readers

[ara baliozian]

THREE KINDS OF READERS

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

Some of my readers read only to contradict and thus assert their intellectual superiority. I have no use for them.

Others read me only to remind me that I have become a predictable fool. They should have no use for me.

There are also readers who know who and what they are but they think no one else does, and they read me to find out how much I know in order to improve their strategies of deception.

[MJ]

Outstanding, Ara!

[Pilafhead]

What about those that read you out of curiosity and to learn something along the way???

[Berj]

Usually I read you writings because they're intersting. But now, in this posting, I want to contradict you and assert my intellectual superiority (is it something bad?).

 

You're very predictable, because you produce only smart thoughts, the number of which in our universe is limited.

 

I know what and who I am. And I know that you know it too. Yes, I was silent until now, to find out the levels of your brain power. You have a 1-st class brain. I have it too.

 

I used the trick of false sarcasmic agreement to undermine your entry above. It was not ment to silence you, it was ment to win over you. If I'll not win this time I'll try again (if you have enough time for that).

 

P.S. Why do you write? If you do not unswer this, I'll think that you write only for money (which is not a bad thing to do). Do you want to help Armenians (please, answer this question?). I know it sounds trivial, but answer it, please, for us (the forum) to know the goal of your career.

[Berj]

OK, sorry, I found your answer in your reply to Raffi:

"There is corruption, lies, and incompetence in the most advanced democracies. There are also critics, dissidents, and investigative reporters.
Where are ours? / ara"

But why are you trying to change the Diaspora's thinking. Do it in Armenia. It is the center of Armenians, isn't it. Criticise our politicians naming them and their specific wrongdoings. Why do you generalise so much?

[Kazza]

[Kazza]

well, I will definatley second that. I think you have a very original style and some of your points mark what some people think and cannot put into words, and also some ideas most people have not even thought about. I find this interesting and that's why I read some of your posts. But with others I just skim through because I feel that in all honesty you dont think much of armenian people for whatever reasons. But considering your apparent diasdain, you like to spend a lot of time writing and posting on this armenian forum! It cant be for the money because it doesnt give you any financial incentive.

 

I'm not trying to be funny or anything, but don't you ever smile? If you don't , try it, it might make you feel better.

[Kazza]

Also: talk about twisting things: asserting intellectual superiority, to learn strategies of deception or whatever! Nobody has anything like that in their MINDS! We are just exchanging ideas on a forum about common interests. It would be useful if you used you work to interact with us members instead fighting against us. Otherwise you are just talking at us, we will stop reading the posts, and then your work will be taken no notice of which is a shame. That kind of defeats the objective of your time, don't you think?

 

I do not have to assert anything, or do any of the above you mentioned because I don't need to prove anything to ANYBODY. At the end of the day myself is the only person I can be to everybody.

[ara baliozian]

dear friends and readers:

it's wonderful to know that i have so many friends and readers!

i feel like celebrating.

Care to join me? / ara

[MJ]

REACTIONS

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

Once upon a time I cared about readers’ reactions and sought their approval by writings things that would flatter their vanity. I did not call it prostitution but that’s what it was: providing pleasure by massaging bruised egos.

Not any more. Approval means nothing to me now. As for disapproval: I welcome it because it can only mean that I have been successful in exposing the prejudices of a fanatic, the lies of a charlatan, and the greed of a blood****er.

Sometimes I notice that, after recognizing themselves in my writings, some of these gentlemen redouble their efforts to deceive and mislead their audience. I consider that an accomplishment of sorts too because it can only mean that I am making them work twice as hard. The image of them sweating is enough for me to say "Mission accomplished!"

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

NOTES / COMMENTS

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

To those who accuse me of being undiplomatic, I say:

No one is paying me to lie.

The smaller the brain, the bigger the mouth.

 

You become a success when you no longer care

if others see you as a failure.

 

"You are a fool!" These are painful words to hear

even when spoken by a fool;

how much more so when spoken by someone with average,

or even less than average, intelligence?

 

Anyone who has any power over another will use it;

and anyone who uses power will abuse it.

If there are any rules without exceptions,

this must surely be one of them.

 

Like most Armenians,

I have followed many controversies in our media,

and I have witnessed many more,

but I have at no time heard an Armenian say:

"I was wrong!" or, even better,

"I was dead wrong because I placed

my own ego, interests, family, political party,

church, or tribe above the interests of the nation."

 

Armenians have a highly developed spirit of contradiction.

They will automatically disagree with everything you say,

and later, they will use your arguments

(with which they disagreed)

to disagree with someone else.

 

At this point in our career as a nation

we have a choice between two sets of leaders:

the bloodsuckers and the charlatans.

Let’s hope and pray we will make the right choice.

 

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

MEMO: TO MY GENTLE READERS

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

To those who know better:

Why waste your valuable time reading a minor scribbler like me when there are so many literary masterpieces waiting to be read in your nearest public library? I don’t write for you, neither do I care to be read by you. I write only for readers willing to add someone else’s experiences and perspective on their own in order to develop a more balanced view of reality.

To my partisan and chauvinist readers whose secret ambition is to be a commissar of culture in a future fascist Armenia: You remind me of dung beetles to whom a herd of animals defecating is the most welcome sight: which reminds me of the Turkish saying (probably of Armenian origin): "What does a jackass know about rosejam?"

--------------------

 

 

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

DANSE MACABRE

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

 

One must have the skin of a crocodile to write for Armeians.

The fools insult you

because they don’t understand you;

the smart ones insult you

because they consider it their patriotic duty

to inform you in no uncertain terms that

they are ahead of you;

the arrogant ones insult you

because they cannot conceive of anyone

(especially not a fellow Armenian)

who may know something they don’t know;

the partisans operate on the assumption that

if you refuse to recycle their crap

you must be an enemy of the people,

and so on.

As for the decent ones

(yes, yes, we have those too):

they prefer to keep their distance

because they don’t like the idea

of getting involved in Armenian controversies

(make it, verbal massacres)

and I for one do not blame them.

The only way to explain

the wealth and variety of our literature

is to say that most of our writers

didn’t have a chance to figure out what was happening

because if they didn’t die of tuberculosis in their twenties,

they were slaughtered by the Turks in their thirties,

or they were shot by the Bolsheviks in their forties.

Those who survived to be fifty

(like Shahnour, Zarian, Massikian)

eventually saw the light, gave up in disgust, and fell silent.

Compared to what it could have been,

our literature is nothing but shadow of itself,

make it, the shadow of its skeleton.

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

THE OTTOMANIZATION

OF CONTEMPORARY ARMENIAN LITERATURE

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

To those who say

I am too tough on our leaders,

I say,

they are even tougher on our writers.

No writer has ever been

in a position to excommunicate, expel, silence,

or starve a boss, bishop, or benefactor;

but where these gentlemen and

their assorted flunkies enter,

only brown-nosers survive and prosper.

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

posted June 13, 2001 06:54 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

QUESTIONS / ANSWERS

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Q: You speak of our problems but you don't

provide solutions. Why?

A: Solutions don't come in the shape of verbal

formulas. Solutions demand hard work, struggle,

sacrifice, planning, dedication, concerted

action, and even more important, an awareness of

the problem itself.

Q: We all agree that divisions are a problem. How

do we go about solving it?

A: We don't all agree. I have heard many

Armenians say that we owe our survival to our

divisions, or what I prefer to call, our

tribalism.

Q: Suppose we succeed in convincing all

Armenians that tribalism is a problem. Then what?

A: The old saying, "Where there is a will there

is a way," applies here. History provides us with

many models. All we have to do is choose: the way

of the Kurds, Arabs, and gypsies, or the way of

the Italians, the British, and the Americans. No

nation ever achieved nationhood overnight. Even

the Americans had to fight one of the bloodiest

civil wars in the history of mankind.

Q: In one of your books you write: "Living among

Armenians or even in their proximity can be

hazardous to your health, unless you have the

constitution of a horse, the skin of a crocodile,

the strength of a water buffalo, and the aroma of

a skunk." My question is: Why do you dislike your

fellow Armenians?

A: I don't. But I do loathe racists, fascists,

and loud-mouth charlatans, and I refuse to view

their Armenian identity as a mitigating factor.

Ethnicity is not a form of insanity and it should

not be used as an extenuating circumstance.

Q: Why are you a cynic?

A: I am not, but I may react as one when

confronted with naïve souls, who, very much like

our activists at the turn of the century in the

Ottoman Empire, are convinced if they have God or

Truth on their side, they have nothing to fear

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

ara baliozian

Member

Member # 271

posted June 20, 2001 11:09 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

BEING USEFUL

+++++++++++++++++++

Sometimes I am urged by readers to prove my usefulness

by joining one of our institutions,

the implication being that words are cheap,

writing an exercise in futility,

and literature a waste of time.

First of all,

our institutions have no use for people like me.

In their eyes I am a fault-finder, a malcontent, and a whiner.

What they want are good soldiers,

yes-men, and above all contributors.

Men with fat bellies and fatter bank accounts.

Believers, yes.

Dupes? Certainly!

Skeptics, no.

Critics, even less.

As for literature being a waste of time:

this is not an Armenian or civilized concept

but one worthy of bloodthirsty barbarians and fascists.

Is it conceivable that

that’s all we have learned from our former lords and masters?

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

ara baliozian

Member

Member # 271

posted August 24, 2001 06:59 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

STATUS QUO

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

I don’t have readers; I have critics.

Strike that!

I don’t have critics; I have commissars who tell me to "Shut up!" "Die," and "Go to hell!" Please note that I am not quoting crazies and hooligans (of whom we have our share) but members of the educated classes, academics, ladies and gentlemen with university degrees.

About sixty years ago, when he found himself in a similar situation in Armenia, Zarian could only say and repeat: "Danger! Danger! Danger!" And what happened next?

No one paid any attention to his warning. No one gave a damn. And shortly thereafter the Soviets systematically exterminated our ablest men, including members of the Party.

We are better off today.

No risk of systematic extermination.

Who is there to exterminate?

Vahe Oshagan, the last intellectual, is dead and he summed up our situation when near the end of his life he declared:

"I am ashamed to identify myself as an Armenian."

And he too was a member of the Party.

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[elovna]

Yes, like me for example, so that makes four.

[MJ]

ara baliozian

Member

Member # 271

posted June 09, 2001 06:05 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE DEATH OF AN ILLUSION

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

What I say is so obvious and accessible

that my first reaction to criticism is disbelief;

and I cannot help suspecting that

those who express disagreement

must have ulterior motives:

they are defending their boss (or source of income),

or the memory of a schoolteacher

or some other father figure

who was successful in convincing them

we are beyond criticism;

or, since we are as good (or as bad) as the rest of mankind,

we have no use for critics,

only brown-nosers may apply.

I don’t mind admitting that

once upon a time

I too was taken in by these shameless lies,

until it became increasingly difficult to ignore

the evidence of my own eyes

and the experience on my own skin.

There is a passage in the Bible that says

and I will now paraphrase:

"When I was a child I played with toys,

but when I grew up I put my toys aside."

This may sound as the obvious thing to do,

but it is astonishing how many adults opt against it,

perhaps because, in the words of Arthur Koestler,

"Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion,"

and, it follows, more difficult to come to terms with.

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

ara baliozian

Member

Member # 271

posted June 27, 2001 07:04 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ON PRESTIGE /Wednesday, June 27, 2001

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

"Your kind of criticism harms our prestige as a nation," I am warned once in a while. Maybe so, but the harm done by silencing dissent could be much more dangerous, not to say lethal, to our survival as a nation.

The nation is a much larger concept

than those I criticize and a thousand like me put together.

 

Who would benefit if I were silenced? The people or those in power?

 

When a friendly reader quotes me he identifies me as a "prominent writer";

but when a detractor mentions me he calls me an "idiot," a "moron," a "jerk," and a "shithead." As far as I know, no one has ever bothered to call me "a concerned citizen."

 

A nation’s prestige cannot be so fragile as to be irreparably damaged by the words of a single…concerned citizen.

 

No one in his right mind would ever confuse those in power with the people or the nation.

 

 

Schopenhauer: "We pay an attention to the opinion of others

which is out of all proportion to its value."

 

Goethe: "The world goes forward only because of those who oppose it."

 

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

ara baliozian

Member

Member # 271

posted August 10, 2001 07:08 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

OBSERVATIONS

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

Some of my readers accuse me of using too much vinegar and not enough honey. "Honey," they like to remind me, "catches more flies." To them and to everyone who believes in the wisdom of the ages, there is a Spanish proverb that says: "Haceos de miel, y os comeran las moscas" (Make yourself honey and the flies will eat you).

We speak too much of genocide and not enough of genosuicide. Genocide is what happened to us at the turn of the century in the Ottoman Empire. Genosuicide is what’s been happening to us since.

 

Eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt not insult if you can criticize."

Twelfth Commandment: "Thou shalt not criticize to prove that you are ahead of the game because our problems are not games."

 

I have been publishing critical articles for at least two decades now and I have never – repeat, never! -- heard a decent Armenian saying that he is offended by my criticism. On the contrary!….

 

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

ara baliozian

Member

Member # 271

posted August 09, 2001 11:07 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MEMOS

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

TO READERS WHO ARE PROGRAMMED

TO CONTRADICT EVERYTHING I SAY:

Obviously, I am the wrong man for the job – the job being convincing you that like all human beings you too may well be fallible. However, if you are certain you are always right and I am always wrong, why waste your time reading me? -- especially in view of the fact that we have so many partisan publications recycling chauvinist crap….

TO THOSE WHO INSULT ME ANONYMOUSLY:

There should be a silent rule for all e-mail communications that says, if you insult someone, have the decency to do so under your real name, otherwise your target may be justified in dismissing your words as those of a cowardly liar: because anyone who lies about his identity will lie about anything.

 

TO THOSE WHO ARE NOT OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS:

Sometimes I make suggestions (like the above) not with the expectation that they will be accepted but with the hope that they will enhance the awareness of my critics. But that too may well be a vain hope. One cannot make suggestions to someone who has assessed himself as la crème de la crème but who is in fact la crème de la scum. Such a one is not, as a rule, open to suggestion even when the suggestion is to his advantage.

 

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

ara baliozian

Member

Member # 271

posted August 08, 2001 11:03 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

READERS AND CRITICS

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

Some of my critics think they are making a positive contribution to our cause when they accuse me of negativism, thus implying, when I am negative I am negative, but when they are negative they are positive.

When a reader insults, curses, swears and foams at the mouth, I feel like James Thurber’s duelist, who, after decapitating his opponent, says "Touché!"

 

If you adopt a critical stance – which, in our environment, might as well mean: if you use your common sense and view things as they are – you will be accused of being a bad Armenian as if being a good Armenian meant being deaf, dumb and blind.

 

In his latest posthumously published book, TOWARDS ARARAT (Yerevan, 2001), Gostan Zarian writes that, when an Armenian establishes himself in a foreign country, he acquires something of the ape and the parrot. "You lack originality," I was informed recently by one of these ape/parrots.

 

To how many of my critics I could say: I am flattered that someone of your intellectual caliber reads my nonsense and takes the trouble to comment on it. In your place I would occupy myself with worthier enterprises.

 

If an Armenian writer criticizes Armenians and no one reads him, is he still wrong?

 

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

ara baliozian

Member

Member # 271

posted July 30, 2001 07:22 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE ROUTINE

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

After two decades of hostile co-existence, my critics and I have developed a routine that goes something like this:

MYSELF: We have many problems.

MY CRITICS: Mention a single nation without problems.

-Other nations are functional, we are dysfunctional.

-You say that because you are anti-Armenian.

-And you say that because you expect even critics to recycle chauvinist crap.

-Do you have to stress the negative all the time? Why don’t you say something positive once in a while?

-To be truly negative means to give up and to assimilate, which is exactly what the majority has been doing.

-Whose fault is it if Armenians assimilate? People like you who stress the negative!

-Assimilation has been with us long before I was born: it is a result of a divided, corrupt, and incompetent leadership.

-We did not invent these things; you will find divisions, corruption and incompetence in the most progressive nations.

-Progressive nations go forward; we have been going in the opposite directions.

-Give us a chance. We are a new nation: we just gained our independence.

-We are the cradle of civilization, according to our propagandists.

-That’s right! And the first nation to accept Christianity.

-Correction: the first nation to give up Christianity as an impractical religion.

-You speak like a fool and an ignoramus.

-You call that Christian?

-I call it being honest.

-An honest man does not call a fellow human being a fool and an ignoramus.

-I can’t think of you as a fellow human being because you are anti-Armenian.

-I am anti-Armenian because I refuse to recycle chauvinist crap?

-No, because you are anti-Armenian, period!…

…and so on

There you have it: two monologues that never cross!

 

--------------------

 

ara baliozian

[MJ]

ara baliozian

Member

Member # 271

posted August 04, 2001 06:59 AM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MY CUP RUNNETH OVER NIAGARALLY…

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

During the last twenty years or so, it has happened to me no more than once or at most twice, that a reader has written to inform me that he disagrees with me but not as much as he used to when he started reading me.

From such glimmers of hope revolutions are born.

And they say I am a pessimist, a purveyor of bad tidings, a somber hombre, a gloom-doom dude!….

--------------------

 

ara baliozian