Posted on Jul 07, 2021

An Ambiguous Blur: Ethics and Satire, Part 3

Posted in Ethics and Satire

When author Jack Antreassian, writing in the year before I was born, astutely observed that the image of Armenians in the U.S. was “a blur, and even the amorphous shape of the blur is without readily identifiable characteristics” (251), he attributed this to the following causes. Most Armenian Americans at that time were thrust there violently due to massacres and deportations at the hands of the Turks. They were few in number in a vast land, and they never fully invested in the new country because they were still psychologically tied to the old, even entertained hopes of one...

Posted on Jul 02, 2021

The Rule of Feasting: Ethics and Satire, Part 2

Posted in Ethics and Satire

From the beginning until now, the only consistent principle I can find governing Armenian behavior is feasting. The ubiquitous banquet halls and their glut of food and drink that spring up wherever Armenians settle, far from being a new development, extends as far back as the available historical record. Herodotus in the late 5th century B.C. calls Armenians πολυπρόβατοι (polyprobatoi) that is, “rich in sheep”...

Posted on Jun 28, 2021

Of Laws and Laxatives: Ethics and Satire, Part 1

Posted in Ethics and Satire

In the following series of articles on the relationship between ethics and satire, I touch on the nature of laws and ethics, often using these terms interchangeably. While ethics and laws are not the same, they both fall under the category of human behavior. Ethics poses the philosophical question “How should one behave?”, while laws are the answers proposed to this question backed up by force. Thus one is the theoretical, the other the practical aspect of the same problem. It’s unimaginable, for example, for a legislator to create a law that he deemed unethical, while actions that are...

Posted on Jun 17, 2021

The Bread and Onions Podcast: Episode #1

Posted in Why Write Satire

In this premier episode, I introduce both the podcast and the website by reading the introductory article titled "Why Write Satire?" while adding a considerable amount of commentary on the philosophical figures and ideas referenced therein. Medical metaphor after medical metaphor is employed to cast satire as a kind of medicine for morals. Examples from James Frazer, Socrates, Lucretius, Juvenal, and Hagop Baronian are used to illustrate this view. Open up and say ha!...

Posted on Jun 17, 2021

Why Write Satire?

Posted in Why Write Satire

In the not so distant past, it was taboo in many cultures to so much as lay a finger on the body of a king for any reason. Sir James Frazer tells us that in the year 1800, the reigning monarch of Korea died of a tumor growing on his back though lancing it with an iron needle would've probably saved his life. Another king was suffering from an abscess on his lip and was on his way to share the fate of his predecessor, until, that is, his doctor made the fateful decision to call in the court...