The discussion on the Diaspora logs has gotten me to think about issues of tolerance and civility. I was looking for an appropriate quote to post, because tolerance is an issue that we deal with in Armenia everyday. Diversity in ideas--especially those that threaten the status quo and the people who control the status quo is not an easy feat to achieve, but a necessary one. If Armenia is ever to move forward, we Armenians must understand that. This also includes things that are seemingly not relevant to the "Armenian reality" but in fact affect our daily lives, because we must deal with these realities frequently, and all of these issues inform our choices and our disposition when it comes to our actions directly relevant to Armenia. I came across the following:

"Becoming human is becoming individual, and we become individual under the guidance of cultural patterns...which give form, order, point, and direction to our lives....[But] we must...descend into detail, past the misleading tags, past the metaphysical types, past the empty similarities, to grasp firmly the essential character of not only the various cultures but the various sorts of individuals within each culture, if we wish to encounter humanity face to face."

--Clifford Geerts, The Interpretation of Culture