notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, April 15, 2007
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LOGIC AND OPTIMISM
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Overheard:
“Optimism is good for the soul.”
“So is logic.”
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Whenever a policy fails, it is safe to assume it was probably formulated by optimists. Examples that come readily to mind: Vietnam, Iraq, and our “revolution” in the Ottoman Empire.
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Optimism: what is it exactly? One tentative answer would be, overestimating the positive in us and the negative in the opposition. It astonishes how often we use reason to lead us to unreason. What would be more reasonable than to think, if the Great Powers of the West, imperial Russia, and God Almighty Himself are on our side, there is no way we can lose. And yet, lose we did, and lose in the most tragic, catastrophic, and horrible way. And we lost not because logic was not on our side but because we underestimated the opposition. Somewhere in his 12-volume STUDY OF HISTORY, Toynbee says, one should never underestimate the will to live even of a corpse. That may not be the logic of the human brain, but it is the logic of life (or the prospect of death), which becomes visible only after the fact.
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Rules of logic: who makes them? Who else but man, and man being fallible, his rules are bound to be full of holes. What an environment dominated by optimists needs more than anything else is not more logic but pessimism. That’s because the danger in optimism is not in optimism itself but rather in the kind of optimism that is not open to dialogue. Intolerant and dogmatic optimism ceases being logical if only because it asserts infallibility. That’s when hubris (arrogance) invites nemesis (retribution).
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When you think right and reason are on your side and you have life by the short hair, that’s when you need to consider the possibility of being not just wrong, but catastrophically, tragically, horribly wrong.
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If one has been catastrophically wrong in the past, is there anything that will prevent him from being catastrophically wrong again? I will let you answer that question.
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“I know what I know and I don’t need your two cents’ worth!” The words of a loudmouth ignoramus flirting with disaster.
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In the Confucian ANALECTS we read: “Who sins against heaven has nothing to pray to.”
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According to Ezra Pound, Confucius did not say, “If you see a good man, emulate him; if you see a bad man, examine your own heart.” What he said instead was: “See solid talent and think of measuring up to it; see the un-solid and examine your own insides.”
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To my Turcocentric brothers I say: “Whenever you think of Turkish criminal conduct, examine your own insides!” – which, needless to add, cannot be an option for the gutless.
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Monday, April 16, 2007
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ON A VARIETY OF THINGS
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Fanatics take over only when moderates let them. If fanatics are guilty of actions, moderates are guilty of inaction. We are all assassins.
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Their side believes in solutions by massacre and denial, our side believes in solutions by verbiage. After writing an anti-Turkish commentary or letter to the editor, my guess is, a Turcocentric pundit thinks he has hammered still another imaginary nail on their metaphorical coffin that contains their collective metaphysical cadaver made entirely of his wishful thinking. And as Vonnegut (may he rest in peace) used to say, “And so it goes.”
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There was a time when editors rejected my things because they were too long; now because they are not long enough. Some day I hope to master the art of writing by measuring tape.
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The role of god in history? He has converted countless law-abiding citizens into lynch mobs and killing machines.
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When Confucius was asked to discipline a lazy disciple, he said: “Rotten wood cannot be carved, a wall of dung won’t hold plaster; what’s the use of reproving him?”
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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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THE SABERS OF PARADISE
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The best way to resist temptation is to wait patiently until you are wise enough or old enough not to have them – though old age is more reliable than wisdom.
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And speaking of longevity: Could the Ottoman Empire become a success – if we measure success by might and longevity – without assimilating Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Assyrians, Kurds, Arabs, Iranians, Albanians, Georgians, Avars, Ingushi, Chechens, and a number of other Caucasian tribes (forty-five of them, according to some estimates) that were ruthlessly exterminated and driven out of their ancestral homes by the armies of Imperial Russia during a war that lasted several decades in the 19th Century? It is reasonable to assume that it was survivors of these Muslim tribes from the Caucasus that had settled in Anatolia that played a key role in carrying out Talaat’s policy of extermination in 1915.
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And now, let’s consider Imperial Russia: to what extent was it Russian? Or rather, what were the contributions of non-Russians like Greeks, Jews, Georgians, Armenians, Germans, Tartars, Cossacks, and Ukrainians among others? All empires are mosaics, and it is no exaggeration to say that Armenians contributed equally to both the Ottoman and Russian Empires. Next question: what was the role of Armenians in the defeat, extermination, and exodus of the above-mentioned Caucasian tribes? Quite significant, according to THE SABERS OF PARADISE by Lesley Blanch, who is also the author of a biography of the French Turcophile novelist, Pierre Loti. Unlike Loti, however, Lesley Blanch was not an Armenian-hater. Neither was she anti-Russian because she also wrote several favorable books on Russia. According to her, the Russo-Caucasian war was also a religious war, which may explain the ferocity with which it was executed -- which brings to mind Voltaire’s celebrated dictum: “Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors.”
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Anyone who wants to know more about the role of Armenians in this jihad is urged to read SABERS OF PARADISE, a fascinating book that I have read three times and plan to read again.
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Wednesday, April 18, 2007
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HOW NOT TO SOLVE A PROBLEM
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Those who are in no position to change things say we need solutions.
Those who may be in a position to change, if not things than perceptions, say, there is corruption everywhere. And those who know nothing and understand even less are brainwashed to say, first nation this, first nation that, Saroyan, Mikoyan, and Gulbenkian.
As for those who ought to know better, they say, we have to name names; speaking in terms of bosses, bishops, benefactors and similar generalities is meaningless because no one feels exposed. If you are one of them and pretend not to know what happens to those who dare to name names, allow me to enlighten you.
Once, when one of our weeklies named names, its publisher was dragged to court by one of our national benefactors, found guilty on a technicality (compliments of belly-slitting lawyers), was fined a catastrophic sum, forced to apologize, suffered a stroke, and was almost driven out of business.
An editor from Yerevan told me, after he named names, a gang of hoodlums showed up, vandalized his office, roughed up his personnel, and very kindly advised him to mind his own business.
Closer to home, when I asked one of our eminent editors why he published so many granny and massacre stories and none about our present problems, he refused to have anything to do with me.
Last but far from least, there are the poltroons who say it will take time. How much time? Ten years or from here to eternity? Their favorite answer is, about thirty or forty years, by which time they will be dead, buried, and no longer in a position to be proven wrong. These gentlemen, let’s call them time theorists, place their trust in time because that way they will be allowed to sit on their fat asses and do nothing, all the while projecting the image of concerned citizens.
You may now be in a better position to understand why Turcocentrism is the most popular subject with our speechifiers, sermonizers, editorializers, and dime-a-dozen pundits.
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