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| QUOTATIONS 318-352 |
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| 318. Even the most objectively neutral and seemingly innocuous means may be used to achieve the most subjectively insidious and prejudicial ends, as in the case of diminution by definition or negation by classification, both representing quite often the more or less thinly disguised attempts to reduce a multifaceted and complex individual personality or phenomenon to an abstract, rigid and invariably stereotypical caricature. 319. Men believe what they want to believe in and cannot be convinced otherwise, unless they want to be convinced otherwise. People listen to others, read books and newspapers, watch TV not to have their beliefs changed but to have them reaffirmed. The basis of one's beliefs is one's psychological needs which defy facts, reason and logic when feel threatened. Whatever our beliefs are we believe because we want to believe, because we need to believe. 320. When we as individuals are tired, we stop pretending and begin to act naturally. At this time we are more apt to tell the truth and are more willing to hear it from the others. Similarly, a country as a whole can also experience such periods of profound fatigue when its citizens collectively stop pretending and begin to tell the truth and listen to it. Those usually are not the happy times, for all previously pent up grievances, frustrations and anger burst out like a water through a broken dam. The truth brings disillusionment, the disillusionment - rage, the rage leads to destruction. And only after that, a society, out of sheer desire to go on, starts to rebuild the new illusions, new myth, new hopes out of the "old bricks" salvaged from the ruins. 321.The hour of the United States' alleged victory over the Soviet Union in the Cold War may very well prove to be an occasion of America's defeat, the beginning of its demise. For it may now face the fate of an army which having destroyed its enemy so completely that it can never going to rise again, might have destroyed in the process the very reason for its own existence. Assuming, with the ample reasons, that the main justification for the American predominance in the post-Second World War period was her role as a bulwark of the world capitalist system (a mandate of private property and free enterprise, so to speak) against the threat of communism, now, that this threat has gone (at least for the time being) United States are going to be treated (not right away but gradually, of course) as anybody else, i.e. without special considerations or privileges. In this "New World Order" of more or less free and peaceful economico-political competition America's military might, and especially possession of huge nuclear arsenal, instead of giving it any advantage is, more likely than not, going to hang like a proverbial albatross over her neck. 322. Man is perpetually oscillating between the two contrary, or may be even contradictory poles - the individuality and collectivity. He would like both to maintain his uniqueness and, at the same time, to belong to the group. Thus, the preferable position, of course, would be in the middle, in a state of equilibrium, albeit an unstable one. Similarly, nationalism and internationalism as the familiar expressions, first - of individuality of a particular nation, and second - of collectivity of all nations, could be viewed as the two opposite states of mind any specific nation constantly finds itself in. Today, when the objective historical process leads, apparently, to the "global village", i.e. "collectivity", the predominant natural reaction, understandably, is a nationalistic one, that is toward "individuality". Yet, the "confinement" in a closed national state produces in its turn another, diametrically opposite reaction - the desire to join humanity as a whole. As a result, this emotional pendulum swings constantly between the longing for unity and desire for separateness. And the farther it moves in one direction, the stronger is the pull towards the opposite one. The only thing which is permanent is the movement. Finally, the more a society oscillates between these two extremes, the more it is prone to the drastic and violent changes. Accordingly, those that stay closer to the middle are more stable and peaceful. 323. Only after accepting that his own and of those most close to him people, like his parents and children, death is not a tragedy but a perfectly normal and inevitable event, will man make peace with life. For only after reconciling himself to death can a man freely embrace life. 324. Oh, how to describe the disappointment of a man who has finally reached the promised land and found there nothing but promises, promises, promises... 325. The moment she looked at herself in the mirror it was a love at the first sight. 326. The difference between the knowledge acquired on the one hand by learning and on the other by experience is like a difference between the information about a city obtained by studying its maps and pictures and getting to know it intimately by walking its streets and looking at its buildings. 327. It is one thing to condemn racism in general, but it is an entirely different thing to renounce and forfeit, in your own particular case, the advantages and privileges the membership in a dominant racial or ethnic majority confers on you. It is not that difficult to be for the gender equality in principle, but it is much harder, if you are a man, to wash the dishes, to clean the house, to do the laundry, to buy and cook food, to take care of kids, etc.,etc., on a regular, day to day basis and to the same extent as an average woman does. It is very easy, especially nowadays, to proclaim your concerns for the state of the environment. Yet, to reduce the wasteful consumption of the superfluous or totally unnecessary goods and services, which does cause the destruction of this environment, seems to be beyond the powers of the overwhelming majority of the most well-intentioned men and women. These are just a few examples of the painful dilemmas each of us has to face daily whenever our self-interests contradict the lofty but rather abstract principles we so openly and proudly profess. Regrettably, even for the most enlightened of us the considerations based on self-interest prevail much more often than we would've liked them to. 328.Man's soul has the two opposite parts - a loving part and a hating part, and each has to be constantly satisfied. As a consequence, man is always looking for something or someone to love and something or someone to hate, regardless of whether at any particular moment there are suitable objects or subjects to satisfy each of these two opposite cravings or they have to be invented, and also whether, when these objects and subjects are chosen, they deserve the respective emotions. And as long as each part of the soul limits itself to its proper domain, i.e. the loving part to love and the hating part to hate, the emotional stability of a man is assured. But when both, loving and hating parts begin to put the claim to the same objets or subjects the emotional turmoil ensue, the soul gets pulled in the opposite directions and, like the proverbial house divided against itself, is doomed to destruction. 329.Even the wisest amongst men ( or is it especially the wisest?) tend to fall into the trap of self-deception by insisting that their personal mode of salvation has the universal application. 330. No man can escape the prison of his own mind. 331. The philosopher (Plato) sees the answer to all problems of humanity in Philosophy, the saint (Christ) - in Religion, the economist (Marx) - in Economics, the racist (Hitler) - in Racism, and so on and so forth. 332. We like people who commiserate with us, but make heroes out of those who promise to free us from misery, regardless of their continuous failure to deliver. We like people who put up with our shortcomings, but worship those who make us believe that our shortcomings are, actually, virtues, no matter how far from the truth it might be. 333. The acceptance of a religion is in the direct proportion to its "vanity appeal"- the stronger the appeal the greater the acceptance. That is why, for example, Judaism had called its followers "the chosen people" and Christianity its - "the salt of the earth". 334. If there is immortality for a man, it is probably his vanity, the only thing that might outlive him. For vanity is both the means and the end of man's immortality. 335. Though there are always some exceptions, nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of men and women approach marriage quite differently. The average man enters the marriage with his heart (or his lust, if one wishes to use a stronger term) and the average woman with her mind. For a man marries a woman, but a woman marries "a husband", man marries an individual, woman - a social symbol. Thus, when a man marries a woman he automatically, that is without giving too much thought to it, expects her to become sometimes in the future a "wife". But a woman marries a "husband" first, hoping that if everything goes right he will also become her man. Sooner or later (and more often than not) a man discovers that instead of getting a woman he got himself a "wife". Naturally, he feels cheated and resents being "used" as a husband but not loved and desired as a man. A woman, on her part, eventually (and about as frequently as a man) realizes too, no matter how strongly she usually tries to deny it even to herself, that her hope of turning a husband into her man is never going to be fulfilled. As a result, as the time goes by, she is getting more and more frustrated and constantly looking for somebody to blame for her seemingly hopeless situation. Husband, of course, provides the most obvious (to her) and the most convenient target. Since neither side gets from marriage what it had hoped for, both husband and wife become increasingly unhappy. Usually each reacts to this in a traditional, "appropriate" to a respective gender manner: a man gets more and more angry (which sometimes leads to family violence) and a woman - more and more depressed. Of course, the reverse of the roles is also possible, with a man getting depressed a woman angry, but it is much less frequent. How much each separately and both of them together can endure such a woeful state of affairs determines whether the marriage will survive and for how long. On the other hand, bearing this in mind, is it too unrealistic to ask a woman to marry only the man she really loves and desires and to be first of all his woman and then his wife? The world surely would be a much happier place for that. 336. A substantial portion of the so-called women's poetry is devoted today to the presentation of sexual fantasies as reality and of reality as fantasy, and is further complicated by the ambiguity of which is which. 337. By now, thanks largely to the spirit of sexual "openness" that seems to permeate all the aspects of modern life, we all have become aware of the fact that most women quite often (and how often only they know) fake orgasm. "To keep the men's fragile ego intact" is the usual, and readily accepted by everybody as true, answer women give when asked to explain their "collective" behaviour (the answer which, by the way, presents them as the kind, sensitive and understanding creatures they would like us all to believe they are). Yet, few of us (and the least of all women) would admit that there is another, deeper and insidious meaning to this widespread phenomenon. For the "fake orgasm' can justifiably be viewed as a modern metaphor for the fake feelings, fake relationships, fake love on the part of a woman. And there is objective reason for this. Most of women, with the exception of a few very attractive and secure, choose their husbands and lovers not because they love or even like them but because they are afraid of staying alone -- the proverbial "old made" curse. And the older they get the more they are willing to compromise their feelings for the security of companionship and marriage. But what appears under the circumstances and at the beginning a reasonable (from a woman's point of view) compromise, later reveals itself as an emotional self-betrayal which comes to haunt a woman for the rest of her life. For unless she is a prostitute, sex without love is disgusting to an average woman and she will, consciously or subconsciously, try to avoid it under any imaginable pretence (hence, for example, the so much hated by husbands notorious "I have a headache"). Needless to say, such a behaviour on the part of a wife and the husband's gradual realization of its cause leads to a permanent state of tension and conflict between the spouses. It gets further aggravated by the reluctance of both partners to face the truth, the truth which might leave them no other choice but to dissolve their union. Yet, contrary to the widespread modern perception, quite often neither of them has enough courage to do it. 338. The civilization and the state, as its final product, had originally come into existence and have been developing ever since as a mechanism of reconciliation and, if possible, harmonization of the often contrary interests of Town and Country. Hence, the success and failure of both the civilization and the state are directly connected to their ability to keep the balance between the two- Town and Country. For as long as this precarious balance is properly maintained, the civilization and the state survive and even occasionally prosper. But when the interests of one side of such an unstable equilibrium prevail (usually that of the City as the centre of power),both the civilization and the state are doomed to destruction. 339. Since it is as natural for a liar to lie as for an honest man to tell the truth, and since each "is a measure of all things", the liar always suspects that everybody else is lying too, and the honest man usually assumes that others are also telling the truth. And so, it is often a shattering discovery for the one who is accustomed to tell the truth that there are others for whom it is equally natural to tell a lie. For a truthful man is usually both shocked and flabbergasted when confronted by a liar. On the other hand, a natural liar is, understandably, amazed and bewildered to find out that some people are truly honest. Thus, to repeat again, the honest men are shocked when faced with dishonesty, while the crooks are surprised to encounter honesty. In these and other similar situations, we see the others, first of all, as the reflection of ourselves and, therefore, tend to treat those who are different from us as a revelation. The one who lies never believes that others don't lie. A thief thinks everyone's a thief despite their outcry. 340. The lies we tell about ourselves are more revealing than the truth. For lying is an attempt to conceal what we do know about ourselves while the truth is what we imagine we are. Nothing tells us as much about what a man really is as his lying about himself. It is the truthful ones who are the most enigmatic when they themselves don't know who they are. 341. Culture, both in its narrow and its widest possible sense, is what men fill with the emptiness created in their lives by the diminishing necessity to labour in order to survive. 342. The victor thinks that war is over when he wins. But not so the defeated. The winner can afford to be magnanimous and let bygone be bygone. But the loser never forgets the humiliation and is always thinking about getting even. 343. Metaphors and similes derive power from their almost universal applicability, based on the interconnectedness of life and Nature and on the essential sameness of all men and of what happens to them. If we were all absolutely unique and our lives were not, to a considerable degree, similar , metaphors and similes would not exist. That is why ,for example, the great Biblical story of Samson and Delilah describes a typical relationships between any man and woman. And even more, the relationships between any man and woman may be used as a metaphor for the rest of us, including Samson and Delilah. With a very few exceptions, one human story is as metaphorical and archetypal as the other. 344. While the Academy - the philosophical school founded by Plato and later devoted to the study and further development of Platonism - lasted for 900 years, the Lyceum - a similar school opened by Aristotle - disintegrated in less than 200 years. Anyone familiar with the writings of the both great philosophers would easily discern the reason for this glaring disparity. For Platonism has always been, for the most part, an art accessible with very little effort to practically everyone, regardless of his background. To comprehend Aristotle, on the other hand, one is required to think hard and be prepared by previous studies (and not until the Medieval monks had appeared on the scene, there were significant numbers of people with enough zeal and free time on their hands to do both). A philosophy or an ideology , or even a religion which is too complicated and demands hard work and a lot of time to be understood could never have a wide following. 345. Most of us either do not know what we want in life or when we do know cannot obtain it. 346. A person with a plain and inconspicuous face quite often looks, when wearing different clothes or being in different surroundings like completely different individuals. But since everyone wants to be noticed, such an unfortunate person being usually well aware of his/her handicap resorts to all kind of artificial devices to create individuality he/she naturally lacks. 347. Every man, no matter how wise he is, has his own limitations in understanding himself and life in general. These limitations confine him as if in a room, having (to use a modern metaphor) a glass ceiling and glass walls, which no amount of either his personal experience, or of those he can observe and learn from, seems to be able to transcend. 348. Man is by nature a judgmental animal; to forgive others the sins he is also guilty of is the limit of human magnanimity. 349. Anyone, who is searching for what the reality truly is, is like a person who is looking for water while swimming in a river. 350. People often try to justify their dishonesty by the material and financial needs. But I suspect that even if you pay a thief to be honest, he would still steal. It is in his blood and money has little to do with it. 351. Sex is the greatest democratiser of all. It is available to the rich and poor, to the young and old. It makes us all the same, if only for a while. It also serves as a public ground of communication between the people who are otherwise so different that on any other level they have very little to share. Sex is the ultimate common denominator (lowest or otherwise). It is no wonder, therefore, that the more democratic a society is ( as USA for example) the more it is preoccupied with sex, as if subconsciously seeking in sex the bond of cohesiveness, the means to unity, the source of like-mindedness, as for example, sports does. This is a social side of sex in democracy. The so-called unity of mankind, for which all the great thinkers of humanity have always been striving, can probably be achieved only through sex, not mind. 352. The main difference between the Hebrew and the Christian God is that the first punishes the sinners while the second forgives them. And the difference between the Jews and the Christians is that the first accept punishment, while the second expect forgiveness. |
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