Friday, October 12, 2007

Video: Stepan Partamian - Genius or Idiot?



You either love him or hate him. Personally, I don't understand how people can respect this guy. See for yourself.

3 comments:

Pilig said...

I have never heard of him before, but just reading over some of his opinions, quotes, and his contributions to the cultural life of Armenians in America, I am extremely impressed. He stands for what I feel is wrong with Armenians in this country today.

Some quotes:

But we spend too much time thinking about being like other people instead of learning more about ourselves," says Partamian. "We are slaves to the George Washingtons — too preoccupied with money. We need to understand our own contributions."



"Some people think I'm going there to find pride in my culture," he says. "I have it already. But for the last five years, I realized, I've stopped [developing] my identity to find out the identity of this community.

"Because of the genocide, diaspora Armenians tend to want to be someone or something else. We live in other cultures without protecting or valuing what we have. The elderly feel it's a shame to talk about it. The younger generation doesn't want to know. What's the psychological damage being passed on from generation to generation?"

"I don't want to call it a soul-finding experience. But it is about finding who you are. Why they — Armenians in Armenia — are richer in some ways. I'm going to try to find the things to lock those two identities together."

Anonymous said...

He's a true armenophile and he makes good points, his eccentricity notwithstanding.

If people realized that he was ridiculing them with his antics maybe they would doubly realize how ridiculous they look while doing the same thing in a different manner in public.

Unknown said...

Mr. Partamian is facing a difficult challenge and I commend him on his perseverance. My mother says that he is right, but that people just don't like the way he puts things. I have only limited experience with his TV program, but feel the question of idiot or genius is not appropriate for him. With regards to issues of women, he seems to be far from genius. Yet, with regards to other cultural issues, he does have some good points. It is unfortunate that so much of air time is wasted on people throwing things at one another and I personally would like to see more positive developments. Mr. Partamian is on to something. He may just need others who share some of his views to give him a hand. It's incredible how television nowadays allows what seems on Partamian's show to be a hand to hand combat. Social criticism of the sort, with the passion and the rediculing that we see in his show, usually takes place in satire, in books. by Marietta