Others go further and completely ignore my contributions as translator. A great deal of nonsense is spoken in the name of culture or cultural values. We forget that every culture at all times and everywhere has also produced those who have resisted or rejected these very same values. Roman values were rejected by Christians, bourgeois values by communists, and communist values by dissidents. Likewise, medieval values were rejected by humanists, totalitarian values by democracies, conservative values by liberals, and fundamentalist values by a wide assortment of other -isms.
Culture is first and foremost a process of ferment, conflict, and dialogue.
To suppress dialogue and dissent is not culture but barbarism. We are dominated by shopkeepers not statesmen, ideologues, theologians, or philosophers. Because as far as I know there is not a single Armenian on earth who openly subscribes to an ideology, orthodoxy, or philosophy that remotely justifies the destruction of the nation. Our Foreign Policy Options By suppressing the opposition and adopting a pro-Turkish foreign policy, President Levon Der Bedrossian has proved that he respects only those he fears. But whether or not what I am doing qualifies as literature, journalism, political commentary, criticism, polemic, or some other academic discipline is irrelevant to me.