Thursday, May 31, 2007
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NOTES / COMMENTS
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A good nationalist believes to lie in the name of patriotism is morally superior to speaking the truth.
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When man goes out in search of God, he is sure to come face to face with the devil; and when he speaks or acts in His name, the chances are he does so in the name of the devil.
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We study history not to prove ourselves right and everyone else wrong, but to learn from our blunders.
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Since identity is an abstraction, all kinds of absurd claims are made in its name. Some of these claims may be relatively harmless but others, such as claims of racial, moral, or intellectual superiority, have been the source of much misery, including wars, massacres, and genocides. “I know better,” is very probably one of the most dangerous assertions one can make.
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Those who are most in need of advice are the least receptive to them.
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The Turks and our leaders have combined forces to turn us into pillars of salt.
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Friday, June 01, 2007
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REFLECTIONS
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The unstated aim of propaganda is to make you feel good about yourself. Hence its popularity. Literature has no interest in that direction.
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When a charlatan calls me a charlatan, I conclude that (one) he knows the meaning of the word, and (two) he has too large an ego to suspect he may qualify as one.
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To allow a past crime to define your future is to consent being permanently at the mercy of the criminal.
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Jean Francois de la Harpe: “In France, the first day is for admiration, the second for criticism, the third for indifference.” Among Armenians, there are no first days.
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Colette: “If you are incapable of magic, you should stay out of the kitchen.” I suspect what she had in mind was not the kitchen but literature.
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Einstein: “I am a deeply religious nonbeliever.”
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What made Einstein great was his refusal to accept the word of established authority and to reject all obvious answers as final.
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Saturday, June 02, 2007
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ON PROUD ARMENIANS
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Speaking for myself, I prefer humble Armenians, if only because we have many more reasons to be humble than proud.
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The word denialist is applied to those who refuse to acknowledge the reality of the Genocide. It could also be applied to Armenians who deny the fact of their Ottomanization.
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I was brought up to see religion and patriotism as noble concepts, but I know now that they are noble only when applied to fundamentally decent men. In the hands of a dupe who cannot think for himself, both God and Country may become instruments of intolerance and oppression, and ultimately justifications of war and massacre.
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After accusing me of being a foreign agent, one of my readers identifies himself as “a proud Armenian.” There is a type of chauvinism and paranoia that are unmistakable symptoms of fascism.
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In the presence of someone who identifies himself with a group – be it tribal or religious – I feel like a potential victim, someone who some day, given the right combination of conditions, may be killed in the name of God and Country.
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A “proud Armenian” is not just a single person but a fraction of a lynch mob.
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