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Sunday, September 16, 2007
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UNDER FIRE
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The law of the jungle says if you are alone, you will be vulnerable to predators. There is a biological (i.e. primitive and unconscious) component in patriotism: we identify with God and Country to be less vulnerable. It follows, anyone who questions the legitimacy of our faith and patriotism (like yours truly) is an enemy that deserves to be verbally abused, chastised, and whenever possible, silenced. This type of reasoning ignores the fact that if I dissent it may be because, instead of uniting us, God and Country have done the exact opposite – they have divided us not only from the rest of mankind but also from one another. Common sense and history (i.e. reality and facts) are on my side here. A religion or ideology that preaches solidarity and brotherhood but practices division and fragmentation ends up legitimizing prejudice, hatred, war, and massacre, in other words, the law of the jungle. The only thing God and Country have done for us so far is to allow the ephemeral feeling or illusion of being less vulnerable. Now then, how fair are some of my patriotic readers when they estimate the value of my person and work somewhere below their “spittle,” “vomit,” and “sh**”? And the following in reference to my person: “This mother-f***ing Turcophile son-of-a-bitch should not be permitted to post his garbage on this forum and must be kicked out forthwith!” No doubt the sentiments of an ardent patriot who may inspire patriotism in others.
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Monday, September 17, 2007
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ON OUR COLLECTIVE IQ
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In a letter to the editor in this morning’s paper I read the following: “…by funding more than one public system we are wasting our valuable dollars on bureaucracies.”
In another letter, a reader comments on the promises of politicians: “This is just garbage and we all know it. It is time to make politicians responsible for their words and actions.”
In still another letter a reader comments on the “shallow dogmatism and irrational rhetoric” of his fellow Canadians.
*
It is not at all unusual for a fool to assess himself as smart, and the distance from smart to very smart, and from very smart to smartest might as well be invisible to the naked eye. But if I were to rate our collective political IQ, I would place it somewhere between Latvians and Albanians. Why Albanians? Because they too think they are just about the smartest people on earth. For more on this subject see Paul Theroux’s THE PILLARS OF HERCULES, one of the very best books ever written about countries on the Mediterranean coast. According to Theroux, Albanians think as they do because they were brainwashed by their own leadership. Does that ring a bell?
*
If I write in this vein it’s not because I am anti-Armenian but because I have seen the light of objectivity and impartiality. The question we should ask but we never do is: to what extent our status as perennial victims may be said to be an extension of our collective single-digit IQ? And if you say we have been victimized because we are only sardines in a pool of sharks, I say biology may be destiny in the animal kingdom but not in Homo sapiens, and that our size and vulnerability is a direct result of our political moronism and nothing else. I could prove this with almost mathematical precision by quoting our own writers from Yeghishe (5th century) to Zarian (20th century)(*) but I won’t even try because I know an Armenian cannot convince another Armenian of anything, and if an odar were to try, he would be promptly dismissed as a Turcophile which in our lexicon means the lowest form of animal life.
*
FOOTNOTE
(*)See my DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS, which contains relevant passages from the two writers mentioned above as well as many other Armenian and odar observers.
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Tuesday, September 18, 2007
***************************************
DARKNESS AT HIGH NOON
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Polybius: “Knowledge of the past is the readiest means men can have of correcting their conduct.”
*
Knowledge of the past or understanding history does not mean who did what to whom, where, when, and number of victims – that’s journalism not history – but where did we go wrong?
*
Why is it that he who has seen the light of faith becomes blind to the light of reason? Why is it that when it comes to belief systems, one man’s light is another’s darkness? If two men have seen the light and they disagree with one another, it may be because one of them or both cannot tell the difference between light and darkness.
*
I write as I do because I cannot stomach the spectacle of a poltroon who, after learning one or two things, sits on his fat ass with the conviction that he knows everything he needs to know, when in fact all he knows are a handful of newspaper headlines and a couple of slogans that flatter his ego.
*
On the subject of the Genocide, we speak like jihadists who have seen the light of truth, and the truth is: they are bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians. If it took us six hundred years to reach that “obvious” and “self-evident” truth, it may be because either they are consummate dissemblers or we are not as smart as we think we are.
*
Between a lie that flatters his ego and a truth that exposes his limitations, a man will invariably choose the lie, and he will compound the felony by calling it the light of truth. I am reminded of a passage in the Bible that goes something like this (I quote from memory and I paraphrase): “If you think you are smart, be a fool so that you may be really smart.” And I say, amen to that!
#
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
*********************************************
MARK MY WORDS
******************************
Dissent is unpatriotic only in an environment where propaganda is truth.
*
Never make the mistake of thinking that your status as underdog or victim bestows on you any kind of superiority. If power corrupts, so does weakness. If money is the root of all evil, so is the lack of it.
*
Where there are Armenians there will be disagreements, not the kind that are only stages in a dialogue that move towards consensus, but dead-end disagreements that are nothing but dogmatic assertions in a closed system of thought, and closed systems of thought are favored by closed minds.
*
If I ever regain my childhood faith in God, one of my first prayers (repeated thereafter daily) will be: “Dear Lord, give me a critic who has not undergone a frontal lobotomy or is in no need of professional help.”
*
Memo to a pompous ass:
If tomorrow we vanish from the face of the earth, my guess is we will make fewer headlines than Britney Spears’ haircut or O.J.’s most recent shenanigan.
#
*********************************************
UNDER FIRE
*****************************
The law of the jungle says if you are alone, you will be vulnerable to predators. There is a biological (i.e. primitive and unconscious) component in patriotism: we identify with God and Country to be less vulnerable. It follows, anyone who questions the legitimacy of our faith and patriotism (like yours truly) is an enemy that deserves to be verbally abused, chastised, and whenever possible, silenced. This type of reasoning ignores the fact that if I dissent it may be because, instead of uniting us, God and Country have done the exact opposite – they have divided us not only from the rest of mankind but also from one another. Common sense and history (i.e. reality and facts) are on my side here. A religion or ideology that preaches solidarity and brotherhood but practices division and fragmentation ends up legitimizing prejudice, hatred, war, and massacre, in other words, the law of the jungle. The only thing God and Country have done for us so far is to allow the ephemeral feeling or illusion of being less vulnerable. Now then, how fair are some of my patriotic readers when they estimate the value of my person and work somewhere below their “spittle,” “vomit,” and “sh**”? And the following in reference to my person: “This mother-f***ing Turcophile son-of-a-bitch should not be permitted to post his garbage on this forum and must be kicked out forthwith!” No doubt the sentiments of an ardent patriot who may inspire patriotism in others.
#
Monday, September 17, 2007
************************************************
ON OUR COLLECTIVE IQ
*****************************************
In a letter to the editor in this morning’s paper I read the following: “…by funding more than one public system we are wasting our valuable dollars on bureaucracies.”
In another letter, a reader comments on the promises of politicians: “This is just garbage and we all know it. It is time to make politicians responsible for their words and actions.”
In still another letter a reader comments on the “shallow dogmatism and irrational rhetoric” of his fellow Canadians.
*
It is not at all unusual for a fool to assess himself as smart, and the distance from smart to very smart, and from very smart to smartest might as well be invisible to the naked eye. But if I were to rate our collective political IQ, I would place it somewhere between Latvians and Albanians. Why Albanians? Because they too think they are just about the smartest people on earth. For more on this subject see Paul Theroux’s THE PILLARS OF HERCULES, one of the very best books ever written about countries on the Mediterranean coast. According to Theroux, Albanians think as they do because they were brainwashed by their own leadership. Does that ring a bell?
*
If I write in this vein it’s not because I am anti-Armenian but because I have seen the light of objectivity and impartiality. The question we should ask but we never do is: to what extent our status as perennial victims may be said to be an extension of our collective single-digit IQ? And if you say we have been victimized because we are only sardines in a pool of sharks, I say biology may be destiny in the animal kingdom but not in Homo sapiens, and that our size and vulnerability is a direct result of our political moronism and nothing else. I could prove this with almost mathematical precision by quoting our own writers from Yeghishe (5th century) to Zarian (20th century)(*) but I won’t even try because I know an Armenian cannot convince another Armenian of anything, and if an odar were to try, he would be promptly dismissed as a Turcophile which in our lexicon means the lowest form of animal life.
*
FOOTNOTE
(*)See my DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS, which contains relevant passages from the two writers mentioned above as well as many other Armenian and odar observers.
#
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
***************************************
DARKNESS AT HIGH NOON
********************************************
Polybius: “Knowledge of the past is the readiest means men can have of correcting their conduct.”
*
Knowledge of the past or understanding history does not mean who did what to whom, where, when, and number of victims – that’s journalism not history – but where did we go wrong?
*
Why is it that he who has seen the light of faith becomes blind to the light of reason? Why is it that when it comes to belief systems, one man’s light is another’s darkness? If two men have seen the light and they disagree with one another, it may be because one of them or both cannot tell the difference between light and darkness.
*
I write as I do because I cannot stomach the spectacle of a poltroon who, after learning one or two things, sits on his fat ass with the conviction that he knows everything he needs to know, when in fact all he knows are a handful of newspaper headlines and a couple of slogans that flatter his ego.
*
On the subject of the Genocide, we speak like jihadists who have seen the light of truth, and the truth is: they are bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians. If it took us six hundred years to reach that “obvious” and “self-evident” truth, it may be because either they are consummate dissemblers or we are not as smart as we think we are.
*
Between a lie that flatters his ego and a truth that exposes his limitations, a man will invariably choose the lie, and he will compound the felony by calling it the light of truth. I am reminded of a passage in the Bible that goes something like this (I quote from memory and I paraphrase): “If you think you are smart, be a fool so that you may be really smart.” And I say, amen to that!
#
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
*********************************************
MARK MY WORDS
******************************
Dissent is unpatriotic only in an environment where propaganda is truth.
*
Never make the mistake of thinking that your status as underdog or victim bestows on you any kind of superiority. If power corrupts, so does weakness. If money is the root of all evil, so is the lack of it.
*
Where there are Armenians there will be disagreements, not the kind that are only stages in a dialogue that move towards consensus, but dead-end disagreements that are nothing but dogmatic assertions in a closed system of thought, and closed systems of thought are favored by closed minds.
*
If I ever regain my childhood faith in God, one of my first prayers (repeated thereafter daily) will be: “Dear Lord, give me a critic who has not undergone a frontal lobotomy or is in no need of professional help.”
*
Memo to a pompous ass:
If tomorrow we vanish from the face of the earth, my guess is we will make fewer headlines than Britney Spears’ haircut or O.J.’s most recent shenanigan.
#