as i see it - Pt. III

nairi · January 17, 2003

quote:

Originally posted by sen_vahan:

Generalization is all over his thread.

I don't see it.

quote:

If Dostoevsky and Chekhov were mediocre citizens/writers then imagine how poor the 20th century was (and the 21st is). Is it why modern writers don't find anything else but refering to them? Probably you should read them first (Dostoevsky&Chekhov) and then the conversation will be much nicer

Vahan, it's about keeping your humanity. It almost sounds like you're using their hatred as a justification for yours.

sen_Vahan · January 17, 2003

Nairi,

Read more carefully

This is a free country, I don't need j-ion to hate or love And I don't think two giants of literature lost their humanity. Do more research

I started to write about this not to show my feelings but to ask why is it so dense in Ara's posts. The more you write about that the more the problem will go deeper.

Have a good time,

Vahan

nairi · January 17, 2003

quote:

Originally posted by sen_vahan:

And I don't think two giants of literature lost their humanity. Do more research

You're right, you know. I don't know much about them. But that wasn't the issue. The issue was becoming a racist, regardless of who you are, what you have done, and where you came from.

Anyway, sorry for responding to your feelings I'll leave you alone now

Nairi

ara baliozian · January 19, 2003

Friday, January 17, 2003

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

We must learn to live together as brothers

or perish together as fools.

No, I didn't say that.

An American did (Martin Luther King).

An Armenian said something similar

("O Armenian people,

your salvation lies only in your collective powers").

And as you can guess,

both the American and the Armenian were shot.

The question we must ask at this point is:

What are the prospects of a nation

that has perished as fools,

is perishing as fools…?

*

Knowledge limits our options,

ignorance expands them.

For the man who knows and understands nothing,

life is an infinite number of illusions.

This may explain why ignorance is bliss.

*

I share my understanding.

They share their Ottomanism.

The massacre continues.

*

If the shoe fits, bang it over your head.

*

A Turkish proverb (probably of Armenian origin):

"Be thine enemy an ant, see in him an elephant."

*

Whenever a man brags about his library,

the first image that comes to my mind is

an ass laden with books.

*

The most cruel and unusual punishment

is that which we inflict on ourselves.

If you think about it,

what could be more cruel and unusual for a bore or a phony

than to be condemned to live with himself

for the rest of his natural life? -- unless of course

he is also a master of self-deception,

in which case he condemns himself to be his own dupe.

*

If someone calls you a fool,

the worst thing you can do is

to behave in such a manner as to prove him right.

ara baliozian · January 19, 2003

Chekhov was not an anti-Semite.

About Armenian anti-Semitism: even our ablest writers were anti-Semites (Shahnour, Zarian, and according to Odian, our Mekhitarist monks in Vienna)....

Generally speaking, Armenians from the Middle East are anti-Semites.

Many Jews hate the goyim, no doubt about that --the way we hate our oppressors -- Turks and Russians.

as for Dostoevsky: it was fashionable in the 19th century to be an anti-Semite. Many other great writers were. And in general all nationalists are anti-Semites because a French-Jew cannot hate a German-Jew as intensely as a Frenchman hates a German....

Until World War II anti-Semitism was more or less fashionable in all civilized circles. But after the Holocaust it acquired a sinister profile. What was a hobby until then, became a murderous profession and a psychological aberration.

The Jews hate the Arabs but the Arabs hate Jews even more.

Only an anti-Semite would exploit Jewish hatred as another reason

to justify his prejudice.

ara baliozian · January 19, 2003

Saturday, January 18, 2003

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

"If a donkey bray at you,

don't bray at him."

*

I am a quadruple exile:

from my homeland,

from my country of birth,

from my fellow Canadians,

and from my fellow Armenians.

A well-adjusted, healthy, normal person

must be crazy to read me

and having read me to know "where I come from."

*

Be very careful in your choice of enemies

lest you destroy yourself in your efforts to destroy them.

Be even more careful in your choice of Armenian friends

and never forget Raffi’s warning,

"Treason and betrayal are in our blood."

*

About my critics:

I reply to all of them when I read them.

I reply even to insults,

after which I hit the delete button.

I also delete notes and comments

that contain more adjectives and expletives

than respectable nouns.

What you see here is a drastically bowdlerized version

of the urtext.

*

If the Kingdom of God is within us,

so are the words of all past, present and future prophets and messiahs.

*

Confucius: "Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses."

*

If I am the worst Armenian you have met,

take a good look at yourself in the mirror

and consider yourself the luckiest man on earth.

*

Everything we do or say or write

is an expression of who we are.

To a perceptive observer even our silence has a DNA.

*

On rereading Baronian’s HONORABLE BEGGARS,

I come across the following passage:

"People who don't know but who pretend to know

are a dime a dozen in our environment."

He goes on (I am now paraphrasing):

"It is not unusual to run into a cook

who engages in literary criticism."

*

After a lifetime of reading

it is hard to say which one of my lines is original

and which derivative.

It is safe to assume that

if I make sense I am paraphrasing a quotation

whose source I have forgotten;

and if I don't make sense, it’s me talking.

*

Sometimes I read my critics for no other reason than

to explore the depths of human degradation and stupidity

against which, it has been said,

even the gods cannot compete.

*

One of my greatest sources of stimulation is the fact that

even those who hate me love to read me.

*

The spectacle of a lynch mob

can be scary to all law-abiding citizens,

not to say the victim.

But imagine if you can a lynch mob

without a tree,

without a horse,

and without so much as a shoestring….

*

Memo to a young writer:

"Critics are an inevitable fact of life,

very much like death and taxes.

Remember, even Bach had them,

and I don't just mean musical critics

but high-ranking, titled swine who were after his ass.

Remember too that whenever your critics behave like barbarians,

it is your duty to redouble your efforts to civilize them.

*

Have you noticed that even "khaghaghoutiun,"

our word for shalom (salami in Arabic, or is it baloney?)

sounds warlike?

sen_Vahan · January 19, 2003

Ara,

Chekhov called his two dogs Brom and Khina and to be philologically sharper he attached surnames to them - Brom Isaevich and Khina Markovna. In his letter from Paris to his sister he wrote: Dear Masha, tell Khina Markovna that I had a dinner with Mark Matveevich Antokol'skiy.

Want more examples?

"On pisat' ne umeet i voobshe bezdaren, kak i vse kreshenie shmuli" (he cannot write and in general is a dull(untalented) as all baptized shmules(jews were called so))

"Ne lyublyu, kogda jidki treplyut moe imya.Eto portit nervi."(I don't like when jids (jews) play with my name, it makes me nervous)

Want more? Read his letters, please, you will find more than enough.

About armenians: your generalizations don't hold water, one can easily say they are made by a non-philosopher. Armenians don't hate russians, first. (in their vast majority) They would not hate turks if there was no genocide. I can tell you about my personal attitude to turks - I do really like that people, the only thing that makes me mad is the fact of the killings/genocide which "puts" a bridge/border btw us.

Tell me please, were there any sharply represented examples of arm's hatred towards turks in the Ottoman Empire among armenian scholars,writers,poets. Are there any poems or novels written before the genocide showing our hatred to turks? No! Now , please, compare that with the jewish case.

The thing that Zarian, Shahnur,etc were anti-semits don't give an answer to my question - why?? Why these people, as well as Chekhov,etc, were anti-? What did make them to become anti-? Saying "they were" and nothing else shows your ignorance.

sen_Vahan · January 19, 2003

"Anyway, sorry for responding to your feelings I'll leave you alone now "

Nairi,

The lack of logics in your posts makes me think that you need to strengthen your logical and analytical skills.

ara baliozian · January 20, 2003

Sunday, January 19, 2003

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

Patriotism not only promotes charlatanism,

it also creates charlatans. And worse. Much worse.

I read today: "Patriotism became a refuge

not only for rabble-rousers and scoundrels,

but for gangs of thieves and murderers."

*

It is a routine occurrence in history:

he who preaches brotherhood

is poisoned, crucified or shot

in the name of a different brotherhood –

the brotherhood of liars, thieves, and murderers.

And why not?

They too must live and prosper.

The more things change….

*

We cannot escape history.

Trying to escape the inflexible laws of history

is like trying to escape the law of gravity.

*

Nationalism, anti-intellectualism, anti-Semitism:

the three pillars of fascism.

And if you say: "Me a fascist?

You don't know what you are saying."

Did you then think fascists have horns and a tail?

*

What have I got to lose?

Before you ask that question,

think of your honor.

*

If you can get even, no need to get mad.

*

Because you have deceived yourself,

do not think you can deceive others.

*

The reason why so far I have refused to give up

is that, that is exactly what my adversaries

expect me to do. They know from experience that

in the environment they have created, someone

like me has a very limited life span and that far

better men than myself eventually gave up in

disgust and fell silent. There is satisfaction,

not to say a sensation akin to victory, in

knowing that I continue to be a source of

disappointment, perhaps even annoyance, to them.

ara baliozian · January 20, 2003

Monday, January 20, 2003

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

An excellent argument for solidarity:

"It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire

when you live next door."

*

A tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye may work

but not when it comes to honor.

Honor cannot be extracted,

it can only be surrendered.

*

Some Greek peddlers insulted you

when you didn't buy from them.

Now I discover that some American preachers

behave the same way if you fail to see the light.

The more things change….

*

After meeting a de-Ottomanized or a de-Stalinized Armenian

I am seized by an irresistible urge to go down on my knees

and thank the Lord and I don't even believe

in the god of preachers (be they priests, mullahs or rabbis)

and the last time I prayed with any degree of conviction

was in 1949.

*

We don't hate others.

We only hate an aspect of ourselves made visible by others.

*

A failsafe and foolproof formula for being a failure:

Try to be a success and nothing else but a success.

*

James Cagney: "If you listen to all the clowns around

you are just dead."

*

Kant: "Truth is the child of time."

Case in point: in the Middle Ages

Christians massacred Christians in the name of an orthodoxy

that doesn't even make sense today.

How many of our own controversies today will make sense

a hundred years hence?

*

How objective and accurate would my understanding

of Russians be if I were to view them

not through the eyes of their great writers

(Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov)

but through the eyes of an anti-Russian foreign correspondent?

My guess is, as accurate as viewing Armenians

through the eyes of an anti-Armenian Turkish correspondent.

*

You cannot change the mind of someone

who is out to change yours.

*

When the ego speaks

it is the gut that does the thinking.

*

I envy scumbags their shameless daring,

their freedom, their confidence, but above all

their total unawareness of who and what they really are.

*

"We love to eat and we eat to hate,"

according to a popular Armenian song,

and if Turks are out of reach,

Armenians will do just as well.

*

Don't bite the hand that holds your cojones.

*

Never write for readers who know better;

write instead for readers who only think

they know better – that’s where the money is.

ara baliozian · January 20, 2003

quote:

Originally posted by sen_vahan:

Ara,

Chekhov called his two dogs Brom and Khina and to be philologically sharper he attached surnames to them - Brom Isaevich and Khina Markovna. In his letter from Paris to his sister he wrote: Dear Masha, tell Khina Markovna that I had a dinner with Mark Matveevich Antokol'skiy.

Want more examples?

"On pisat' ne umeet i voobshe bezdaren, kak i vse kreshenie shmuli" (he cannot write and in general is a dull(untalented) as all baptized shmules(jews were called so))

"Ne lyublyu, kogda jidki treplyut moe imya.Eto portit nervi."(I don't like when jids (jews) play with my name, it makes me nervous)

Want more? Read his letters, please, you will find more than enough.

About armenians: your generalizations don't hold water, one can easily say they are made by a non-philosopher. Armenians don't hate russians, first. (in their vast majority) They would not hate turks if there was no genocide. I can tell you about my personal attitude to turks - I do really like that people, the only thing that makes me mad is the fact of the killings/genocide which "puts" a bridge/border btw us.

Tell me please, were there any sharply represented examples of arm's hatred towards turks in the Ottoman Empire among armenian scholars,writers,poets. Are there any poems or novels written before the genocide showing our hatred to turks? No! Now , please, compare that with the jewish case.

The thing that Zarian, Shahnur,etc were anti-semits don't give an answer to my question - why?? Why these people, as well as Chekhov,etc, were anti-? What did make them to become anti-? Saying "they were" and nothing else shows your ignorance.

all nationalists are anti-semites because jews cannot share their hatred of their enemies.

jews are cosmopolitan -- they are everywhere. to hate on national grounds would amount to hating themselves.

i have dealt with many Armenians from the Middle East and elsewhere and i have never met an Armenian who was not an anti-semite. if you are a philo-semite than i say you are the exception that confirms the rule.

as for armenian hatred of turks and russians: not to hate one's oppressors is abnormal, unhealthy, and unheard of. If there are no anti-Russian or anti-turkish novels and poems it's because armenians were not allowed to write them.

About Chekhov: Suvorin -- his lifelong friend, editor, publisher, was a jew -- an anti-semite jew, if memory serves. chekhov was not a nationalist like dostoevsky (who believed in Holy Mother Russia and in the messianic role Russians were destined to play in world history). Chekhov's anti-Jewish remarks were playful asides not part of his credo.

sen_Vahan · January 21, 2003

Ara,

First,I just don't understand the attitude to Dostoevsky as a nationalist. Was he a nat-ist if he considered a special historic role for his country?

Second, yes, there was a great rumor about Suvorin's anti-semitism. I woul bring a peace from D. Galkovskiy's "Beskonechniy Tupik" in russian exactly about that:

"Odnovremenno Anton pavlovich metal gromi i molnii po povodu antisemitizma Suvorina (kotori nikogda sebe podobnix vixodok ne pozvolyal). Velikiy pisatel' zemli Russkoy vstal goroy za unigennix i oskorblennix detey evreyskix millionerov. No stoilo kakomu-nibud' "shmule" nastupit' Chekhovu na mozol', i tut ge pokaznoe teoreticheskoe yudofil'stvo smenilos' vpolne konkretnoy yudofobiey." That's all about it.

As far as my attitude is concerned , I think it is irrelevant here since the issue was about YOUR writings in general about armenians (who by the way are not all from the Middle East). At least, there is probably another non-anti-semite - you. Or maybe you are also one?

You are not an exclusion, everybody writes about X-s,Y-s,Z-s hatred toward jews,ah,ah,ah... poor jews... become another Chekhov and close them,protect all by your large shoulders. Maybe someone can write all the way around sometime, showing their hatred to others including armenians. Solgenizin's last writing "Dvesti let vmeste" ("Two hundred years together") is about this topic where he tries to show why there were/are many problems and hatred btw russians and jews during last 200 years. There is nothing intrinsically new or unique but at least Solgenizin tried to show that the hatred is from both sides. Perhaps an armenian scholar can also show that sometime which will require more serious approach than yours. Yes, serious otherwise is not acceptable when you deal with the inter-national problems.

ara baliozian · January 21, 2003

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

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

It is not that we Armenians agree on nothing.

It is worse. Much worse.

We do not know how to engage in civilized dialogue, and when it looks like we are about to lose an argument, we insult the opposition,

knowing full well that an insult cannot be contradicted, and we are ignorant enough to confuse the silence of the opposition

if not as victory than as the semblance of victory.

Our technique of contradiction is ridiculously transparent, easy to acquire, and infantile.

If one side makes a general statement, the other stresses a specific fact, and since life provides an infinite number of facts, it is the easiest thing in the world to select a fact in favor of any argument or counter argument.

If one speaks of politics, the other counters with mysticism.

If one side speaks of the present,

the other stresses the past and vice versa.

In such an environment politics is confused with religion and church with state, and when that happens, the intellectual class is silenced,

which is the case with the Muslim world today.

And when the intellectual class is silenced

you end up with authoritarian rule and ultimately fascism.

You may now consider the fate

of all fascist regimes in the 20th century. Please note that I am now talking about

reality, facts, history, which means I am wide open

to mystical, emotional, abstract and

eschatological counter arguments,

including quotations from the Bible -- because

even "the devil can quote the Scriptures in his favor."

Sip · January 21, 2003

Good one!

ara baliozian · January 22, 2003

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

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

According to Daniel Varoujan:

"Patriotism has crippled our literature."

Also Ottomanism, Sovietism,

the philistinism of our benefactors,

the dogmatism and intolerance of our bosses and bishops,

the cynicism and opportunism of our flunkies,

and the charlatanism and venom of our self-appointed commissars

and self-assessed pundits.

Why should we be surprised if

Armenian literature has been, for all practical purposes,

dead and buried without so much as a single Der Voghormia?

*

Dialogue is a learning process

not a sport in which there are winners and losers.

Since during the last two thousand years

we appear not to have understood this very simple fact,

it may take us another two thousand years

to learn and practice it,

by which time….

*

Forgiveness should not be confused with betrayal.

I can’t imagine Marx forgiving capitalists;

neither can I imagine a capitalist asking for Marx’s forgiveness.

*

Armenianism should add something to our humanity.

It should be an asset not a liability.

*

Writers do not mirandize.

I have never heard of a writer

who is in the habit of saying to his friends and acquaintances,

"Behave yourself or shut up because

everything you say I may use in a future essay or story."

That would be like poisoning his own well.

*

About my critics,

I get two kinds of advice from friends:

"Ignore them!" and "F*** them!"

I reject the four-letter option

because I have no desire to join our bosses and bishops.

ara baliozian · January 22, 2003

quote:

Originally posted by sen_vahan:

Ara,

First,I just don't understand the attitude to Dostoevsky as a nationalist. Was he a nat-ist if he considered a special historic role for his country?

Of course! Consider what happened to Russians. Chekhov was right when he predicted the generation that follows will be one of crocodiles. Dostoevsky was damn wrong to think that Russians were destined to play a messianic role.... Turgenev and Tolstoy were far more critical of Russians and they had no illusions about them. I think that's one of their assets.

quote:

Second, yes, there was a great rumor about Suvorin's anti-semitism. I woul bring a peace from D. Galkovskiy's "Beskonechniy Tupik" in russian exactly about that:

"Odnovremenno Anton pavlovich metal gromi i molnii po povodu antisemitizma Suvorina (kotori nikogda sebe podobnix vixodok ne pozvolyal). Velikiy pisatel' zemli Russkoy vstal goroy za unigennix i oskorblennix detey evreyskix millionerov. No stoilo kakomu-nibud' "shmule" nastupit' Chekhovu na mozol', i tut ge pokaznoe teoreticheskoe yudofil'stvo smenilos' vpolne konkretnoy yudofobiey." That's all about it.

At the turn of the century the West, including Russia, was divided into Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards. The first were for justice, the second were anti-Semites. Suvorin was an anti-Deyfusard, Chekhov was for justice!

quote:

As far as my attitude is concerned , I think it is irrelevant here since the issue was about YOUR writings in general about armenians (who by the way are not all from the Middle East). At least, there is probably another non-anti-semite - you. Or maybe you are also one?

You are not an exclusion, everybody writes about X-s,Y-s,Z-s hatred toward jews,ah,ah,ah... poor jews... become another Chekhov and close them,protect all by your large shoulders. Maybe someone can write all the way around sometime, showing their hatred to others including armenians. Solgenizin's last writing "Dvesti let vmeste" ("Two hundred years together") is about this topic where he tries to show why there were/are many problems and hatred btw russians and jews during last 200 years. There is nothing intrinsically new or unique but at least Solgenizin tried to show that the hatred is from both sides. Perhaps an armenian scholar can also show that sometime which will require more serious approach than yours. Yes, serious otherwise is not acceptable when you deal with the inter-national problems.

I am a great admirer of Solzhenitsyn. I believe he belongs with the great ones of the 19th century, except for his nationalism, which is his weak point, a liability. But i agree that writers, as human beings, should be allowed their own share of blind spots and defects. Nobody has a right to demand perfection from them. But that doesn't mean we should cover up, explain away and justify their weaknesses.

sen_Vahan · January 23, 2003

"Of course! Consider what happened to Russians. Chekhov was right when he predicted the generation that follows will be one of crocodiles. Dostoevsky was damn wrong to think that Russians were destined to play a messianic role.... Turgenev and Tolstoy were far more critical of Russians and they had no illusions about them. I think that's one of their assets."

This is an interesting issue. I think that's because Chekhov was "more contemporary" in a sense that he belonged to the next generation of writers after Dostoevsky, he was closer to the "collapse" in minds. Yes, and he was more practical realist than Dostoevsky who was probably a realist with the elements of mysticism. But one should not forget that Anton Pavlovich grew up in a dusty and dirty southern Taganrog full of jews which had a trace in his memmories "vechno ggggggugggali" and he did not get a mystical religious family education from the soil as Dostoevsky.

"At the turn of the century the West, including Russia, was divided into Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards. The first were for justice, the second were anti-Semites. Suvorin was an anti-Deyfusard, Chekhov was for justice!"

I would say Chekhov was an anti-semite but for justice. The topic of anti-semitism is all along his life, that's what one can see from his letters and memmories which is hard to argue with.

"I am a great admirer of Solzhenitsyn. I believe he belongs with the great ones of the 19th century, except for his nationalism, which is his weak point, a liability. But i agree that writers, as human beings, should be allowed their own share of blind spots and defects. Nobody has a right to demand perfection from them. But that doesn't mean we should cover up, explain away and justify their weaknesses."

Ara, probably I don't understand the word nationalism in your language. Maybe you mean he is a patriot?

I do not try to justify anybody's weaknesses, it is not reasonable. I just want to say that the so called psychological aberration standing for many great men's anti-semitism is absolutely wrong. What might be the reason for such a collective aberration in minds in last 3 or 4 hudred years?

And I do not require a perfection from a writer, I do not share your attitude towards armenian people as anti-semits. What I would like to see is a more careful and thorough approach to this problem otherwise we look like ugly paranoics in your writings and jews being victims of our hatred. And one gets tired reading you. I know you may say do not read. If that is the solution then keep on in the same direction, lose your readers.

ara baliozian · January 24, 2003

Thursday, January 23, 2003

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

To oppress liars with the truth:

what could be nobler?

*

Some anthropologists study animal behavior

to better understand man.

Others prefer to study man

to understand animal behavior.

A recent zoological discovery:

If you are in the company of jackasses

and you don't bray,

you may be kicked to death.

*

Life is too short to dignify every asinine assertion

with a contradiction, an objection or even a guffaw.

*

"If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot."

*

Everybody loves heroes except insurance companies;

and when it comes to acts of heroism,

a healthy, normal human beings has a tendency

to think like an actuary.

*

When a man behaves badly it reflects on his upbringing

and everyone connected with it.

It is not only himself that he drags through the mud but

but also his parents and teachers.

*

It is better to be alone with the truth in a shack

than in the company of liars in a palace.

*

In its ideal form, dialogue is a progression towards

a better understanding of reality.

By contrast, an insult is a dead end.

If I insult anyone

I deserve to be ignored

in the same way that i ignore anyone who insults me.

*

What is the difference between being read by nonentities

and being read by nobody?

*

I write because writing is a noble profession

with a millennial tradition.

Why do you read?

To crap on writers?

To engage in cannibalism?

("Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another"),

to deliver the coup de grace on a cripple?

("Patriotism has crippled our literature")

If so, in what way are you different from Stalin's commissars of culture

who shot any writer who refused to recycle their propaganda?

ara baliozian · January 24, 2003

Friday, January 24, 2003

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

When I was born an Armenian in Greece

shortly before World War II

I didn't know what I was getting into.

When I went to Italy to complete my Armenian education

I didn't know what I was getting into either.

Ditto for my decision to emigrate to Canada

and to dedicate my life to literature.

At all the major turning points in my life

I was a complete ignoramus.

But I know better now.

I know now that at the hour of my death

I will not know what I will be going into

but I will have a pretty good idea

of what I will be getting out of.

*

Some say women are smarter than men,

others disagree. Speaking for myself I plead nolo.

But I know this:

some of the worst criminals in the history of mankind

were their mother’s darling;

and I have every reason to suspect

the destiny of mankind will improve greatly

if mothers whack their sons

whenever they speak nonsense.

*

If you criticize fairly,

you will be criticized unfairly.

ara baliozian · January 24, 2003