The Short Stories Of Alexandre Dumas: All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.

In addition, the far greater number of writers who never had firsthand experience with the Turkish people directly, simply parroted the racist observations that were omnipresent. There are plenty of accounts telling us that when Westerners got to know Turks firsthand, they were quickly won over by the goodness of the Turks. By contrast, Westerners who developed a low opinion of Armenians did so through firsthand experience. They often began with the most positive feelings toward the Armenians, as cultivated in their Christian home countries, but then through personal observations, began to make generalizations about certain Armenian characteristics.

Secondly, it's important to shed light on this penchant for dishonesty, because the prejudiced world today naively accepts whatever a Vahakn Dadrian or Peter Balakian throws their way. At one time, that was not the case: Ellis nicely put it in a article about "Smyrna"; that is one reason Armenians kept quiet roughly until , on the 50th anniversary of their "genocide," time to get the hateful ball rolling again.

A few of these observations have already been sprinkled throughout the site, as when the Armenians' great post WWI friend, Lord Curzon remarked, "the Turk is honest; the Christian is a liar and a cheat," as a result of his travels in "Armenia," in the early s. Baron Max von Thielmann remarked on the tendency of Armenians to be "seldom if ever conscientious," from his own travel memoirs, but added importantly, " Still it must not be concluded from this that there are no honourable exceptions There are exceptions, of course.

In contrast to the Turkish Peasantry This is called "Capitalism," which often goes hand in hand with "exploitation," and if the ones on top exhibit signs of not being particular about ethics, it's not unusual for such people to bend the rules in their favor.

This sort of thing happens with U.

"All Generalizations Are Dangerous, Even This One."-Alexandre Dumas.

Sir Mark Sykes, with one of the natives. Sir Mark Sykes is damned with a scandalous statement for these politically correct times but only for select peoples: Graber, Caravans to Oblivion: The Armenian Genocide, Hopefully the reader will allow a "Sykes digression" here, since Sykes got to know the Armenians and Turks very well, as he demonstrated in travel books such as Dar-ul-Islam ; however, he did an "about face" in his views come WWI.

Sir Sykes didn't care for being quoted in C. Marmaduke Picktall called Sykes on his change of heart, as Sykes made it seem that his words constituted "an attack on the Armenians, and that the quotations by Sykes I believe it, from my own slight knowledge of Armenians, to be true; and I, in common with many other Englishmen who have hitherto regarded Sir Mark Sykes as a friend and possible champion of the much misjudged Mohammedan majority in Turkey, am anxious to know what has caused this sudden change in his opinions Toynbee, and then, and not till then, to think about it.

I have a feeling Prof.

Anderson could find the first word acceptable as a curse term; "Tartar," of course, is often a description for Azeris or other Turkic peoples from Asia. Barth is faulted for bringing up the proverb which states an Armenian is better able to cheat Greeks and Jews, elements found "in the works of orientalists such as Alfred Korte, the archaeologist; Karl Krummbacher, founder of Byzantine studies in Germany; and Hugo Grothe, a geographer who assured readers that not Muslim fanaticism the explanation of choice among armenophiles but Armenian exploitation was responsible for the violence.

Does that mean those who pointed out unappealing characteristics of Armenians were all Nazis at heart? For example, are we to believe this next speaker was in line to sport a Swastika? During all that has happened during the past year I have not heard of a single act of heroism or of self-sacrifice and the noble acts, if any, have been very few.

On the contrary mothers have given their daughters to the lowest and vilest Turks to save their own lives; to change their religion is a matter of little importance to most of the people; lying and trickery and inordinate love of money are besetting sins of almost all, even while they stand in the very shadow of death. On one occasion, when the students of the Armenian theological seminary were arrested, nearly every one of them lied about one thing or another to save himself. Absolute truthfulness is almost unknown among the members of this race. Money is sought at any price, even at the risk of their lives, as in the case of the young man already mentioned in this despatch whom I had saved from death and tried to help for several months by keeping him in the Consulate.

Every trick and device are resorted to by those who are not in need as well as by those who are to obtain money and often by depriving others of it who are in much greater need. From every point of view the race is one that cannot be admired although it is one to be pitied. Now here is where Professor Anderson really goes overboard: Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, who note that in the course of the violence the sultan ordered 'the government to crack down on the Armenian merchants of Istanbul to lessen their substantial economic power.

No matter how often propagandists tell us otherwise, this irrefutable fact is confirmed in too many Armenian friendly sources to be questioned. Missionary Cyrus Hamlin , for one.

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Logically, too, after six hundred years of fairly harmonious co-existence, the reasons provided by propagandists, such as Muslims hating Christians, cannot explain why the Ottomans suddenly decided to massacre Armenians. It was the wealthy Armenians, whether by choice or coercion , then any government would have done what the Professors Shaw have reported that the Sultan has done. This episode cannot be compared with the German Jews of WWII, because the Jews were entirely innocent, and were not out to topple Germany; and besides, if this historical claim happened, then it is the duty of professional historians to report it as a fact.

Anderson does not examine the factual nature of the claim itself, as she needed to do, if she didn't like what was being said.

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Anderson is actually insinuating that the Professors Shaw were closet neo-Nazis! In other words, she is focusing on maligning the character of the historians, rather than sticking to the facts or non-facts of the historians' work.

Generalization

This kind of practice is truly despicable, but it is only in a day's work for the typical genocide scholar. Nevertheless, there are two of her points I would like to address: Lepsius , whom she has stated elsewhere is a "hero" of hers, figured 88,, later updated to , not including those who died later, the professor points out, for reasons such as "loss of breadwinner" , and on the higher end: Anderson assigns to her students as legitimate history; Pickthall's New Age letter appeared in the Dec. The rare conscientious missionary, George Lamsa, wrote in his book "The Secret of the Near East," that 40, Armenians were reported killed, 10, women taken to the harem, and thousands of children left destitute, "In some towns containing ten Armenian houses and thirty Turkish houses.

The London papers, inspired by the 'patriots,' announced, with a great flourish of trumpets, that Armenians had been tortured and massacred in the neighbourhood of that city; and there was, so to speak, a great Armenian horrors' boom all over the western world and America too.

Well, after all this sensationalism, the number of slain was eventually reduced by our own and the American consuls to eight. The , figure is so totally without foundation, how obscene to even mention it. It is Lepsius's figure of , that is actually on the high end this is the figure that Wellington House propagandist, and another devout Christian, Lord Bryce, also provided as the mids toll , because men such as Lepsius and Bryce shared the agenda to make the Turks appear as horrible as possible. The estimate of Barth 29,, maximum is much closer to the truth, more than double the figure of the Ottomans' 13, And how does Prof.

Anderson handle this estimate? And this is the second point of hers I would like to highlight for criticism. She writes that Barth was "almost certainly on the take"! The fact of the matter is, despite Prof. Pickthall pinned their psychology perfectly, in another New Age letter July 10, , Vol. He does not know how to do so There is also the feeling that it is a waste of time to seek to demolish prejudices so robust as those which Europe cherishes regarding Turkey, even though those prejudices may be based upon false information.

But seriously, we have a tendency to make and use generalizations quite frequently. Think about this the next time you look out the window in an attempt to determine what you think the weather is, or soon will be. You are relying on a generalization, based on your learning and experience. Relying on weather generalizations can be very interesting. However, weather generalizations can also be quite useful as well.

Weather is notoriously difficult to predict from even the best numbers and most up-to-date information. Yet that is exactly why they are useful to us for that exact same reason, so long as we realize that there will be exceptions. We look out the window and apply a generalization, based on our knowledge and experience. That is far more useful to most of us than all the raw weather related data could possibly, as most of us are not meteorologists.

That was a generalization, complete with an exception attached. That is how generalizations work, both for us, as well as against us. What we do with a generalization is where things can become dangerous.

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There are many generalizations about groups of people, whether by country, ethnicity, race, creed, or even hair color. Have you heard any good blond jokes lately?

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In the USA, blonds are often the target of jokes about intelligence, or lack thereof. Then you meet a blond with an advanced degree and try to tell the blond joke. That generalization just cost you, right? In a social situation, we need to remember that everyone is an individual, and presume they are an exception from the beginning. Leave it to them they to either prove the generalization true or prove themselves to be the exception.

If we start from the position of the generalization, we risk allowing the generalization to become dangerous, as the quote generalized. And remember that generalizations are often quite specific to a culture or a region. What may seem obvious to you may be a complete mystery to someone from somewhere else. Consider the weather generalizations as an example, or even one about a group of people. Generalizations are neither good nor bad. However, they can be dangerous, if used improperly. It's other people's money. Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.

Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words,--'Wait and hope'. The Count of Monte Cristo. If we're missing any Alexandre Dumas pere books or quotes , do email us. By the time he was twenty one, he was hugely in debt.



He met there Marie Duplessis, a young courtesan, who died of tuberculosis in and inspired Dumas' romantic novel, La Dame aux Camelias. It was adapted into a play, known in English as Camille. At first the play was rejected by one theater after another.

All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.

Finally it was produced by Theatre du Vaudeville. Giuseppe Verdi based his opera La traviata on the play, first performed in The novel gained huge success which enabled Dumas fils to pay off some of his debts and help his mother. Before he wrote twelve other novels and started to work on didactic plays that showed a distaste for loose loving.

A Prodigal Father was an interpretation of his father's character. He formed a liaison with the Russian Nadeja Naryschkine, who was married. They had a daughter in and four years later they married. Dumas was admitted to the Academie Francaise in In he was admitted to the Legion d'Honneur. After his wife died Dumas married Henriette Regnier, who had been his mistress for eight years.

His last play, The Return from Thebes , was left unfinished. Dumas died at Marly-le-Roi on November 27, In his works Dumas underlined the importance of marriage and the moral purpose of literature. Playwrights have shown human beings as they are, but they should show how they ought to be.

Dumas was against the emancipation of women, adultery and prostitution, and wrote sharp prefaces to his plays to make their high intentions more obvious.