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”...