2. Quite right. And what was it that you were suggesting Armenia/Armenians take away from ratifying the Kars treaty? Diplomacy can only do so much without real strengtn on the ground. The best you can hope from diplomacy is to not screw up. Real gains are made by real strengths in the economy and the military. I don't see any serious diplomatic errors on the part of Armenia lately. I just hope our real strengths are building up in the meantime.

There is no justification for being "clearer" than the government has been. Ambiguity is an indispensible tool for diplomacy. There are two cases when you don't need diplomacy: because you have absolute and crushing superiority to dictate your terms bluntly, or you are defeated and crushed, and are signing documents at gunpoint. Otherwise, the only result of "clarification" NOW is the signing away the freedom of FUTURE Armenian generations to "clarify" the issue on terms that are more beneficial to the idea of a meaningful, viable Armenian state and nation. Right now, Armenia should convince Turkey to make do with the statement that Armenia has (at the moment, and this "at the moment" should be implicit, not explicit) no demands. Armenian self-respect and very-long-term interests require them to refrain from declaring anything clearer than the fact that they are bringing no demands to the table. Anything else is capitulation, since extracting any sort of actual concessions from Turkey is not in the cards in the near future. "Clarifying" the issue now can only mean one thing: the effective ratification of the Kars treaty, and making it truly, "de jure", binding, as opposed to the "de facto" understanding that its terms apply in practice, even though it was not ratified by Armenia proper as an independent entity. Who cares. Their only relevant role is to play the "bad cop" in the familiar routine.

Use skepticism and question what you hear, but these podcasts will add to your understanding of how the world works, or how it could work better: http://www.econtalk.org/

Progress is made only through specialization and society's ability and willingness to set aside resources for purposes that are on the surface non-essential. By your logic, writing dictionaries, linguistic treatises, or poems, all of which you seem to enjoy so much, are all frivolous activities that take away from the time and resources that keep the food away from hungry mouths. By that logic, the world economy and social development would be at a very egalitarian and no-nonsense hunter-gatherer level. There would not be many hungry mouths to feed, because the economy couldn't sustain that many souls. And almost everybody would have "short, nasty, and brutish" lives. If you want to spare some money for the poor, I suggest you start by advocating an 80% cut in the "defense" (huh!) budget, which is essentially a charity and welfare scheme for a whole bunch of people (including a disturbing number of people with Armenian descent) whose labor can be much better employed in search of cures for diseases or developing technologies that do things other than maiming, pulverizing or vaporizing people.

Մայ Ֆամըլի would be a good phonetic approximation.

ընտանիք is "family" Մյ Ֆամիլյ is "my family" the english phrase literally written in armenian script, one-to-one transliterating the letters (which doesn't exactly sound like "my family" if you read it as if it were Armenian). It is kind of remarkable that you had the wherewithal to write the words in Armenian script, starting presumably from handwriting, and yet don't know what they mean. And the transliteration itself is funny. The whole thing is kind of funny. Oh, well, I hope this helped.

He was quoting George Carlin, the recently deceased comedian. As far as whether Anonymouse was joking or not, I don't know why you think that makes a difference. As far as planet healing itself, that's just bull excrement. We are perfectly capable of destroying it irreversibly. It's not a great accomplishment, or a sign of great intellect. But we can do it. Quite easily in fact. And why should we care if it can heal itself after we are gone? That is more like Gaia new-age BS than a cool headed analysis.

The guy was a comedian for heavens' sake. He was just messing around to make his daily bread, and was hoping to poke people into thinking a bit in the process. What he says can be interpreted in several ways, at several levels, if one actually thinks it worthwhile. And believe me, I can easily cast what he is saying into environmental advocacy. Anyway, one way to interpret what he says is as follows. Everything is part of nature, including us, so there is nothing "unnatural" about whatever we do. So we can mess it up royally and irreversibly, and that would be fine. Venus is a fine, completely natural planet, quite happy to be at the equilibrium that it is in. And who knows, Earth some day may find the same new equilbrium, completely healed, and every ugly remnant of human interference completely burned and melted away in a permament inferno. And that would be rather natural.

It wouldn't be so bad if the free market fundamentalists were self-consistent. When it comes to advertising, they seem to favor it and oppose restrictions on it because it supposedly gives more "information" to the consumer, and more information means a better functioning market. But then you get all kinds of objections when it comes to including information on the label about the origin and methods of production in making a product. All of a sudden more information is "unfair burden", "tariff in disguise", or some other nonsense. I have to say I don't know what a "free-marketeer" is also. Many masquerading as such, some at very high levels, are effectively no more than lobbyists, with a principle no higher, and no less crass, than a paycheck.

That's a good one-liner, if one had to use one sentence to describe the situation. But I don't know what an "environmentalist" is. Is he/she some semi-literate new-age nincompoop, or a scientist studying the impact of "civilization" on environment, and say, actually has an opinion and a value-judgement (as opposed to a value-free, neutral scientific deduction) on whether a venus-like earth is a desirable long-term outcome? There is no accreditation for declaring oneself an "environmentalist". On the other hand, the so-called "free-market advocates" appear horrified at the thought of simply including more information on labels to let people make their choice when shopping, based on more information, and the choices they want to make. If some stupid laws get enacted, whether on environment or anything else, it is not because their advocates are fascistic (some or in some cases most undoubtedly are, especially when it comes to anything increasing government secrecy). It is because people running the government almost always suffer from arrogant stupidity.

Շատ շնորհակալ եմ, Հովհանես։

I don't know about "ooard". What I do remember from my reading was "watar", and it took 2 seconds of googling to confirm: from http://www.utexas.edu/cola/centers/lrc/ied.../Anatolian.html: "Although neither Hittite nor any other Anatolian language survived into the modern era, their influences are still with us among the Greek creation myths and other cultural relics. The Hittite word for 'water', watar, and other Hittite linguistic artifacts are still recognizable if one scratches the surface." Otherwise another fine contribution as usual, Arpa. Thanks. Unlike the "vartik" one from a certain gearhead-cheesehead (hey how about a wheel of cheese sculpted in the form of a gear, Sip?).

Then it would be appropriate to replace the cheese on your head with a vartik for this occasion.

Yeah yeah yeah. It's just that I don't quite buy it, as it seems to be a story force-fit to the name. In any case, have a wet Vartavar.

Happy Vartavar everyone. Don't forget to wet someone! I would like to use this occasion to submit my pet theory that the word "Vartavar" comes from the Hittite word "watar", which means water. Vatar vatar everywhere!

That goes without saying, Arpa. Just as the republic is in no state to dictate anything to the diaspora, or even to persuade it, the diaspora is in no state to shape the republic's behavior, in internal or foreign affairs. We are just growling in our neighborhood coffee house, not really "barking". Of course we'll just let them be, whether we bark or not.

Hi Boghos. I don't have a firm opinion on this, as far as the "damage" department, other than it being yet another venue through which Armenian Genocide would be made "controversial", "in need of further study", "subject to debate", etc., and that's not immaterial. And I don't see a realistic looking chance of something positive coming out of it, since it is not accompanied by a relevant, positive sea change in the Turkish cultural and political landscape. I would fear the Armenians on that commission, not the Turks per se. But my understanding is that the commission is about "what happened", and not "how it happened". More like, "I see your 1.5 million dead, and I raise my 2.5 million imaginary victims". And then, "what did you say, you can't disprove that you didn't kill 2.5 million muslims?", "and you can't prove, with pictures and death certificates, that more than a few thousand Armenians were actually killed on purpose?", "Well then, I guess we'll just have to say we can't really determine what exactly happened, can we?". And finally, "Did we mention that this happened about a century ago? I mean let's just move on." "Sign here, and here, yes, right there, and we'll call it a deal", and "Now you guys can actually obtain work permits to clean our houses, and we'll cut the travel time by a few hours by opening the border." Can you know for sure the motivations or the competence of the Armenians on that commission? That sounds like you think all a Turk on that commission needs is a good, objective lesson in history and everything will be alright; his pure heart, good intentions, and high intellect will simply utilize the new, accurate input and will produce the right verdict. Since I cannot believe that you believe such a thing, I would like to know what you are really going after there. I need your help, because I can't see it.

No, I didn't imply that they should be closed forever. The degree of opening should reflect the assessed competitiveness of Amenian economy and culture. Favoring "forever" means expecting or wishing that Armenian culture and economy will remain anaemic forever. That is the opposite of what I think "should" happen. Yeah, I know you could. And we would forever be arguing back and forth citing different examples. The devil is in the detail, meaning the specific circumstances. Being in your line of business, you know the term "survivor bias". That's it. Because they are not your grandfather's Turks, to paraphrase an old commercial.

True. And that's where my "anectodal evidence" comes from. However, it's a matter of degree. "Opening borders" presumably means more than the passage of inanimate objects. And I don't think "cheaper goods" is a good thing for the economy at the moment. If we take that line of thinking to its logical conclusion, we find the "free" stuff sent as "aid" to distressed African countries. The American "food aid" to countries in distress has been detrimental to the local production capacity and long-term self-sufficiency. Why? Because they insisted on sending the American-produced stuff itself, rather than the money to buy it first from the local market. The result was a further collapse of food production in those areas, perpetuating a vicious circle of dependency and poverty. "Cheap goods" is a version of that. The Swiss pay ridiculous prices for their daily shopping, and yet have a wonderful economy. I am not saying that Armenia should isolate itself. But it should not fall for the fallacy of Washington_Consensus either. A wise government would have taken advantage of that to encourage the right local industries, and protect them forever if necessary if the difference in prices are small. And if absolute cheapest price is something we must have, the rest of the world consumes east asian stuff transported halfway around the globe, and gets the cheapest prices. Surely Armenia could do fine without being dependent of Turkish goods. Turkish border is not the only border we have. The economic problem has never been due to the closed Turkish border. It's the boneheadedness of people in charge in Armenia. There is more than one way to get rid of ghosts. Becoming a dependency of Turkey is one way. It reminds me of petty bourgeois Armenian mothers in Istanbul who quickly become "enlightened" ,"humanitarian", and "cosmopolitan" when their daughter decides to sleep around and marry a Turkish guy. It's easier that way. You don't have to work on cultural preservation and identity (who has the time when you have to keep up with the Hovanesses), which does require a lot of energy, and you get to look real modern and tolerant to boot. Good deal. I know I must be sounding like a dinosaur. It is against my nature to object to open exchange and communication. I have come to my conclusions unwillingly and painfully. And I do hope I am wrong in my gloominess about Armenian competitiveness both in Armenia and the diaspora.