Sunday, July 16, 2006
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Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), French composer on the ideal tempo for a song: “If the singer is bad – very fast.”
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If the subject is propaganda, reduce a complex issue to a cliché or slogan: Turks are bad, Armenians good. We are smart, progressive, civilized, everybody else is corrupt, backward, dishonest. We do the right thing, none of our enemies and their partisans are equipped to discriminate right from wrong. We touch the top, they scrape the bottom. God is on our side, the devil is on theirs. Heaven is our destination, hell is theirs.
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What if some of our most cherished certainties are based on a transparent misrepresentation of reality, in the same way that some of the worst crimes against humanity are committed in the name of a god we only pretend to know and understand, but about whom “we know nothing” (Socrates)?
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Contradictions and differences of opinion are useful only in a dialogue. Anywhere else they only paralyze the mind and poison the soul.
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The stated reason is seldom the real reason. If the stated reason is altruistic, search for the unstated selfish reason.
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When two men speaking in the name of god contradict each other, it only means that either one or both are charlatans, liars, and blasphemers with illusions of grandeur.
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Monday, July 17, 2006
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SPEAKING WITH A FORKED TONGUE
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The chances are, the opposite of what we say contains more truth than what we say.
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Our Father (but no one else’s) who art in heaven, Halvajian be thy name. Give us this day our pilaf and shish-kebab (and stones to our enemies). Forgive us our trespasses on condition that you don’t expect us to forgive the bastards who trespassed against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us straight to the devil, because he makes fewer demands on us.
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FREEDOM OR DEATH
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Freedom for us, death to everyone else, including our dupes.
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Behind every heroic slogan, search for the cowards who formulated it. Or, as the Turks are fond of saying, “Among ten men nine are sure to be women.” The Chinese have a similar saying: “Those who make idols don’t believe in them.
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SHADES OF GRAY
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Chekhov: “There are no good people and no bad people in my plays, only people.”
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Ronald Harwood explaining why his characters are shades of gray rather than black and white: “If you color your characters in one or the other, you are dealing in propaganda.”
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SPEAKING OF PROPAGANDA
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In her recently published biography of Magda Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, Anja Klabunde quotes her as having said: “Joseph is the greatest loudmouth phony that has ever lived on German soil.”
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Tuesday, July 18, 2006
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If I were a man of faith I would keep it a secret lest I offend others of a different persuasion. No one likes to be thought of as an infidel, a heretic, a blasphemer, or a deviationist on his way to the devil.
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Nietzsche says somewhere “those who speak with a loud voice cannot have subtle thoughts.” Something similar could be said of men of faith.
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There is no conceivable reason why god and good manners should be mutually exclusive. If you discard good manners in the name of god, what’s to stop anyone from using god as a license to kill?
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People who value life over death may be relied on to do what’s best in their own interest. But the same cannot be said of men of faith who believe they will be better off dead than alive.
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All undemocratic ideologies and power structures value conformism, obedience, and subservience above freedom and creativity. All totalitarian regimes tacitly subscribe to the Orwellian slogan “Slavery is Freedom.”
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If what we believe shapes our character, it would be no exaggeration to say that very often faith creates hoodlums, vandals, and killers.
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Wednesday, July 19, 2006
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Somewhere Plekhanov observes, “Bourgeois scientists make sure that their theories are not dangerous to God and to Capital.” He should have added: “Communist scientists make sure that their theories do not in any way question the infallibility of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. Closer to home: our pundits and academics today make sure that nothing they say may be remotely critical of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors on whose goodwill they depend for their survival and prosperity. Hence, the proliferation of massacre books in which all the blame is heaped on others.
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Every power structure generates its own gods and bourgeoisie whose number one concern is number one.
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Leadership, it has been said, consists in the ability to see “the other side of the hill.” My question is: if our leaders could not foresee the Genocide, what the hell can they foresee?
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An honest man will never say, “If you want to be right, you must think as I do.” It is the mighty of this world that impose their ideas on others because they sense instinctively that they are wrong and only intimidation will persuade others to agree with them.
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I read today that when slavery was legal, blacks owned black slaves, and whites owned white slaves. In other words, slavery was integrated.
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Once upon a time when I was a loudmouth smart-ass know-it-all I couldn’t understand those who took a sudden dislike at me. Now I don’t understand those who liked me.
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