as i see it - Pt. IV

[ara baliozian]

May 23, 2010

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REFLECTIONS

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One way to explain our misfortunes is to say that we are a nation of dupes at the mercy of windbags. Naregatsi, a harmless, solitary monk, accusing himself of all kinds of unspeakable aberrations; and Zarian in his youth pretending to believe Armenia was the messiah of nations.

*

For many years I couldn't tell the difference between truth and propaganda. It took me not just years but decades to see that to be a man with “leadership qualities” means first and foremost to be an accomplished deceiver.

*

Judging by the number of catastrophes mankind confronts today – from religious wars to global warming and overpopulation – we may know more but we understand less. Perhaps the price of greater knowledge is a diminished understanding. Speaking for myself: whenever I thought I knew better I committed a catastrophic blunder.

*

Men have been talking about women since the beginning of time and they still can't figure them out. What does that tell you about the state of human knowledge and understanding?

*

Shaw said, “All professions are conspiracies against the laity.” When Americans say “What's your racket?” they mean the same thing. I like the American version better if only because it's shorter.

*

Censorship reduces men to sheep at the mercy of wolves who pretend to be sheepdogs.

*

I wonder if I will live long enough to read an Armenian weekly in which Turks are not mentioned.

*

Some Turks are so narrow-minded and fanatical that they believe all infidels will burn in hell. They have their counterparts among Armenians.

#

May 24, 2010

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LOUIS XIV SPEAKS

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“Ah, if I were not king, I should lose my temper.”

*

“Has God forgotten what I have done for him?”

*

“I very nearly had to wait.”

*

“Every time I fill a vacant office I make ten malcontents and one ingrate.”

*

EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794), English historian:

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"I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinions I have no respect."

*

ARAB PROVERB

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"The ass went seeking for horns and lost his ears."

*

KURDISH PROVERB

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"Those who do not go to war roar like lions."

*

A MAN AFTER MY OWN HEART

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Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian writer who hated his fellow Austrians with a passion. No other writer has been as relentless as he in his excoriation of his fellow countrymen. Our Raffi too was very critical of Armenians but in his fiction he also created a good number of heroes and noble specimens of humanity. Baronian, Odian, and Massikian couched their attacks in humor and satire. Zarian's trajectory from great expectations to despair and disgust was gradual and he was careful to confide his denunciations in his correspondence with friends, diaries and notebooks that were published only posthumously. Thomas Bernhard's hatred seems to have been born in his cradle and continued all the way to his grave at the age of 58. But since he was widely translated and admired throughout the world, the Austrians had little choice but to award him a prestigious literary prize in the hope of that flattery may mollify him. It had the opposite effect. In his acceptance speech Bernhard delivered such a scathing attack on Austrian double-talk, mediocrity, intolerance, and fascism that the Austrian Minister of Culture and half of the audience walked out on him. I dare you not to love and admire such a man!

#

THREE POEMS

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BY NOUSHIG MIKAELYAN

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translated by a. baliozian

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1.

May you laugh

as much as I have wept.

*

Do you think

you can laugh that much?

#

2.

On a dead tree

There was a single branch in bloom

*

They cut off that branch.

#

3.

“WE LOVE EACH OTHER,”

THAT'S WHAT THEY ALL SAY WE DO

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We love each other

But you don't trust me

Neither do I trust you.

You think

If I come to you

I will leave you

And I think

if you come to me

You will leave me.

 

You there

Me here

Afraid of losing each other

We go on living

and it's been centuries

since we last met.

#

May 25, 2010

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READING PROUST

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“But to wander thus among the woods of Roussainville without a peasant girl to embrace was to see the woods and yet know nothing of their secret treasure, their deep hidden beauty.”

I cannot help wondering, why is it that it took world literature three thousand years to produce such a sentence.

*

“Others are often better informed about our life than we think.”

*

“The pleasure an artist gives is to make us know an additional universe.”

*

“The dispelling of an error gives us an additional sense.”

*

READING BETRAND RUSSELL

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On Lytton Strachey's EMINENT VICTORIANS:

“I read it again to myself in prison. It caused me to laugh so loud that the officer came round to my cell, saying I must remember that prison is a place of punishment.”

*

"Often and often, a marriage hardly differs from prostitution, except being harder to escape from.”

*

On speechifiers: “The human race has not hitherto discovered any method of eradicating moral defects; preaching and exhortation only add hypocrisy to the previous list of vices.”

*

On envy: “Instead of deriving pleasure from what he has, the envious person derives pain from what others have.”

*

FROM MY NOTBOOKS

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Bad news for our Turcocentric ghazetajis: as the number of tragedies around the world goes up, the magnitude of our own goes down. This phenomenon is also known as "compassion fatigue." As a result, the more we talk about our tragedy, the more sympathizers we lose. I suggest therefore, "Less is more."

*

Our Turcocentric ghazetajis remind me of the survivors of another holocaust in the Old Testament who looked back and turned into pillars of salt.

*

It is not easy educating those who are infatuated with their own ignorance.

*

I have written over a thousand commentaries and letters and I am proud to announce none of them ends with Comrade Panchoonie's punch line, "Mi kich pogh oughargetsek" (Send us a little money). I am thus in an excellent position to declare to my readers, "If dissatisfied, your money will be cheerfully refunded."

#

May 26, 2010

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READING SARTRE

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On dissent: “Its purpose is not the enjoyment of the reader, but his torment.”

*

On Freud: “Psychoanalysis has no principles.”

*

REFLECTIONS

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I don't trust a writer with a rich vocabulary. One may get drunk on words as surely as an vodka.

*

No matter how hard I try I cannot believe in something that an important fraction of mankind finds it unbelievable.

Mohammad, the only true prophet of Allah.

Jesus, the only true son of God.

*

If a friend "is a masterpiece of nature" (Emerson), what is an enemy if not a curse from hell?

*

THREE DEFINTITIONS

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bipartisan: A resolution or policy agreed on by two opposing parties. Among us, an extremely rare occurrence of an extremely short duration.

*

booboisie: From boob (fool) and bourgeoisie: the dumb middle-classes.

*

bury the hatchet: From an American Indian ceremony symbolizing the end of hostilities. A ceremony that has no place in our culture, and an expression that has no equivalent in our language.

*

CRITICIZING THE CRITIC

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There are many ways to belittle a writer's work and to insult a man and I have heard them all. Here are some random samples.

-You are a disgrace to your nation.

-What's your point?

-Was your mother a Turkish whore?

-You repeat yourself.

-You are a racist.

-Why don't you say something we don't know?

-A dealer in verbal crapola.

-Gobbledygook.

-You are a denialist.

-Booooooooooooring!

-You are a fool.

-Son of a bitch.

#

[ara baliozian]

May 27, 2010

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ON BLUNDERS,

AMONG OTHER THINGS

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The number of blunders I have committed are so many that I could compile an encyclopedia on the subject. It is true that so far I have not started a revolution, declared a war, or ordered a massacre of civilians, but that's because I was never in a position to do so.

*

Several readers have pointed out that my testimony cannot be relied on because as a neglected or ignored writer I am a traumatized witness. I am more than willing to plead guilty as charged. But if these very same readers imply that six centuries of Ottoman oppression followed by massacres and dispersion have not traumatized us, they deceive themselves. Either that or they have been so thoroughly dehumanized that it doesn't even occur to them that they may be in denial.

*

From zero to hero is a possibility; from zero to zero is a probability.

*

Is it conceivable that the only thing we have learned from our Ottoman and Bolshevik experiences is intolerance?

*

There is more than one way to assert one's superior brand of patriotism, but going down into the gutter is not one of them.

*

We analyze Turks as if our aim in life were to improve them, and we avoid analyzing ourselves on the grounds that one should not fix what ain't broken. Why else would our dime-a-dozen Turcocentric ghazetajis spend more time exposing foreign misconduct and ignoring our own?

*

If you lie down with a dog you may get up with fleas, it is said. Likewise, if you lie down with an Armenian you may get up with a Turk.

#

May 28, 2010

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ART FOR ART'S SAKE

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Since far better men than myself have written about our problems without any tangible results, what I write should be classified under art for art's sake, or entertainment, or even a waste of time.

*

To those who say, “Tell us something we don't know,” I say: “Nothing that is true is ever new” (Shaw). And to those who say, “You don't know how to write,” I say: “That may or may not be true because more often than not what I do is paraphrase or quote readers like you or better men than myself.”

*

It's astonishing how many decent people allow their paycheck to dictate their code of ethics and to ignore the fact that "grub first then ethics" is no ethics.

*

Sometimes a man reveals himself less by what he says and more by what he does not say.

*

Man is unpredictable even to himself.

*

Intellectuals may be divided into two categories: defenders of the status quo (or, in the words of a French philosopher, "guard dogs") and dissidents. It goes without saying that the guard dogs enjoy the full support of those in power, and the dissidents are ostracized, alienated, and, whenever possible, silenced, starved, poisoned, or shot.

*

Was Naregatsi a guard dog or a dissident? Hard to say. He was quintessentially non-political. He concentrated on himself as a sinner. He blamed no one but his own evil inclinations. If he were a contemporary and if he took it upon himself to write about our genocide, my guess is he wouldn't even mention the Turks. He would say what a born-again, Bible-thumping, fundamentalist Armenian friend of mine in his 80s once said to me: "Armenians were massacred because they were evil and they deserved to be punished by God."

To which I can only say: “What about the perpetrators? Where they morally superior? If not, why were they not punished?”

But since theologians have an answer for everything, they would say, “God's ways are not our ways.”

#

May 29, 2010

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READING SPENGLER AND TOYNBEE

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We have many poets but not a single philosopher.

As a result, we may know how we feel but we don't know why.

We have many historians but not a single meta-historian or philosopher of history. As a result, we may know what happened but we don't know what were the forces that brought about the catastrophe.

Which may also explain why successive American administrations, after promising to recognize our genocide, refuse to do so.

*

We know we are divided but we don't know why because the reasons may be buried in our subconscious.

Listen to two metahistorians and their tentative explanations:

*

Oswald Spengler: “Real historical vision belongs to the domain of significances in which the crucial words are not 'correct' and 'erroneous' but 'deep' and 'shallow.'”

*

“Vision is to be carefully distinguished from seeing.”

*

“All genuine historical work is philosophy, unless it is mere ant-industry.”

*

Arnold Toynbee: “The penalty that conflicting wills bring upon themselves by frustrating one another is thus not merely their own dethronement; it is the re-enthronement of the Subconscious Psyche.”

In other words, when unreason (or the subconscious) replaces reason, the consequences can be not only catastrophic but also incomprehensible. It follows, our so-called survival may not be what we think it is but the death of a thousand cuts, all of them self-inflicted.

#

[ara baliozian]

May 30, 2010

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J.S. BACH

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Books on Bach?

Forget it. Too technical and jargon ridden. Too cold and scholarly to be of any interest to the layman.

Two possible exceptions:

EVENINGS IN THE PALACE OF REASON: BACH MEETS FREDERICK THE GREAT IN THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT by James R. Gaines (New York, 2005), and

THE CELLO SUITES: J.S. BACH, PABLO CASALS AND THE SEARCH FOR A BAROQUE MASTERPIECE by Eric Siblin (Toronto, 2009).

Both books are unusual in that they read like thrillers. Entertaining as well informative and scholarly.

*

Vahe Berberian tells me the subtitle of the second book is misleading because the Cello Suites were never lost. On the contrary, they were widely distributed and studied by cellists and musical scholars. What Casals did was to introduce them to the concert repertoire.

*

Speaking of Casals and music: One of the most brilliant, insightful, and readable books I have read on many aspects of music composition, interpretation, and appreciation is CONVERSATIONS WITH CASALS by J.M. Corredor (London, 1956).

*

To be noted: In the bibliography of Siblin's book I run into the following item: BAROQUE PIETY: RELIGION, SOCIETY, AND MUSIC IN LEIPZIG, 1650-1750 (Burlington, VT, 2007) by Tanya Kevorkian. Which reminds me of our family doctor's observation that no matter where you go, you will invariably run into an Armenian.

*

Also to be noted: Three of the greatest Bach interpreters of our times, if not of all times -- Landowska, Casals, and Gould -- were not German, but Polish, Spanish, and Canadian respectively.

*

Grieg on Casals: “This man does not perform, he resurrects.”

#

May 31, 2010

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ON FAITH

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Faith proves nothing except the absurdity of belief systems – all ten thousand of them.

*

A MAN OF FAITH SPEAKS

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In a recent interview published in a learned French periodical, a Muslim scholar proves to his complete satisfaction that Islam is a better religion than Christianity, and the only reason Christians outnumber Muslims is that Christianity is six centuries older. In the next six centuries, he goes on, Islam will surpass all other organized religions in popularity. That is one of the central problems with all men of faith: they think they know better and they are closer to God even when they behave like swine. And you may have noticed by now that it is not the good and the honest who assert moral superiority but charlatans and riffraff. "If I am no good," they seem to be saying, "the least I can do is pretend to be better even if it means speaking like an idiot."

*

CHINESE PROVERBS

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“A maker of idols is never an idolater.”

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“Behind an able man there are always other able men.”

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DANISH PROVERB

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“Unanimity is the best fortress.”

*

ON CENSORSHIP

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Where there is censorship there will be fear: fear of knowledge; fear of objective judgment; fear of honesty; fear of excellence and originality.

Where there is fear there will be cowardice.

*

A CONFESSION

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When writing against barbarians one should wield a civil pen.

May I confess that I have not always been successful in that endeavor perhaps because some barbarians tend to confuse civility with weakness.

#

June 1, 2010

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MEN AND ROBOTS

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One of the worst blunders one can commit is to believe what one is told at a time when one is not old or mature enough to think for oneself, on the grounds that the men at the top are fundamentally decent men who know better and should be trusted.

Whereas the truth is, “politics offers a larger field of observation than any clinic for mental illness” (Antonina Vallentin).

Or, in the words of Paul Valery: “...the work leads back, not to a man, but to a mask, and from a mask to the machine.”

By “machine” Valery here means impersonal factors that are dictated by a belief system that has degenerated to routine and ritual.

*

READING VOLTAIRE

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On the origin of religion: “From the meeting of the earliest scoundrel with the very first fool.”

*

“Since the whole affair had become one of religion, the vanquished were of course exterminated.”

*

ON ARMENIAN POLITICS

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If and when the multiplication table becomes a political issue, we will disagree on it too!

*

To speak of patriotism and to speak the truth are not always synonymous. On the contrary. One could even say that the greatest enemy of patriotism is not treason but objectivity.

*

We place too much emphasis on mental or intellectual IQs and completely ignore moral IQs. And yet, if you think about it, most of our problems are created by individuals with higher than normal IQs but non-existent or negative moral IQs -- or moral morons.

*

If you mention bloodsuckers in the presence of bloodsuckers, you can be sure of one thing: they will accuse you of anti-Armenianism.

#

June 2, 2010

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SIMONE WEIL

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“It is impossible to forgive whoever has done us harm if that harm has lowered us. We have to think that it has not lowered us but revealed our true level.”

Which is why those I criticize will never forgive me – and I don't expect them to.

*

OSCAR WILDE

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“Women represent the triumph of matter over mind.”

The same could be said of men.

*

The ease with which we make mistakes; and even more astonishing: the ease with which we are successful in convincing ourselves we are doing the right.

Homo sapiens?

Seldom.

Homo ignoramus?

Always!

*

A.N. WHITEHEAD

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“Our reasoning grasps at straws for premises and floats on gossamers for deductions.”

*

COMMENTS

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To know better is not the same as to know, or for that matter, to be closer to the truth.

*

Our tragedy: those who pretend to know lead those who pretend to understand.

Or, the unthinking leads the thoughtless.

This is no secret. It was known and stated thousands of years ago:

“When the blind lead the blind...”

*

Whenever I see the photo of an Armenian writer in the company of a boss or bishop, I can’t help thinking, “There goes the neighborhood.”

*

If you think A and I think C, the truth may not be in the neighborhood of B but somewhere beyond Z.

*

You say you are free but all I see when I look at you is the invisible ring in your nose and the harness on your back.

#

[ara baliozian]

June 3, 2010

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DIARY

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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

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“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

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“Don’t talk to me about naval tradition! It’s nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash!”

Bravo beh!

#

June 4, 2010

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THE PAPACY

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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

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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

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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

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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

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BACK TO BACH

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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

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“He taught how to find originality within an established discipline; actually – how to live.”

*

SCHWEITZER ON BACH

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“In his strict polyphony a volcanic emotion and thought were embedded.”

*

STEVEN ISSERLIS

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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

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Clichés – unless in an ironic context.

Self-assessments – unless negative.

*

A QUESTION OF IDENTITY

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I question the Armenian identity of readers whose every word drips with the concentrated venom of seven Turkish vipers.

*

MONTHERLANT

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“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]

June 6, 2010

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AN ANGRY OBJECTION

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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

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QUOTATIONS

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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

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“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

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“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.

*

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY

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“And he whose soul is flat – the sky

Will cave in on him by and by.”

*

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.

*

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

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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.

*

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.”

#

[ara baliozian]

June 10, 2010

***************************************************

AN UNDIPLOMATIC EXCHANGE

***********************************

To emphasize his humble origins, Nixon once said to Khrushchev that his father had a grocery store in which he and his brothers had worked. Khrushchev's comment: “All shopkeepers are thieves.”

For more hilarious exchanges, see K BLOWS TOP: A COLD WAR COMIC INTERLUDE STARRING NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, AMERICA'S MOST UNLIKELY TOURIST by Peter Carlson (New York, 2009).

*

ANOTHER FIRST

******************************

Yesterday on the evening news on TV we were informed that a 5000-year old shoe had been discovered in Armenia. The leather shoe looked like a comfortable moccasin in excellent condition.

*

FREUD ON SHAKESPEARE

************************************

Freud thought Shakespeare was French and his real name was Jacques Pierre. And I think Cyrano de Bergerac was Armenian and his real name was Giragos. But that's only one proof of his Armenian identity, the other being the length of his nose.

*

DEFINITION (I)

*************************************

I have read several definition of courage. To insult someone anonymously and from a safe distance is not one of them.

*

DEFINITION (II)

***************************

Cicero defined freedom as “participation in power.” As far as I know, no one has ever defined freedom as saying “Yes, sir!” to idiots.

*

ON ISLAM

****************************

John Selden (1650): “The Turks tell their People of a Heaven where there is a sensible Pleasure, but of a Hell where they shall suffer they don’t know what. The Christians quite invert this order; they tell us of a Hell where we shall feel sensible Pain, but of a Heaven where we shall enjoy we can’t tell what.”

*

DEFINITION (III)

*****************************

My definition of bliss: The awareness that one is no longer dependent on the charity of swine and on the approval of morons.

#

June 11, 2010

***************************************************

KHRUSHCHEV AND THE KGB

***********************************

After he was ousted from office and acquired the status of a non-person, Khrushchev was ordered by the KGB not to write his memoir. “I refuse to obey you,” he told them. The order was unconstitutional, he said; so were the bugs placed in his home. “You stuck listening devices all over the dacha,” he told them, “even in the bathroom. You spend the people's money to eavesdrop on my farts.”

Eventually his memoir was smuggled to the West by his son. Translated and published in many countries, it became a best-seller. His son is now an American citizen.

*

READING CHAMFORT

*******************************************

Nicolas de Chamfort (1740-1794), French writer who was arrested under the Revolution and committed suicide. He is the author of THOUGHTS, MAXIMS, AND ANECDOTES, published posthumously.

*

“One is happier when one is alone because in solitude one thinks of things, but in the company of others one is forced to think of men.”

*

“Women are made to deal with our weaknesses and our foolishness, not with our reason. There exists between them and men epidermic sympathies but very few of intellect, soul, and character.”

*

“There are well-dressed foolish ideas just as there are well-dressed fools.”

*

“Nature never said 'Be thou not poor,' much less 'Be thou rich'; but she cries, 'Be thou independent!'”

*

ON MY CRITICS

**********************************

When my critics (if you will forgive the overstatement) hurl insults at me (and anonymous insults at that) it means only one thing: they have run out of arguments, assuming of course they had them to begin with -- and that's assuming a great deal.

To insult is not to criticize. And to insult anonymously is to compound stupidity with cowardice. Why would anyone be afraid of a minor scribbler who writes today and will be forgotten tomorrow? And to think that these are the offspring of men who a hundred years ago challenged the might of an empire.

A far better man than myself once said: “Once upon a time we shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech."

I repeat: why would anyone be afraid of someone like me whose most formidable weapon is his common sense – which, it has been said, is the least common of all faculties.

#

June 12, 2010

***************************************************

ON CERTAINTIES

*********************************************

The closer I get to a certainty

the more I am haunted by its contradiction.

*

I have been wrong so often that

I never know when I am right – if I am ever right.

*

I am here to assert not certainties

but to expose lies.

*

God may know

but those who speak in His name do not.

It would be more accurate to say,

it's because they don't know

that they feel the need to speak in His name.

*

There is a type of patriotism

that is reserved only for those who agree with us.

I suggest that's less patriotism and more dogmatism.

Whenever our enemies want to divide us

they rely on our dogmatism

and they are never disappointed.

*

Those who understand the past

have a better chance to predict the future.

A prophet is first and foremost a historian.

*

Both Ottomanism and Sovietism are based on the proposition

that the man at the top is always right

and to even suggest he may be wrong is treason.

*

At the root of all wars and massacres

there stands a man who says

“We are right and they are wrong.”

All crimes against humanity are consequences of that lie.

*

To adopt a propaganda line and to be wrong

might as well be synonymous.

*

I don't ask my readers to believe in what I say.

All I ask is that they learn to think for themselves – but perhaps

that's asking too much.

*

The Tree in the Garden was not of Knowledge but of Ignorance.

#

[ara baliozian]

June 13, 2010

***************************************************

CONFESSIONS OF A MEGALOMANIAC

*********************************************

My megalomania knows no bounds. I remember instances in my life when I thought my arguments were so irrefutable that they had a good chance to change the mind of an Armenian ignoramus. I keep forgetting that dupes of propaganda are never wrong.

*

Propaganda is like an old pair of shoes – after you put them, you forget about them. By contrast, a new idea is like a new pair of shoes that pinch.

*

Self-interest is the most powerful argument. All Turks have to do to convince Americans is to say that Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were like Indians on the American continent.

Victimizers speak the same language regardless of nationality.

*

People can be as smart as dogs when it comes to smelling fear.

*

I was brought up to respect authority. I now think there is hardly any difference between respect for authority and fear of authority. A man of authority knows that anyone who respects him is also intimidated by him.

*

I have yet to meet a man of authority who was not a contemptible jerk. I assume there are exceptions. But then, I write about rules not exceptions.

*

On more than one occasion I have been taken to task (a euphemism for I have been verbally abused) for not being as brilliant as Hagop Baronian. If that were a crime, I deserve to be hanged.

*

Giambattista Vico: “Crowded city life produces men who are unbelievers, who regard money as the measure of all things, and who lack moral qualities, particularly modesty…. Emancipated from ethics generally, they live by mutual spying and deceit.”

*

If you can’t contradict the idea, insult the man.

*

If you play it safe and write about birds serenading the moon or the eternal snows of Mt. Ararat, be prepared to be called a vodanavorji and ignored.

If, on the other hand, you decide to live dangerously and analyze our present situation with some degree of objectivity, be prepared to be reviled by readers who cannot chew gum and fart at the same time.

#

June 14, 2010

***************************************************

CONTEMPLATION VERSUS ACTION

*********************************************

Christ and Renaissance popes,

Luther and televangelists,

Marx and Stalin:

men of contemplation and men of action are different

to the point of being contradictions.

What one builds the other destroys.

Where one enhances our understanding,

the other bullies and moronizes.

*

You have political ambitions?

Teach yourself how to lie and how to believe in your own lies.

Be a sincere hypocrite.

Speak honestly with a forked tongue.

*

Men of power are ruthless

because where there is power

there will be those who will want to take it away from you.

Men of power know this

because they suffer from the same disease – greed for power.

*

We call our major defeats tragedies

and our minor victories triumphs.

*

Intolerance of dissent is a confession of fear –

fear of ideas, fear of words,

and fear of being unmasked for what one really is:

a coward and a fool.

Only idiots cannot see this.

Authoritarianism is a conspiracy of fools and dupes.

*

What could be more self-defeating

than an abundance of money and a total absence of ideas?

An abundance of fund-raisers

and a scarcity of intellectuals

is the surest symptom of a morally bankrupt community.

*

There are no final answers.

Neither are there perfect answers.

An idea makes perfect sense

only when its contradiction or antithesis is suppressed,

that is to say, when progress is arrested.

*

Mankind has always been at the mercy of better organized fools.

*

Wars are declared by fools and fought by dupes.

*

The only way to understand our enemies

is by being objective about ourselves.

#

June 15, 2010

***************************************************

DEAD END

*********************************************

When one side says one thing and the other the exact opposite for one hundred years, we have no choice but to conclude either one side or both are obstinate, dogmatic, self-righteous, and intolerant of dissent.

Has anyone ever said we are open-minded, tolerant, willing to engage in dialogue, and eager to develop a consensus by means of compromise?

Has anyone ever said diplomacy is our strong suit?

If Armenian cannot agree with Armenian, can he ever agree with the Turk?

I am not casting aspersions, just asking questions.

*

ARMENIAN ETIQUETTE

*******************************

When you don't understand what you read, call the writer an idiot.

When you disagree with what he writes, call him a traitor.

*

KHRUSHCHEV ON DE GAULLE

**************************************

“Was he smart or stupid? For a while he was considered an idiot and a fascist. But in fact he was a very smart fellow.”

*

KHRUSHCHEV ON MALRAUX

*****************************************

“De Gaulle's Minister of Culture was a well-known writer. I think he had the same last name as that other famous French writer, Moliere.”

Which reminds me of the story that when Malraux was named the winner of the Nobel Prize, Mailer received several congratulatory calls from American friends.

*

REFLECTIONS

*********************************

Some day even the most absurd occurrence may make perfect sense, but by then the perceiver and the occurrence may well be one and the same.

*

About Armenians and Turks: There is probably something true in the saying that if you hate somebody too much it may be because you see yourself in him.

*

When I was young I was unteachable. Hence my intolerance of phony pundits.

There is an old Spanish saying: “Women and horses: let someone else tame them.”

And I say: “A horse’s ass: let a shrew tame him.”

#

June 16, 2010

***************************************************

RANDOM THOUGHTS

*********************************************

“The true source of wisdom,” Socrates tells us,

“is not knowledge but moderation.”

*

I don’t look for enemies;

they find me.

*

Just because a man is not bought and sold

it doesn’t follow he is not a slave.

Likewise, just because we silence critics

it doesn’t follow we are not open to criticism.

*

It was Kant who said that very often

ignorance is nothing but cowardice in the face of knowledge.

*

Self-criticism is not treason.

Silencing criticism is.

*

An insult is as difficult to refute as a massacre,

perhaps because it is verbal massacre.

*

According to Buddha:

“That which is spoken, heard, and understood

are three different things.”

What scathing book reviews Buddha would have written

of the Bible and the Koran!

*

Our history is an apt illustration of Murphy's Law:

“If things can go wrong

they will go wrong at the worst possible time.”

*

The aim of philosophy is to open the mind.

The aim of a belief system is to close it.

*

When I hear the word Islam,

the first four words that come to mind are:

giaour, imam, fatwa, and jihad;

and I loathe these words as much I loathe the words

boss, bishop, benefactor, and commissar.

#

[abricotine]

hello!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

10) What is the one thing you would like to see happen in the world?

Peace and brotherhood.

 

 

Amen.

very very good answer,and what else?

[ara baliozian]

June 17, 2010

***************************************************

A SUGGESTION

*********************************************

Juvenal: “No one ever reached the depths of wickedness all at once.”

*

Since so far divisions have been of no discernible use to us, why not give solidarity a chance to fail on its own demerits?

*

Divisions begin as aberrations by overambitious leaders who care more about their own powers and privileges than the welfare of the people. It's never too late to see this and begin a movement in the opposite direction.

*

Divisions are expensive luxuries. By contrast, solidarity is much cheaper. One school, one community center, and one place of worship for every large community, would save enough money to feed and house thousands of families living below the poverty line in the Homeland.

*

It should be mandatory to include the initial “S” (for Solidarity) in the acronyms of all our organizations.

*

WANTED

**********************

Speechifiers who will unleash a verbal torrent thick with insults to dead ancestors; and comedians who will make merciless fun of our dividers.

*

READING

**********************

I have been reading two books on the ephemeral nature of power and wealth, especially when they are illegally, not to say criminally, obtained:

THE MADOFF CHRONICLES by Brian Ross (New York, 2009), and

KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS: THE LAST TESTAMENT, Translated and edited by Edward Cranshaw (Boston, 1974).

*

Brian Ross on Bernard and Ruth Madoff's lifestyle: “They sought the 'old money' look, even though their money was freshly stolen.”

*

Khrushchev hated Stalin but loved using the power amassed and concentrated by him.

*

ONE-LINERS

*********************************

Among Armenians, yesterday’s friend may be (and often is) today’s enemy, but today’s enemy will never be tomorrow’s friend.

*

I repeat myself because I am told again and again that the earth is flat.

*

The credo of all ideologues and partisans should begin with the words: “I believe in a false god….”

*

If you are wrong, they may forgive you. But if you are right, they will silence you.

#

June 18, 2010

***************************************************

FROM ZERO TO INFINITY

*********************************************

Not all stories in one's life have a clear or even a discernible beginning and end. “At the beginning was the word” is a sentence conceived and written by men, not by God or Reality. It is more likely that both beginnings and ends in one's life take place when we are asleep, sometimes even long before we were born.

Our genocide began 600 years ago when we surrendered our destiny into the hands of the Sultan, and even long before that, when we welcomed our enemies by failing to present a united front to them.

*

READING KHRUSHCHEV

************************************

In his memoirs Khrushchev speaks of “loafers, charlatans and toadies who overcrowd our institutes, bloating the staffs and gobbling up state funds without giving anything in return.” And I think of our own institutes – schools, churches, centers, political and cultural organizations – and above all newspapers (with their respective publishers, editors, assistant editors, and correspondents) of which we have a good number when one or two will do just as well – assuming their function is to publish news (as opposed to pushing their respective propaganda line) and not to provide employment to loafers, charlatans, and brown-nosers.

*

“SMALL PEOPLE,” AND “LIFE BACK”

***********************************************

It is in thoughtless moments that we reveal our real thoughts – as BP executives may have realized by now.

*

DOSTOEVSKY SPEAKS

***************************************

“Russian thought is preparing a grandiose renovation for the entire world…and this will occur in about a century – that’s my passionate belief.”

There you have it: one of the greatest writers of all time confusing wishful thinking with prophecy -- all in the name of faith and patriotism, of course.

*

AN ARMENIAN PERVERSION

**********************************************

Instead of studying our present complexes and contradictions, our academics prefer to study our graves.

#

June 19, 2010

***************************************************

NOTES AND COMMENTS

*********************************************

In Saramago's obituary I read this morning: “A militant atheist who maintained that human history would have been a lot more peaceful if it weren't for religion, his novels are preoccupied with the question of God.” Which reminds me of the words of a theologian (Karl Barth?) who said: “You may let go of God but God will never let you go.”

*

First you are taught to respect your elders, then you are lied to.

*

Better a useful idiot than a useless genius.

*

If I disappoint some readers it may be because I dare to think for myself as opposed to delivering the same speeches and sermons they were exposed to as children.

*

To those who accuse me of pessimism, I say: To write is to hope, and to hope is a symptom of optimism.

*

Capitalism is morally superior to communism if only because greed for money is better than greed for power.

*

More often than not bias is expressed in the selection of facts rather than in their misinterpretation.

*

Jean Rostand: “There are some persons we could not cut down to size without diminishing ourselves as well.”

*

Anonymous: “Skinheads have more hair than brains.”

*

Anonymous: “A friend in need is history.”

*

Once in a while I am tempted to remind my fellow Armenians that there is more, much more, to being Armenian than Turks and massacres.

#

[ara baliozian]

hello!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

10) What is the one thing you would like to see happen in the world?

Peace and brotherhood.

 

 

Amen.

very very good answer,and what else?

 

a cure for incurable diseases and end of poverty.

[abricotine]

a cure for incurable diseases and end of poverty.

 

 

Thank you, armenian Doctor.

[abricotine]

June 17, 2010

***************************************************

A SUGGESTION

*********************************************

Juvenal: “No one ever reached the depths of wickedness all at once.”

*

Since so far divisions have been of no discernible use to us, why not give solidarity a chance to fail on its own demerits?

*

Divisions begin as aberrations by overambitious leaders who care more about their own powers and privileges than the welfare of the people. It's never too late to see this and begin a movement in the opposite direction.

*

Divisions are expensive luxuries. By contrast, solidarity is much cheaper. One school, one community center, and one place of worship for every large community, would save enough money to feed and house thousands of families living below the poverty line in the Homeland.

*

It should be mandatory to include the initial “S” (for Solidarity) in the acronyms of all our organizations.

*

WANTED

**********************

Speechifiers who will unleash a verbal torrent thick with insults to dead ancestors; and comedians who will make merciless fun of our dividers.

*

READING

**********************

I have been reading two books on the ephemeral nature of power and wealth, especially when they are illegally, not to say criminally, obtained:

THE MADOFF CHRONICLES by Brian Ross (New York, 2009), and

KHRUSHCHEV REMEMBERS: THE LAST TESTAMENT, Translated and edited by Edward Cranshaw (Boston, 1974).

*

Brian Ross on Bernard and Ruth Madoff's lifestyle: “They sought the 'old money' look, even though their money was freshly stolen.”

*

Khrushchev hated Stalin but loved using the power amassed and concentrated by him.

*

ONE-LINERS

*********************************

Among Armenians, yesterday’s friend may be (and often is) today’s enemy, but today’s enemy will never be tomorrow’s friend.

*

I repeat myself because I am told again and again that the earth is flat.

*

The credo of all ideologues and partisans should begin with the words: “I believe in a false god….”

*

If you are wrong, they may forgive you. But if you are right, they will silence you.

#

June 18, 2010

***************************************************

FROM ZERO TO INFINITY

*********************************************

Not all stories in one's life have a clear or even a discernible beginning and end. “At the beginning was the word” is a sentence conceived and written by men, not by God or Reality. It is more likely that both beginnings and ends in one's life take place when we are asleep, sometimes even long before we were born.

Our genocide began 600 years ago when we surrendered our destiny into the hands of the Sultan, and even long before that, when we welcomed our enemies by failing to present a united front to them.

*

READING KHRUSHCHEV

************************************

In his memoirs Khrushchev speaks of “loafers, charlatans and toadies who overcrowd our institutes, bloating the staffs and gobbling up state funds without giving anything in return.” And I think of our own institutes – schools, churches, centers, political and cultural organizations – and above all newspapers (with their respective publishers, editors, assistant editors, and correspondents) of which we have a good number when one or two will do just as well – assuming their function is to publish news (as opposed to pushing their respective propaganda line) and not to provide employment to loafers, charlatans, and brown-nosers.

*

“SMALL PEOPLE,” AND “LIFE BACK”

***********************************************

It is in thoughtless moments that we reveal our real thoughts – as BP executives may have realized by now.

*

DOSTOEVSKY SPEAKS

***************************************

“Russian thought is preparing a grandiose renovation for the entire world…and this will occur in about a century – that’s my passionate belief.”

There you have it: one of the greatest writers of all time confusing wishful thinking with prophecy -- all in the name of faith and patriotism, of course.

*

AN ARMENIAN PERVERSION

**********************************************

Instead of studying our present complexes and contradictions, our academics prefer to study our graves.

#

June 19, 2010

***************************************************

NOTES AND COMMENTS

*********************************************

In Saramago's obituary I read this morning: “A militant atheist who maintained that human history would have been a lot more peaceful if it weren't for religion, his novels are preoccupied with the question of God.” Which reminds me of the words of a theologian (Karl Barth?) who said: “You may let go of God but God will never let you go.”

*

First you are taught to respect your elders, then you are lied to.

*

Better a useful idiot than a useless genius.

*

If I disappoint some readers it may be because I dare to think for myself as opposed to delivering the same speeches and sermons they were exposed to as children.

*

To those who accuse me of pessimism, I say: To write is to hope, and to hope is a symptom of optimism.

*

Capitalism is morally superior to communism if only because greed for money is better than greed for power.

*

More often than not bias is expressed in the selection of facts rather than in their misinterpretation.

*

Jean Rostand: “There are some persons we could not cut down to size without diminishing ourselves as well.”

*

Anonymous: “Skinheads have more hair than brains.”

*

Anonymous: “A friend in need is history.”

*

Once in a while I am tempted to remind my fellow Armenians that there is more, much more, to being Armenian than Turks and massacres.

#

 

 

 

 

AN ARMENIAN PERVERSION

**********************************************

Instead of studying our present complexes and contradictions, our academics prefer to study our graves.

 

 

Sorry, but I think that you are according too much power to your academics.

 

 

 

#

[ara baliozian]

June 20, 2010

***************************************************

SKINHEADS ARE NOTBORN BUT MADE

*********************************************

 

QUESTION: Who is a skinhead? Can you define him?

 

ANSWER: If you insult those who disagree with you, you qualify. It goes without saying that where there are skinheads, there will also be architects of a context within which skinheads thrive. Likewise, where there is racism, there will also be academics, historians, political and religious leaders and pundits who will equate patriotism with fascism.

 

Q: Do we have such a thing as a dominant idea today, and if we do, how would you define it?

 

A: Turcocentrism is our dominant idea and I would define it as the misconception that Turks are the source of all our misfortunes. It goes without saying that Turks deserve all the epithets we heap on them. It is equally true that we could heap the same number of epithets and then some on ourselves and our own leadership.

 

Q: Such as?

 

A: Incompetence, lack of self-reliance, ignorance of history, divisiveness, tribalism, intolerance, myopia bordering on blindness, inability to discriminate fact from propaganda, too much dependence on benefactors and charity and hardly any discernible effort on exposing and eliminating corruption.

 

Q: How do we combat these aberrations?

 

A: We begin by not silencing or insulting those who disagree with us.

 

#

June 21, 2010

***************************************************

READING GANDHI

*********************************************

“We hold that the civilization that you support

to be the reverse of civilization.”

*

“I am fighting against three opponents:

the British, the Indians, myself.”

*

“Violence is a result of fear.

Dishonesty is fear.

Fearlessness is the key to Truth.”

*

“God is neither in heaven, nor down below,

but in everyone.”

*

This last quotation might as well be a paraphrase of

“The Kingdom of God is within you.”

But if the Kingdom of God is within us,

so is the Empire of the Devil.

How else to explain wars, massacres, and man's inhumanity to man?

*

And speaking of fear:

I think of readers

who insult me anonymously

and from a safe distance.

What are they afraid of?

What else but being exposed for what they really are –

skinheads who have been brainwashed by liars.

*

More often than not men look up to liars for moral guidance

and are more than willing to kill and die in the name of a lie.

How else to explain organized religions

and religious wars, persecutions, and intolerance?

*

Primitive man was wiser and more civilized

when he believed in an unknown and unknowable Power

which was the source of all good as well as evil.

#

June 22, 2010

***************************************************

KIND WORDS

*********************************************

“What have you really done for your country and fellow countrymen?” I am asked once in a while by readers who, as dupes of “men of action,” have been brought up to believe contemplation is a waste of time and those who engage in it no better than mental masturbators.

To them I say: Sometimes what we don't do can be as important as what we do.

Allow me therefore to tell you what I have not done:

*

I have never said, as God's favorite people, we can do no wrong.

I have never spoken in the name of God (whom I believe to be incomprehensible) or Truth (which I believer to be unknowable).

I have at no time tried to legitimize our failings by saying we have none.

Neither have I covered up our contradictions of which we have many.

I have not treated my readers as dupes who will believe anything they are told.

I have never written a Panchoonie letter that ends with the line: “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money).

I have not violated anyone's human rights by silencing him.

I have never said “Yes, sir!” to leaders whose number one concern is number one.

I have consistently refused to join the chorus of our Turcocentric ghazetajis and speechifiers in ascribing all our defeats and catastrophes to our enemies and phony friends.

*

Have I accomplished anything?

I don't know.

What are my chances that some day I may succeed where far better men than myself have failed?

Probably next to none.

Why do I go on writing?

That is a question I ask myself every day and so far I have failed to come up with a remotely satisfactory answer.

Am I a useless member of the community?

If I am, I do not consider that to be entirely my own fault, but the fault of readers who believe action (even the wrong action) to be superior to contemplation.

*

In a commentary in today's paper I read the following quotation by Al Capone: “You get much further with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.”

If so far I have failed, it may be because I have used only kind words.

#

June 23, 2010

***************************************************

DANGEROUS WORDS

*********************************************

If I were to name the two most dangerous words, they would have to be “I believe.”

*

The wold is too ready to criticize and condemn Jews for the suffering they have inflicted on Palestinians during the last decades but less willing to criticize the world for the suffering that has inflicted on Jews during the last centuries, not to say millennia. I call this disparity a symptom not of anti-Zionism but of anti-Semitism – an 'ism” or a belief system as dangerous as any organized religion that has declared and fought wars, committed massacres, and murdered innocent civilians in the name of God or Truth.

*

Speaking of religions with their holy books and monopolistic claims: I suggest they should be judged not by their intentions or principles but by their history. Theory is one thing, practice another. Ideologies like nationalism and communism may have good, even noble intentions, but their abuses have been such that even some of their most dedicated adherents had no choice but to reject them.

*

As for capitalism: recent economic and political developments in America have made it abundantly clear that in practice, it means free enterprise for the poor and the unemployed, and socialism for the rich and chief executive officers.

*

Organized religions like Christianity and Islam have not only behaved as though they had a license to kill not only the foreign infidel but also the domestic heretic. Consider the case of Catholics versus Protestants, or Shiites versus Sunnis...

*

A belief system acts on the human brain like a potent drug or alcohol.

*

And speaking of drugs and chief executive officers: Early this morning I heard on the radio that the tobacco industry has given up the claim that smoking is not addictive or that it does not cause cancer. We may now look forward to the day when the Pope of Rome will also give up his absurd claim of infallibility. But I for one am not holding my breath.

#

[ara baliozian]

AN ARMENIAN PERVERSION

**********************************************

Instead of studying our present complexes and contradictions, our academics prefer to study our graves.

 

 

Sorry, but I think that you are according too much power to your academics.

 

 

 

#

 

power? yes, in so far as they educate/shape the mind of future generations.

[ara baliozian]

June 24, 2010

***************************************************

MORAL OF THE STORY

*********************************************

To be brainwashed means to be blind to reality.

I speak from experience.

*

If God is love,

why is it that there is so little of it in jungles

(both natural and man-made or asphalt)

or anywhere else for that matter?

Are we to assume gardens are planted by God

and jungles by the Devil?

Who in his right mind

would introduce an evil serpent in a beautiful garden

knowing full well what will happen next?

If we are dealing with symbols

whose intent is to understand and explain reality,

then I suggest the explanation is not a very convicning one.

Which is why it is rejected by the majority of mankind.

God's ways are not our ways?

If so, let us agree once and for all

that He is incomprehensible and unknowable

and theologians who try to explain His actions

are no better than charlatans and blasphemers.

*

Moral of the story:

Don't be a dupe!

#

June 25, 2010

***************************************************

REFLECTIONS

ON OUR PRESENT SITUATION

*********************************************

Nothing can be more misleading than to think the men at the top know better.

*

History is made not by people who know better but by charlatans who have mastered the skill of organizing dupes.

*

When a member of the Party writes, it is not his brain that speaks but his loyalty. No one can be as brainless as a partisan.

*

The moment you surrender your freedom of thought to a closed system, you cease to think for yourself.

*

History is the propaganda of the victor, we are told. What we are not told is that losers too have their propaganda line whose intent is to make them look blameless and morally superior.

*

To think of oneself as morally superior is the surest symptom of moral bankruptcy.

*

If there are those who prefer the victor's propaganda to the loser's boast, it may be because they think winners may know something losers don't.

*

The only endeavor in which our Turcocentric ghazetajis have succeeded so far is grooming another generation of haters and braggarts.

*

Where the profit motive is supreme, there will be first-class merchants and an abundance of dead poets.

*

We have been brainwashed to believe politics is a filthy business, except of course our politics.

*

We don't choose our belief system, it is thrust on us.

*

It is a well-know fact that you can teach children to believe anything.

*

Prejudices are as carefully taught as the multiplication table.

*

That which is good for the few is bound to be bad for the many.

*

Anyone whose powers and privileges depend on the support of the people, will never say anything remotely critical against a system that allows the brainwashing of children.

*

At the root of all crimes against humanity, there will be a generation of brainwashed children.

*

As long as we think criticism and dissent are un-Armenian, we will never acquire the status of human beings – or “mart bidi ch'ellank.”

#

June 26, 2010

***************************************************

PARALLELS

*********************************************

The Palestinians have been so consistently wrong in overestimating their military might and in believing they can defeat the Israelis that nothing they say can be trusted. I am not talking about right and wrong here, or about principles and moral values. I am dealing with facts. Morally superior losers are a dime a dozen. Neither am I talking about the Palestinian people in general, most of whom are no doubt very much like most other people, including ourselves, dupes of their incompetent and megalomaniacal leadership, and as such guilty only of poor judgment.

*

When the popes sanctioned the persecution and torture of heretics, what were they defending? God or their own power?

When heretics were willing to die for what they believed in, what were they defending -- beside their freedom of thought?

*

To say that those in power are more interested in the truth than philosophers is to ignore such facts as countless wars and massacres.

*

A charlatan is one who not only claims to have the final answers but also to know better than you what you should think, feel, and believe.

*

Minor errors of judgment are covered up and ignored; but catastrophic blunders are explained, justified, and believed. I suggest truth is not what deceivers and their dupes conspire to believe in.

*

When it comes to reading, we tend to reject ideas, feelings, and values that do not spring from our own experience. It is almost as if the purpose of reading were to reinforce and legitimize our limitations, prejudices, and fallacies. Knowing this, propagandists and charlatans (but I repeat myself) are more than willing to adjust their message to the lies that are most in demand.

#

[ara baliozian]

June 27, 2010

***************************************************

SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO

*********************************************

When men in a position of power and responsibility

promise one thing and deliver the opposite,

I call that much worse than incompetence,

I call it criminal conduct.

When our revolutionaries promised

freedom, independence and our historic lands

and they delivered

massacres, starvation, pestilence, and dispersion,

and having done so they now say

none of it was their fault

and they are believed by dupes,

I call that much worse than

b.s., lies, and charlatanism;

I call it the quintessence of evil.

*

I love books that expose b.s.

One such book that I enjoyed recently is

Laura Penny's

YOUR CALL IS IMPORTANT TO US:

THE TRUTH ABOUT BULLSHIT.

In this morning's paper

I read that Laura Penny has published another book titled

MORE MONEY THAN BRAINS:

WHY SCHOOL SUCKS,

COLLEGE IS CRAP

AND IDIOTS THINK THEY'RE RIGHT.

I have something to look forward to.

#

June 28, 2010

***************************************************

THE KING IS DEAD,

LONG LIVE THE KING!

*********************************************

Prophets and reformers may change the world

but they cannot change human nature.

What have the major religions really changed?

The 20th century has seen more revolutions, wars, and massacres

than at any other time in history.

That's because human nature tends to adapt,

that is to say, to lower

the noblest ideas and ideals

to its own level, namely the gutter.

*

I suspect the honesty and integrity of men

who subscribe to a belief system

simply because as children

they were educated (that is, brainwashed)

to trust and respect their elders.

I am not saying

all Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and Marxists are dupes.

I am saying most of them are.

Exceptions exist.

But I don't speak of exceptions.

I speak of rules.

*

Reformers may change the power structure

but not human nature.

And changing the power structure means

replacing one set of rascals with another.

You gain nothing by replacing one sultan

with many mini-sultans,

or one czar with many commissars,

and many commissars

with many more crypto- or neo-commissars.

#

June 29, 2010

***************************************************

SELF-ANALYSIS

*********************************************

Confucius: “If you see a good man, emulate him.

If you see a bad man, examine your own heart.”

*

If you want to know what's wrong with us,

Naregatsi tells us, examine your conscience.

Exposing and naming your own sins

is more important than

bitching endlessly about your enemies.

In that sense, Naregatsi, like so many of our writers

from Khorenatsi to Zarian,

may be said to have been a dissident.

*

You want to know why I write the way I write?

To keep alive the voice of dissent in our media.

*

If revolution is organized and armed dissent,

I may be said to be an unarmed and solitary revolutionary.

Which is why I feel justified in maintaining

I am not silenced by the offspring of revolutionaries

who dared to challenge the might of an empire,

but by empty suits whose greatest enemy

is neither the Turk nor the Russian,

but their own fear of being exposed as cowards.

#

June 30, 2010

***************************************************

ON OUR MEDIA

*********************************************

Freedom of the press will not turn bad writers into good ones.

Granted. It may, however, de-emphasize Turcocentrism,

which shamelessly exploits our emotions

and distracts us from focusing on our present problems

of which we have many.

*

SCUMBAGS (I)

***********************

A capitalist makes money at other people's expense

and to combat his guilt, he builds churches

and by doing so he compounds his felony

by making the blasphemous assumption that

God can be bribed by scumbags.

*

A MATTER OF CHOICE

*********************************

The world or reality provides evidence

for contradictory belief systems.

As a result, both a believer and non-believer

will find all the evidence they need

to justify their choice of credo

and to accuse the other of siding with the devil.

Our convictions are not based in reality

but on our perception of it

and our choice of evidence.

*

SCUMBAGS (II)

*****************************

There is a type of scumbag

who thinks the only way to prove he is right

and the other wrong

is by going down into the gutter

on the assumption that a decent man

will refuse to follow him there.

But then he runs the risk

of running into a scumbag like me

who can take it as well as dish it out.

#

[ara baliozian]

July 1, 2010

***************************************************

ON BEING RIGHT

*********************************************

Being right has nothing to do with logic, common sense, and evidence. Being right is a state of mind which can be controlled by auto-suggestion. If you want to assert superior knowledge, assume you are right, raise your voice, or pull rank. Once when I disagreed with a bishop, he said: “I have a degree in theology from a university in Rome.” Which is why whenever a coward insults me anonymously and from a safe distance, I say: “You must be a bishop or the son of one.”

*

OUR BETTERS

*******************************

Heine's definition of aristocrats: “Asses who talk about horses.”

We don't have aristocrats. What we have are empty suits with money; and in our environment money doesn't just talk, it sings like Pavarotti even when it brays like an ass.

*

ON SOLUTIONS

******************************

To readers who demand solutions from me, I ask: “How many problems have our Turcocentric ghazetajis solved?” And now consider the number of real problems we could have solved with the money, energy, and manpower wasted on Hai Tahd.

#

July 2, 2010

***************************************************

THAT WHICH WE SHARE

*********************************************

Every Armenian is different, granted.

But all Armenians share in common the same history,

the most salient feature of which is

a thousand years of subservience to ruthless and alien tyrants.

In “Rule Britannia” the Brits may sing the words

“An Englishman cannot be a slave,”

but we are in no position to make the same claim.

Subservience – a euphemism for slavery –

comes so naturally to us that

it has become an integral part

of our psyche, character, and worldview.

Our nationalist historians may rewrite history,

but so far none of them has gone as far as suggesting

that we are all reincarnations of David of Sassoun.

*

It is true that at the turn of the last century

we finally did produce a generation of revolutionaries

who dared to challenge the might of the Ottoman Goliath.

But unlike the American, French, and Russian revolutions

ours wasn't exactly a popular uprising;

and worse, our revolutionaries relied less on themselves

to carry out their mission

and more on the Great Powers of the West.

As a result, in addition to being an abortion,

our revolution may be said to have been

one of the greatest blunders in the history of mankind.

*

If we were to rely less on our propaganda

and more on historic realty,

we shall have to conclude that

our past is a litany of internecine conflicts,

defeats, blunders, and lies.

*

Am I saying anything that hasn't been said before?

Listen to Nigoghos Sarafian (1905-1973):

“Our history is a litany of lamentation,

anxiety, horror, and massacre. Also deception

and abysmal naiveté mixed with the smoke of incense

and the sound of sacred chants.”

*

Raffi (Hagop Melik-Hagopian: 1835-1888):

“We are like sheep without a shepherd.”

*

Baruir Massikian (1912-1990):

“Instead of books, they want basterma.”

By “books” Massikian means writers

who assume the role of honest witnesses.

*

As a nation we have no use for honest witnesses.

We prefer vodanavorjis who, in the words of

Leo (Arakel Babakhanian: 1858-1925):

“...like birds perched on a branch

and at a safe distance from reality,

they have entertained the moon and the stars

by singing songs about roses and virgins.”

*

I am all for emphasizing the positive,

but I am against bare-faced lies,

and I am deeply offended whenever I am treated

like a cowardly dupe whose favorite words are “Yes, sir!”

*

Allow me to conclude with a remark

by President Harry S. Truman:

“There is nothing new in the world

except the history you don't know.”

#

July 3, 2010

***************************************************

THE NEGATIVE AND THE POSITIVE

*********************************************

Because I refuse to recycle propaganda,

I am told I am consistently negative.

Charents said our salvation is in our solidarity;

and all I have been saying is,

solidarity, very much like the Kingdom of God,

is within us.

It is an act of will within everyone's reach.

*

If so far we have failed to achieve solidarity

it may be because we have trusted our fate

into the hands of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors.

To those who say our leaders are essentially good men

who are doing their best

under unfavorable conditions, I ask:

How so? By ignoring the word of the very same God

they profess to believe in, and Who tells us

“a house divided against itself cannot stand”?

Who is being consistently negative here?

Those who promote solidarity

or those who divide the nation?

And why do they divide us?

Does anyone know?

Can anyone enlighten me on that score?

*

Our divisions are buried in our past?

What past? If you rewrite history

you can justify anything;

and if you don't want to learn from history

you rewrite it.

It's a vicious circle.

*

Dealing in abstractions is easy.

The question is: What do we do in concrete terms?

I suggest the following:

If you are a Protestant, Catholic, or Anteliassagan,

visit the opposition.

If you are a Tashnak, apply for membership

in the Ramgavar Party and vice versa.

You may discover that all Armenians

regardless of their loyalty to a party or church

are human beings like you

– that is to say, dupes of propaganda.

*

Sooner or later we all have to discover that

not only all Armenians are brothers,

but also all men, including Turks.

#

[ara baliozian]

July 4, 2010

***************************************************

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION

*********************************************

Nations and empires die as surely as individuals.

Scientists tell us the same fate awaits

not only the planet on which we live

but also the universe itself.

I doubt if I or anyone else

can postpone the inevitable final catastrophe

by even a fraction of a second.

Perhaps I write the way I write

not to save anything or anyone or, for that matter, myself,

but to kill time.

*

The older I grow the more doubts I have

and the more certain I feel

of the essential meaninglessness and absurdity of life.

The idea itself of saving someone strikes me as an empty illusion.

There are those who identify the Messiah as our Savior.

There are also those who assert He,

or rather His followers,

saved no one and nothing;

if anything they made things worse

by legitimizing intolerance, the persecution and torture of dissenters,

and religious wars, among other horrors.

Their intentions may have been good – no one denies that –

but history – including our own -- tells us

“the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

“No one can save another,” the Buddha has said.

Which, if anything, proves that even messianic figures

contradict one another when it comes to

unraveling the mystery of existence,

or when they speak in the name of

the Unknowable and the Incomprehensible.

*

I believe true knowledge consists less in what we know

and more in what we don't know;

and what we don't know

exceeds what we know to such a degree

that if we had all the answers

what we now think we know would shrink to nothingness.

Why do I write?

Wrong question.

A better question would be,

why mankind has consistently trusted deceivers more than honest men?

#

July 5, 2010

***************************************************

HOW PROPAGANDA WORKS

*********************************************

Propaganda works because it flatters, and flattery is an offer very few people have the strength of character to refuse or reject.

“Fatigue increases suggestibility,” we are told by Pavlov of conditioned-reflex fame. After centuries of subservience and degradation we readily believe in the big lies of our propaganda, among them the illusion that we are smart.

Germans under Hitler behaved like barbarians with the unshakable conviction that they belonged to a superior or master race.

Speaking for myself: in my youth I was so convinced of my high IQ that I refused to learn from those I viewed as my equals or inferiors even when they were far ahead of me in understanding and dealing with reality. Which amounts to saying, those I viewed as my inferiors were in fact my superiors.

*

Do Yanks trust gold more than God? It depends on whether you are a partisan of fact or fiction. It goes without saying that the average American is convinced Americans are the most religious and idealistic people on earth.

If in crime it's cherchez la femme, in propaganda it's cherchez the truth or fact that it attempts to contradict or cover up.

*

Propaganda, Aldous Huxley tells us, “cunningly associates the lowest passions with the highest ideals.” It also contradicts the truth with lies.

When Pope Benedict decided to make his anti-Muslim views public, he quoted a Byzantine emperor on Islam's addiction to violence. A bad choice for which he had to apologize, because, to paraphrase a popular American saying, “Violence is as American as cherry pie,” or again, as Christian as Western imperialism.

A better choice on the part of the Pope would have been Islam's promise of a paradise where sex-starved teenagers are allowed to deflowers a harem of virgins.

Christian paradise promises eternal bliss. No mention of sex. This may explain why we have a lower suicide rate in the West. Who in his right mind would kill himself in the name of a poorly defined metaphysical abstraction?

#

July 6, 2010

***************************************************

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

*********************************************

Hegel's famous last words:

“No one understood me except one, and even he didn't understand me.”

Who among us can truly claim that he has been understood or,

for that matter, that he understands himself?

*

Confronted with the impenetrable mystery of life and death, men have constructed countless belief systems all of which claim to have a monopoly on truth.

We disagree on what we think we know and understand.

We disagree even more on things we neither know nor understand. Misunderstanding may be said to be our most abundant commodity.

For a thousand years men believed the earth to be flat and at the center of the universe, in the same way that today we believe the dimension in which we exist is the only dimension because we cannot conceive of any other.

*

If God exists, He is not and cannot be what we believe Him to be but something as inconceivable and incomprehensible as the line that scientists tell us separates existence from nothingness -- on the grounds that the universe is not infinite.

The paradox is that to have an idea of nothingness we think of existence before we were born, as if nothingness were an extension of being.

*

What if God exists in a dimension beside which existence as we know it is as nothingness?

Please note that I am not making any assertions, only asking questions, which may well be our only option when dealing with metaphysics -- asking questions without ever giving in to the temptation of making dogmatic assertions. Because, as we should all know by now, the road to hell is paved with dogmatic assertions.

#

July 7, 2010

***************************************************

GOOD ADVICE

*********************************************

Winston Churchill:

“Never hold discussions with the monkey

when the organ grinder is in the room.”

Which is why I ignore cowardly, loud-mouth idiots

who call me an idiot anonymously and from a safe distance.

They are not my targets.

My real targets are the fascist idiots

who brainwashed them to believe

dissent and free speech are unpatriotic.

*

According to Heidegger,

before we pretend to have the right answers,

we must learn to ask the right questions.

What have we learned from our history so far?

Only this: We are surrounded by ruthless giants,

as opposed to being self-righteous dogmatic midgets

who have learned nothing because they think

they already have all the answers.

*

Which one of our political parties

may be said to be on the right path?

One way to answer that question

is by quoting Samuel Johnson:

“Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency

between a louse and a flea.”

#

[ara baliozian]

July 8, 2010

**********************

PHILOSOPHY

*********************************************

Faith can move mountains?

What nonsense!

God created mountains to be stationary.

Why would anyone want to challenge His will

by moving them?

*

You tell idiots

faith can move mountains

and next thing you know

they raise armies,

go on the warpath

liberating distant lands,

converting infidels,

and engaging in plunder and massacre.

*

If we don't know the meaning of life and death

it may be because God wanted it that way.

Not knowing is not ignorance.

Pretending to know the unknowable:

that's what I call the quintessence of ignorance

compounded by blasphemy.

*

Tasting the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge

can be a risky business.

But when it comes to learning from history

or repeating it,

men have exhibited a marked preference

for repeating it.

*

Three of my favorite philosophical statements:

“Of the gods we know nothing” (Socrates).

“We don't know why things exist” (Heidegger).

“We believe that we believe but we don't believe” (Sartre).

*

“I think therefore I am”?

Countless men have ceased to be

exactly because some moron said:

“I think my belief system to be the only true one

and anyone who does not think as I do

doesn't deserve to live.”

#

July 9, 2010

**********************

POWEER AND TRUTH

*********************************************

Power will listen to truth only if it (truth) can be exploited.

Which amounts to saying,

only in so far as truth may serve a lie.

When I speak of truth, I include God.

And I am not talking in terms of theoretical abstractions here.

I am talking about history; and more particularly

the bloody history of organized religions,

about which Voltaire said:

“Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors.”

*

A true atheist is not one who denies His existence,

but one who exploits the idea of God to serve the Devil.

*

You think I have a suspicious mind?

Read James Joyce who saw deception and charlatanism everywhere,

including Freud and Jung, who, said he,

enjoy some degree of popularity

with the “yung [who are] easily freudened.”

But when his (Joyce's) daughter developed a mental illness,

he sought Jung's help who was of no help.

Which may suggest that even those who warn us against deceivers

are themselves vulnerable to deception.

*

To be taken in by smart operators is bad enough.

What is infinitely worse is to be taken in by idiots.

I speak from experience.

If I ever write an autobiography,

I suspect the longest chapter in it will be

about idiots who deceived me – or rather,

were smart enough to see my vulnerabilities and weaknesses

and I was idiotic enough to make them visible.

#

July 10, 2010

**********************

IN THE NAME OF THE ALMIGHTY

*********************************************

Experience, it has been said, is not what happens to us,

but what we do with what happens.

So far we have emphasized the Genocide to the point of obsession,

but we have made no effort to deal with it.

As a result, we have only replaced the “red” massacre

with the “white” (alienation and assimilation).

*

At all times and everywhere, Hegel tells us,

man is given two choices:

to say “Yes, sir!” to his Master,

or to risk his own life (or means of survival) by saying “No!”

To behave either like a sheep or a wolf.

*

After six centuries of playing the sheep,

some of us – a tiny and non-representative group

of self-appointed revolutionaries -- turned into wolves

by risking the survival of the community,

and what was bound to happen happened.

The sheep were slaughtered and the wolves survived.

*

The wolves survived and became our new Masters.

Dissent is out!

Saying no is anathema.

In the same way that once upon a time

we were not allowed to say no to the Sultan

(who spoke in the name of Allah),

today we are not allowed to say no to our bosses

(or neo- or crypto-sultans),

or bishops (who speak in the name of God),

or benefactors (who speak in the name of Capital).

*

Christianity, Hegel tells us, only replaced the human Master

with the Divine Master.

Likewise, Capital (according to Marx

who was greatly influence by Hegel)

replaced the Divine Master with, in modern parlance,

the Almighty Dollar.

*

The ambition of every charlatan

is to speak in the name of the Almighty

(be it Allah, God, or Capital) and the punish or silence those

who dare to disagree with him.

The more things change,

the more they stay the same.

*

The choice is yours.

But be warned:

If you choose to play the sheep,

there is no guarantee that you will survive.

But even if you survive,

you will survive not as a man but as a slave.

Not as an Armenian with your own identity

but as a rootless, traditionless, alienated empty suit.

#

[ara baliozian]

July 10, 2010

**********************

EXPLAINING THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE

****************************************************

“If the Almighty is Perfect,

why did He create an imperfect world?”

As an imperfect being

living in an imperfect world,

my imperfect answer is:

When you do something for the first time,

even if it as simple a task as hammering a nail to the wall,

something is bound to go wrong.

Maybe the world as we know it

is a first experiment, and He will do better next time.

Dissatisfied with my answer?

I plead extenuating circumstances

on the grounds that it is my first try.

Give me a few years or decades of reflection

and I may do better. In the meantime,

may I offer a first-time historic instance

that ended in disaster:

our Revolution at the turn of the last century

in the Ottoman Empire.

*

Now an explanation as to why I repeat myself:

my aim in life is to repeat

a handful – no more than three or four – ideas

so often as to make them as undeniable as clichés.

#

July 11, 2010

**********************

ADDICTIONS

****************************************************

According to Alcoholics' Anonymous, once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.

The same applies to belief systems, or, in the words of a theologian: “You may let go of God, but God will never let you go.”

Once a Muslim, always a Muslim.

Once a Christian, always a Christian.

And once a Bolshevik...

How to recognize a Bolshevik when you run into one?

Easy! Whenever Stalin's crimes come up in conversation, he will mention McCarthy, as if to say, “So you think Americans are better?” He forgets that McCarthy killed no one, whereas Stalin's victims number in the millions, among them the best and the brightest.

*

Belief systems are not easy to discard because they have deep roots in our subconscious – roots that were planted when we were children by men with ulterior motives – men who were more committed to power than to love, truth, and compassion.

*

A belief system that develops an oligarchy, ritual, tradition, and coercion under the guise of education, is one that has lost its essence and become superstition – less love of God and more fear of God, less progress in understanding the Incomprehensible and more a pact with the Devil. That's the only way to explain the persecution and torture of heretics, suicidal terrorists who kill innocent civilians, priests who sexually abuse children, and bishops who look the other way because they are more concerned with the reputation (that is, the power and prestige) of the Church and less with compassion for the victim.

*

Am I judging an institution by its aberrations? I don't think so. Rather, I am assessing an institution's true intent by the mindset and character of its leadership.

But what I find even more offensive about organized religions is their claim of monopoly on truth. All men are no longer brothers; and if they are, half of them are Cains.

When Cain slew Abel, he acted on his own, independently of any belief system. Which means, if there is a killer in all of us, the least religion can do is to refrain from legitimizing and encouraging it. But perhaps that's too much to ask?

#

July 12, 2010

**********************

DOGS, PIGS, AND JACKASSES

****************************************************

If the caravan were to stop every time a dog barks, it would never reach its destination.

*

I love reading books on rules. You have to, if you want to break them.

*

About our benefactors: I don't grudge their money. I grudge their values on the grounds that a jackass is in no position to appreciate the aroma of rose jam.

*

I have never met a capitalist. But once, in a community center, I observed from a safe distance a specimen who was surrounded by a phalanx of hangers-on. You can tell a lot about a man by the kind of brown-nosers he attracts.

*

Jesus and Marx agree on nothing except capitalists. Jesus said they will never make it to heaven, and Marx called them bloodsucking pigs who fleece even fleas.

*

Plato, himself a wealthy man, explains somewhere that crooks will always be wealthier than honest men because they will use honest as well as dishonest means to amass their fortune. Whereas honest men will use only honest means.

#

July 13, 2010

**********************

REFLECTIONS

****************************************************

When you voice an idea to someone who doesn’t have any of his own, he is sure to disagree with you.

*

More often than not our disagreements are not between two conflicting ideas but between an idea and recycled propaganda.

*

We blabber so much about Ottoman massacres that we completely ignore our own massacre of ideas.

*

In his NAKED LUNCH, William Burroughs quotes a doctor saying: “Baboons always attack the weakest party in an altercation. Quite right too. We must never forget our glorious simian heritage.”

*

A biologist friend once said to me: “You don’t need psychology, philosophy, sociology or anthropology to understand and explain Armenians: all you need is zoology.”

*

Imagine a sardine in a pool of sharks. And now, imagine an honest member of the Party.

*

I once met an Armenian who went out of his way to make himself hateful, after which he accused me of hating Armenians.

#

[ara baliozian]

July 15, 2010

**********************

TRUTH AND OBJECTIVITY

****************************************************

Those who assert to have truth on their side (lawyers, politicians, theologians) don't like to mention objectivity in the same context, as if truth and objectivity were mutually exclusive concepts.

*

When patriotism meets objectivity, patriotism and those who who speak in its name will invariably emerge the victors.

*

No one cares about us except us, and even we don't care about ourselves – judging by the actions of our leaders -- as opposed to their speeches and sermons.

*

Last Saturday I was exposed to several televised sermons and speeches by Catholicos Aram of Antelias. He spoke of justice, human rights, and of course, genocide, genocide, genocide... He never even came close to admitting that as one of our dividers, he was himself one of the architects of our second (“white”) genocide. I am not implying his counterpart in Etchmiadzin is better. If anything, he is worse.

*

Let them speechify and sermonize on truth all they want. I prefer to speak of objectivity. How much objectivity is there in love, war, faith, and massacre?

*

The most corrupt and incompetent leader will have his loyal supporters, in the same way that the most charismatic and selfless paragon (like Socrates, Jesus, and Gandhi) will have his enemies and killers.

#

July 16, 2010

**********************

OREOS

****************************************************

An Armenian is an Armenian is an Armenian?

Not quite. Some are oreos: Armenian on the outside, Ottoman on the inside.

All dividers are oreos. They divide knowing full well that a house divided against itself cannot stand. So our history tells us; and so also what the Scriptures assert. And why do they divide?

They divide because their self-righteous Ottoman mindset tells them: “So long as my actions are guided by my principles; so long as I am doing the right thing, why should I care if the nation parishes? So long as my conscience is clear, it means I am doing what must be done.”

Deep inside somewhere, if he is half as smart as he thinks he is, he must know that his conscience is as much an illusion as his so-called principles are phony.

How does he define what it means “doing the right thing?”

The real answer to that question is: “I do the right thing when I defend and protect all my powers and privileges.”

Isn't that what the Turks thought too at the turn of the last century?

“So long as we defend and protect the integrity of the Empire, and with it our God-given powers and privileges, why should we give a damn if a million or more innocent civilians perish? Better them than us!”

*

Moral I:

It is easy to speak in the name of God, much more difficult to act with His wisdom.

*

Moral II:

Only dupes believe in the God of imams, rabbis, and popes.

*

Moral III:

All political principles and religious dogmas whose aim is to legitimize intolerance and divisions must be assumed to be inventions of the Devil.

*

Moral IV:

Any principle or dogma that contradicts the dictum “All men are brothers,” can't be right.

#

July 17, 2010

**********************

TACTICS

****************************************************

You want to keep them backward and stupid?

Call them progressive and smart.

We make a big mistake when we underestimate

the ruthless cunning of our leadership.

*

Paternalists are never paternal,

and when they preach humility

they mean subservience for the many

and arrogance for themselves.

*

To divide a nation is the same

as separating its soul from its body.

*

All movements generate a lunatic fringe.

In our case, the lunatic fringe has succeeded

and succeeded brilliantly

to paralyze the movement.

*

 

All Armenians are my brothers –

but only in the sense that all men are my brothers –

but only in the sense that Cain was Abel’s brother.

*

Never judge an Armenian as an Armenian

but as a human being. As a rule,

Armenians who insist on being judged as Armenians

use the flag to hide their true colors.

#

[ara baliozian]

July 18, 2010

**********************

SULTANISM

****************************************************

Whenever I understand something I didn't understand before, I am seized by an irresistible urge to share it. I can see why this peculiarity of mine can irritate the hell out of some readers who understand everything.

*

No one can be as ignorant as the man who is convinced he knows all he needs to know, and what he doesn't know is either irrelevant or not worth knowing.

*

"I don't trust him.”

"Why not?”

"He is a bad man.”

"Why is he bad?”

"He thinks he is a good Armenian.”

"Can't a good Armenian be a good man?”

"Not if he feels the need to advertise it. A truly honest man does not advertise himself as such even when he is accused of dishonesty. Besides, goodness and honesty are universal concepts. They don't need a national label. To identify someone as a “good German” or a “good Turk” is to imply the rest of them are bad.”

*

Great nations need big lies; small nations need bigger lies.

*

In Herman Melville I come across a new word: “sultanism,” meaning the exercise of power with a touch of sadistic pleasure.

*

A mediocrity will be subservient to any regime or power structure that gives him a regular salary, or a title, or a uniform, or the license to persecute better men than himself. There it is: the root of our sultanism.

#

July 19, 2010

**********************

CONFESSIONS OF AN ALIENATED ARMENIAN

****************************************************

Racism consists in ascribing the crimes of the few on the entire nation or race. And because I am critical of Armenians (not all of them but a small fraction – see below) I am called a racist by functional illiterates who equate criticism with racism and dissent with treason. It follows, Stalin was right when he silenced dissenters. What's next? Heil Hitler?

*

Armenians may be divided into three distinct groups: the assimilated (who no longer identify themselves as Armenian), the alienated (who stay away from Armenian affairs, community centers, churches, schools, and demonstrations -- I count myself among them), and the dupes who believe everything they are told because they are brought up to believe thinking for oneself is a capital offense bordering on treason.

*

The Armenian version of the Jewish incantation “Next year in Jerusalem!” -- “Next year in Los Angeles!”

*

A reasonable man does not give matches to children with the warning not to start a fire. Likewise, a reasonable God does not give free will to man with the warning not to taste the fruit from the tree of knowledge. It follows, an Almighty and All-knowing God cannot be said to be reasonable; either that or His reason is our unreason.

*

When two adversaries negotiate, it is advisable that neither side engage in verbal abuse. That's one reason why I am all for friendly relations with Turks.

*

If an Armenian cannot negotiate with a fellow Armenian or be reasonable with those he disagrees with, what are his chances of reaching a consensus with the Turks?

*

I have a Turkish friends who believes the Armenian Genocide is a fiction of our collective imagination. And I believe Turks are dupes of their own state propaganda. That doesn't stop us from being friends. There is no rule that says friends must be carbon copies of each other. Neither is there a rule that says today's friend cannot be tomorrow's enemy and vice versa – yesterday's enemy cannot be today's friend. But there is a rule that says you can get more out of a friend than out of an enemy.

#

July 20, 2010

**********************

READING

****************************************************

In an interview with Vasily Grossman's daughter, when asked, “Which of your father's works do you most admire and why?”

She replies: “GOOD WISHES – his account of the two months he spent in Armenia in late 1961. This is his kindest, most good-natured work.”

Further down we are informed that GOOD WISHES will be translated and published next year. (NEW STATESMAN. London, 21 June 2010, page 49.)

*

In LE POINT (Paris: 24 June 2010, page 85), I read a glowing review of a crime novel by Nairi Nahapetian (identified as an Iranian writer) titled QUI A TUE L'AYATOLLAH KANUNI? [Who Killed Ayatollah Kanuni?]

*

Here is a good subtitle for a book on the history of Armenian literature:

"From Casting Pearls Before Swine to Sticking Pins into Sacred Cows."

*

Hugh Trevor-Roper in THE LAST DAYS OF HITLER:

“The competitive servility of a court is always odious;

combined with eloquent humbug, it is nauseating.”

We will grow up as a nation on the day we produce writers capable of writing such a sentence.

*

“MENDOZA: I am a brigand: I live by robbing the rich.

TANNER: I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.”

Shaw, MAN AND SUPERMAN (1903)

*

“He knows nothing, and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.”

Shaw, MAJOR BARBARA (1907)

#

July 21, 2010

**********************

COMMENTS

****************************************************

Think of the human brain as a musical instrument that is perpetually out of tune with reality; and think of faith as an illusion whose aim is to convince us it is in tune.

Hence the popularity of belief systems.

All men of faith will agree with me with only one proviso:

they will say, all faiths are indeed illusions except mine.

*

In Colette I read the following exchange:

“She pays for things: she doesn't give.”

“American style?”

*

Since God is incomprehensible (“His ways are not ours”) whatever you say about Him, especially if it makes perfect sense to you, is bound to be wrong.

*

There must be a special place in hell for people who deceive, exploit, mislead, and sometimes even molest innocent dupes who look up to them for guidance.

*

It is said that a little learning is a dangerous thing; but having met several Armenian academics, I tend to think a lot of learning can be lethal.

*

I have heard some Armenians say we should forgive the Turks, but I have never heard an Armenian say we should forgive our fellow Armenians.

#

[ara baliozian]

July 22, 2010

**********************

MEDITATIONS

****************************************************

In a text on political philosophy I read today of “the inalienable right to resist tyranny and all

 

illegitimate authority.”

No matter how hard I try I cannot think of a single Armenian authority figure that may be said to have

 

been democratically elected, and therefore legitimate.

Raffi tells us “treason and betrayal are in our blood.” After long centuries of conditioning, so, it

 

seems, are tyranny and subservience to tyrants.

Who even dares to speak today of tyranny, subservience, and democracy? We prefer to speak

 

instead of Turks and massacres, that is to say of past aberrations about which there is little or

 

nothing we can do, and ignore the present violations of human rights which are within our power to

 

arrest.

*

Dostoevsky: “Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained in us than lying to others.”

This may suggest there is a pathological liar in all of us.

*

“I paint with my prick,” Renoir is quoted as having said.

Some of my readers think with theirs.

*

Always be civil to a writer, especially if he happens to be an Armenian. You never know when he may

 

choose to get even. I for one never read an Armenian I have insulted. An insulted Armenian is like a

 

sword of Damocles and I already have a forest of yataghans hanging over me.

*

When confronted with a difficult problem, ostriches bury their heads in the sand, or so we are told.

 

Men are smarter: they don’t bury their heads, they bury the problem…even if it means burying

 

themselves in the process.

#

July 23, 2010

**********************

ONE-LINERS

****************************************************

Truth is an invention of liars.

*

Truth is a work in progress, not a finished product.

*

The consensus of a million people guarantees nothing. A billion smart men may be taken in as easily

 

as a single dumb dupe.

*

Truth may be one but those who speak in its name are many.

*

Lying comes as naturally to men of power as swimming to fish, flying to birds, and slithering to

 

serpents.

*

I am not here to solve problems but to show their hiding places.

*

Educating children and brainwashing them might as well be synonymous operations.

*

To explain the incomprehensible is to lie.

*

The aim of a religion or an ideology is to assert a monopoly on truth.

*

Monopoly favors the producer, not the consumer.

*

The most dangerous liars are those who speak in the name of truth.

*

Faith allows us to believe in a lie with a clear conscience.

*

There are as many versions of the past as there are historians.

*

Subservience to God also means subservience to those who speak in His name.

*

Subservience is hell.

#

July 24, 2010

**********************

THREE SCANDALS

****************************************************

Dead men don't testify.

Permanently silenced voices cannot sing.

No witnesses, no murder.

All career criminals know this.

Turks know it too.

After eliminating a million potential witnesses

and deporting and scattering another million

to the four corners of the world,

they now say, for every Armenian survivor

there are two or more Turkish survivors

willing and eager to testify that

the Genocide is a fiction of our collective imagination

and that it was the Armenians who tried to exterminate Turks.

But that's not the scandal.

The real scandal is that they are believed

by some members of the jury,

and they need only one

for the judge to issue a verdict of not guilty

or to declare a mistrial.

You think Armenians are smart and Turks dumb?

Think again.

We may have truth on our side

but they have the law on theirs.

*

Who cares about Armenians?

Not even Armenians.

As for our Turcocentric ghazetajis:

they are no better than hirelings

who are paid to vociferate endlessly

about genocide, genocide, genocide

in order to cover up

the incompetence, corruption, and violations of human rights

of their own bosses and paymasters.

The brainwashed may not see this clearly

but those who have retained the ability to think for themselves do.

It is this second scandal

that is at the root of our self-inflicted “white” massacre.

Armenians are smart?

Don't make me laugh!

*

When Jerry Falwell died,

Christopher Hitchens called him

a “vulgar fraud and crook.”

We too have our share of Falwells

but not a single Hitchens, alas!

What we have instead are gutless brown-nosers

by the dozen and by the hundred.

And that, my friends, is our third scandal!

#

[femtoperson]

Dear Ara,

 

My name is Vahan. I found out that you translated Zabel Yessayan's works. I want to purchase all the originals in Armenian but I can't find anywhere online. Can you recommend a site to buy it from? Or maybe you can recommend a store in North America which would sell her novels.

 

Thanks in advance!

 

Vahan

[ara baliozian]

July 25, 2010

**********************

RANDOM THOUGHTS

****************************************************

An Armenian will disagree with you even when he agrees. His aim is not dialogue but monologue; not being smart but to appear to be smarter than you; not consensus but oneupmanship.

*

It is not that the world is moving at a faster rate than we are, the situation is much worse. We are moving backwards. Compare the first half of the last century with the present. In the first half we had Oshagan, Zarian, General Antranik, Karekin Nejdeh, Roupen Der Minassian, Nikol Aghbalian, and many others. Today we have nothing but Turcocentric ghazetajis and brainless, faceless empty suit.

*

To those who say our problems are the world's problems, I say: Name a single nation that has been at the mercy of brutal foreign oppressors for as long as we have been.

*

If at times I am merciless in my criticism, it’s because life has been even more merciless to us collectively. Compared to how tough life has been, I don’t even qualify as a marshmallow.

#

July 26, 2010

**********************

MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS

****************************************************

They recycle propaganda and call it free speech.

*

No dupe can ever be free.

*

The greatest enemy of liars is not the truth but reality.

*

Instead of speaking about Greeks, Kurds, Arabs, and Turks, we should teach ourselves to speak of human beings. That way we may learn to emphasize that which we share.

*

Shakespeare (THE WINTER’S TALE): “I would there were no age between sixteen and three-and-twenty; for there is nothing the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting, drinking.”

*

On more than one occasion I have been taken to task (a euphemism for “I have been verbally abused”) for not being as brilliant as Hagop Baronian. If that were a crime, I deserve to be hanged.

*

Giambattista Vico:

“Crowded city life produces men who are unbelievers, who regard money as the measure of all things, and who lack moral qualities, particularly modesty…. Emancipated from ethics generally, they live by mutual spying and deceit.”

*

If you can’t contradict the idea, insult the man.

*

An Armenian who is about to lose an argument turns into a Turk.

#

July 27, 2010

**********************

IT TAKES ALL KINDS

****************************************************

In his youth Koestler was taken in by Soviet propaganda and became a member of the Communist Party. But after Stalin's show trials and purges of the 1930s he published DARKNESS AT NOON, one of the most anti-Soviet books in world literature.

Stalin's countless crimes have had no effect on our chic Bolsheviks however. To them Stalin is no more than McCarthy's counterpart.

*

Nabokov, the offspring of multimillionaire Russian aristocrats, hated the Communists to such a degree that he even supported the war in Vietnam.

*

As a petit-bourgeois, Sartre hated the French bourgeoisie, including De Gaulle, so much that he sided with Stalin, Mao, and Castro.

*

Thomas Mann wanted to save Germany from the Nazis but he succeeded only in making enemies of his fellow Germans who looked up to Hitler for guidance and accused him (Mann) of treason.

*

Hitler and Mussolini counted among their early admirers many great men in politics and literature, among them Shaw, Churchill, Knut Hamsun, and Heidegger.

*

Even men with 20/20 vision have their blind spots; and sometimes to know more is to understand less.

*

In an environment where Abovian was driven to suicide and Zarian was silenced,

what chance does a minor scribbler have?

Why do I go on?

Call it art for art's sake,

A waste of time.

#

July 28, 2010

**********************

THE SOUIND AND THE FURY

****************************************************

Instead of writing MADAME BOVARY

he should have written MONSIEUR FLAUBERT.

The result would have been

a much more authentic and believable work.

He knew everything there is to know about Flaubert,

little or nothing about the Bovarys

and what he knew about them

was based on hearsay, projection, research, and imagination

and as such, inadmissible evidence.

This is a mistake we all make:

we prefer to speak about things

we know little or nothing about,

and more often than we rely on hearsay.

Consider ideologies, religions, gods, and prophets.

What are holy scriptures if not hearsay?

What is the infallibility of prophets, popes, imams, and rabbis

if not pure fiction and collective illusion?

What are wars and massacres

if not hysterical or psychotic outbursts?

Leave it to historians to see meaning in them,

with the result that one man's meaning or truth

is another's nonsense and lie,

not to say the seed of another war and massacre,

followed by more sound and fury signifying nothing.

#