essays

[Guest arabaliozian]

ON RACISM********************************Convincing an ignorant and insecure dupe with a single-digit IQ that he belongs to the master race is easy; the trick is succeeding where Mussolini’s morons and Hitler’s hoodlums failed.*Only arrogant nonentities believe in their own assessment of themselves. Only pathological imbeciles entertain the hope that, if they voice their own high opinion of themselves, others may be more favorably disposed to look up to them.*Genuine moral superiority is a heavy burden and a source of endless doubt, anxiety, soul-searching, and painful self-examination; it is not an elixir that gives one the license to behave like swine without seeing any contradiction in it.*Chauvinists, racists, and fanatics in general hate not only a specific group but anyone who does not share their prejudice. In other words, they have an inherent disposition to hate regardless of race, color, creed, sex, and political affiliation.*All talk of 100% pure-blooded Armenians is racist nonsense. Where there is racism, there will be fascism. And I, for one, would gladly give up my identity as an Armenian if being Armenian also meant being a racist and a fascist.OTTOMANISM REVISITED*******************************Is French literature French? Montaigne, Proust, Maurois (Jews), Zola (Italian), Moreas (Greek), Cioran and Ionesco (Rumanians), Beckett (Irish), Troyat, Katcha, Adamov, Lubin (Armenians) and I could go on…. What does that mean? Simply this: France provides a fertile ground for literature. What about us? We have created an environment controlled by mullahs, commissars, philistines, and moral hooligans who see nothing questionable in telling writers what to think and write and sometimes even how to live. Result? Censorship, treason, betrayal, exile, starvation, assassination, and execution; and a literature that is stifled, choked, buried and reduced to dust.*It is very easy to make friends on grounds of Armenianism, but much easier to make enemies on grounds of Ottomanism which says: "It is not enough to agree with me a thousand times: you must also agree a thousand and one times, for I am a sultan of wisdom."*The very same individuals who deliver lectures on contemporary Armenian literary trends have told me more than once: "You are wasting your time writing for Armenians. If you want to amount to anything, write for odars -- like Arlen and Saroyan."Monday, September 23, 2002********************************About ten years ago a university professor on our street adopted seven little black orphans from Africa. There was an article in our local paper praising this humanitarian gesture. A couple of years later he was exposed as a child molester. In his defense he said that he had been trying to explain to his stepdaughters the complexities of human sexuality. His intentions had been of a purely didactic nature. Two years later and shortly after being released from prison, he was arrested again. Once a teacher, always a teacher!*No one can be as inaccessible to common sense as a speechifying charlatan, and no one can be as inaccessible to common decency as a sermonizing mullah or bishop. I suppose one could also say, no one can be as inaccessible to sanity as a lunatic.*In Howard Fast’s REDEMPTION I read the following quotation by Father Berrigan: "I seek so simple a thing as – sanity. For I confess to you that I regard these people, who are my people, with a growing horror, this believing nation that sounds its prayers as it goes about the task of Cain."*An inaccessible person is one who says "I'd rather burn in my own #### than reside in your heaven."*The Nazis lost not only because they made themselves inaccessible to the wisdom of the Jews but also to their scientific know-how (Einstein).Wednesday, September 25, 2002**********************************There is nothing God cannot explain. And if He doesn't exist we can always assume the existence of a Being who can understand and explain everything. At which point we are confronted with two options: either to emulate God by trying to understand if not everything than more, or to understand less and condemn more. Understanding more means being in a position to predict more; and predicting more means being in a position to avert catastrophe. Consider the two World Wars of the 20th century: if those on the warpath had been able to predict their defeat, would they have chosen to declare war? Or rather, would the people have cooperated with a leadership bent on committing collective suicide?*I define God asthe search for meaning even when you know such a meaning does not exist, and if it does, it will forever remain beyond man’s reach. Faith, real faith, to me means the rejection of all closed systems of thought (such as organized religions) that pretend to have all the answers. Thousands of books have been written about gods, angels, and devils, books by serious men and great theologians. Yet, all of them might as well be fiction and fantasy because the truth is, we don't know and we may never know. The only thing we can state with any degree of certainty is that, nothing cannot create something. The universe as we know it, or rather, the tiny fraction of the universe or the visible universe (as astronomers call it) that we can observe, could not have come out of nothing. We don't need faith or metaphysics to state this. All we need is logic and common sense. Beyond that, everything we say can be easily contradicted and rejected (and it has been contradicted and rejected) by a substantial fraction of mankind, including a wide spectrum of philosophers, thinkers, scientists, and strange as this may seem, religious leaders themselves. Let’s not forget that the disagreements between religious leaders have been much more ferocious and bloody than the disagreements between believers and non-believers.Thursday, September 26, 2002*******************************If loving mankind means also loving its wars, massacres and genocides, then I don't mind admitting I don't very much care for the human race and its ten thousand gods, religions, ideologies, and lies. But what I loathe even more are so-called smart, compassionate and well-informed (self-assessed, of course) dupes who are taken in by charlatans with a single-digit IQ who preach hatred and even the murder of innocent civilians in the name of god. That doesn't mean however that I have lost the capacity to love an honest man whenever on those extremely rare occasions I run into one.____