The Difference Between A Child Seeing A Ghost And An Adult Hearing A Voice

Interviewer: Your basic objection to religion, however, seems less experiential than it is political. You object in this book not to individual belief, but to the politicization of belief.

Hitchens: Listen, if a child tells me he's seen a ghost, I'll say, "Well, I'm sure you did, but I don't think I'll be able to see it myself, and I don't think it's really there, though I do think you must have a very vivid imagination." However, if a grown-up says "I've just a heard a voice telling me what to do," what they really mean is "I can now tell you what to do." That's what I don't like. What I noticed when I was a kid wasn't just that what the headmaster was preaching at sermon time was rubbish (which was easy to see), it was also that it seemed very important that the headmaster be able to invest his otherwise rather feeble authority with religious authority. In other words, I could see already when I was eight that religion is used to say, "You better listen to what I say. My power is not just of this world. I have divine right." That's where you have to say, "Say that again and I'll burn your church." That's fascism. I loathe it. And I tend to loathe the people who believe it, because they are making a claim on me.

-Christopher Hitchens interviewed inThe Atlantic, Jan. 2005

     

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We All Say It Together

[A friend at work forwarded a report on one of Hugo Chavez's strange pronouncements.]

Clearly one of the greatest minds of this age.

"I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet," Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day.

[My response.]

That’s great!  However, socialism is just religion.  And religion gets to say these strange things because it has beliefs but not tests.

I have a particularly religious friend who’s fascinated by all the crazy things Chavez says.  I find that funny because honestly I can’t see the difference between “Capitalism killed civilization on Mars.” and “Moses parted the Red Sea.”  I guess the difference is it’s OK to say crazy things as long as we all say it together.

[Final thoughts]

I know I'm an asshole, but I'm not amused by one insular group (the religious) laughing at the strange beliefs of another insular group (socialists).  See my earlier essay on Believing Many Things A Priori.

     

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Suppressing Sexual Impulse Has A Stultifying Impact On Creativity

[An e-mail exchange from July 2004 with my sisters and brother in law.]

Brother in law: You guys will love this.  And I know it's from the Weekly Standard.
 
I got into that most boring of "talks" today, gay marriage, in which I was told that Sweden is declining as a nation because of gay marriages.  I just started laughing, came back to my desk and searched Google for Sweden and marriage.  I found the influence for this statement.  This article is long, laughable and absurd – and scary.

The End of Marriage in Scandinavia

Me: Enforced androgyny that pushes women from the home? Rampant secularization? Sweden's position as the world leader in family dissolution? Norwegian energy minister Arnstad getting pregnant in office and declining to name the father. Gay marriage?

Wow! Thank God the real danger here has been made manifest. We're facing the decline of the West. Why have we been focusing so much attention lately on the instability of the Islamic world when the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians pose such a threat to our way of life?

This is so ridiculous. If I borrow the author's reasoning and state that the separation of marriage from parenthood is an incontestable evil, then I may easily argue that foster parenting and adoption also pose serious threats to the Western World. That such practices arise not from compassion but from moral subversion!

I would like to ask the author why he may so confidently ascribe sexual perversion to the state of being unmarried. Ahem, do heterosexual married couples exhibit exemplary behavior? Where should we start? John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Prince Charles, Henry "fat ass, savings and loan bailout, youthful indiscretions, our values" Hyde, J. Edgar "cross-dressing" Hoover, Jack "I want to have sex in public with my wife" Ryan, Strom "miscegenation" Thurmond, Newt "divorce my cancer-afflicted third wife" Gingrich. Give me a break.

I love when the author cites Italy as an example of a society that has resisted the decline into sexual liberalism, family dissolution, and general moral decadence. Yeah right, Italian men are so sexually restrained. Are we supposed to pretend that cheating on your spouse, then confining this secret sin to the Catholic confessional is preferable to openly recognizing the presence of philandering in adult society? Are we supposed to believe that fostering an edifying lie creates a healthier society than open discourse? Is it healthy to pretend we are something we are not? The attitude that favored edifying lies over uncomfortable frankness created an unsustainable society that eventually collapsed in the 1950s. For all the happy June and Ward Cleaver or Nancy and Ronald Reagan marriages one is likely to find an equal number of unhappy ones. A society cannot be both dishonest and progressive at the same time. For that's the historical judgment on the 1950s. Not all men or women are content to be dumb, staid, and satisfied.

Why is authority so often concerned with regulating sexuality? Because suppressing sexual impulse has a stultifying impact on creativity in general. To snuff out one is to snuff out the other. Many writers have connected sexual desire with creative desire (Freud and Dostoevsky to name two) and argued that these forces are entwined and not easily constrained by rational argument or religious moralizing. This truth may make some people uncomfortable, but that's how we're made. Certainly the sexual revolution of the 1960s confirmed this linkage. Compare popular music- as a barometer of prevailing social temperament- made before the 1960s with popular music made during that decade. It's night and day. Boring affirmations of social propriety contrasted with critical examinations of inherited social structures: the dispersion of political power, racial inequity, economic class warfare, religious superstition, xenophobia, and yes, sexual mores.

One of Dostoyevsky's favorite tactics as a writer was to contrast a person of low social standing who felt severe guilt over his moral failings with a man of high repute and high social standing who had long since dispensed with burdensome emotions, though not with proper religious facade. Dostoevsky would then arrange for a third character, known to both, to point a finger at the lowlife during a moment of high drama, and declare to the nobleman, "He is more of a believer than you!" That's the 1960s in a nutshell. That sentiment is so well expressed at the conclusion of one of my favorite films, The Graduate. Benjamin and Elaine by their actions pose the same challenge to the reigning social authority as does Dostoevsky's prostitute or drunkard: You value this world? Then go and live in it!

The social/sexual trends cited by the author are not an indicator of moral decadence. They are the result of societies becoming more open and honest about their humanity. The more liberty man gains, the more his true character shows. Conservatives cannot fathom this reality because it exposes the artificiality of their standards. It scares them because they are so ill-prepared to discuss and debate social mores with anyone but like-minded people. They have chosen the weaker Darwinian strategy (control others rather than control oneself and cope with difference, ambiguity, and nuance), and they fear that as traditional social institutions (the Church, male authority, Big Brother government) lose influence, they become less and less prepared to face the world they find. Conservatives may delude themselves into believing theirs is a passionate concern for the Rejuvenation of Man (and it's likely a majority really do believe this), but in my opinion this is a self-righteous pretext, and is quite far from the truth. Their real fear is a primal Darwinian one, and that is that they will become less and less able to compete in society.

To those who've sided with the conservative Darwinian strategy, unfettered creativity poses a serious threat to their social dominance because it inevitably begins to question the fictitious pillars upon which conservative rule is founded. Sexual mores are just one of the pillars.

     

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Blame The False Prophets? No, Blame The People.

[An e-mail to my sisters in April of 2005.  The big story at the time was Justice Sunday, a judge-bashing rally organized by evangelical religious leaders and their political pals.]

Sister: Have you read Frank Rich this week?  This is really scary...]

Perhaps the closest historical antecedent of tonight's crusade was that staged in the 1950's and 60's by a George Wallace ally, the televangelist Billy James Hargis. At its peak, his so-called Christian Crusade was carried by 500 radio stations and more than 200 television stations. In the "Impeach Earl Warren" era, Hargis would preach of the "collapse of moral values" engineered by a "powerfully entrenched, anti-God Liberal Establishment." He also decried any sex education that talked about homosexuality or even sexual intercourse. Or so he did until his career was ended by accusations that he had had sex with female students at the Christian college he founded as well as with boys in the school's All-American Kids choir.

Me: Infuriating!  Though Rich speaks of the machinations of a few prominent religious zealots this is really an indictment of the American public.  People are uninformed, lazy, and stupid.  It's easy to blame the false prophets but it's the people who are really at fault.

I say that because I don't think these religious leaders believe their own sermons.  They believe in their own wisdom to shepard the masses, which is a completely different form of self worth than piousness.  That's why these pseudo-religious movements lend themselves so easily to nutcases like Ku Klux Klansmen, Eric Rudolf, Josephy McCarthy, etc.  They share a belief in their own supremecy, not a belief in the lessons of the Bible.  Somewhere along the line brotherhood and goodwill to man gets dropped.

The religious leaders do not believe their own sermons?  No.  And dare I say, I don't think their audience does either.  People should wake up and realize this sort of Kabuki theater isn't fooling (or helping) anyone.  I refuse to believe that people who subscribe to this kind of culture- the kind that upholds a pious facade at all costs- do so out of devotion to high morals or some dreamy naivety.  These are the same people who believe in original sin, are they not?  The cupability of man for his willful behavior?  No, moral devotion or naivety does not explain their attachment to their culture.  That is total B.S.  They know the bargain they have entered into.  They buy into the culture for 1) protection from public scrutiny of their lives, and 2) to escape the difficulty of judging the world for themselves; judging its inhabitants and ideas for themselves.  Fear and laziness, that's all it is.

If these conservative, God-fearing politicos hold such a monopoly on wisdom, then someone please explain to me why the great scientists and artists throughout history have so overwhelmingly subscribed to what is called a liberal perspective?  I believe it's because in order to be a great scientist or writer one must question why things are arranged as we find them.  Whether the subject is the cosmos or society at large this desire to investigate how things are constructed is paramount.  Of course such curiosity is anathema to the cultural veneer presented by religious zealots.

The other day in the N.Y. Times I read a brief review of a biography of Robert Oppenheimer.  Openheimer ran the top secret Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb during World War II.  Later, when Oppenheimer questioned the wisdom of the arms race he was called a communist and traitor to his country by Joseph McCarthy and other right wing wackos.  His security clearance was revoked.  In the article the reviewer related an amusing anecdote.  When Oppenheimer found himself alone in a Senate elevator with Joseph McCarthy, just before the doors opened he turned to the senator and winked.  Hah!  As if to say, "I don't care what you think, I'm not the problem."  It must have been a detestable thought for a man as brilliant as Oppenheimer.

     

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Time-Binding And Islamic Culture

[In an e-mail from July 2005 I respond to a friend's off-color joke.]

"TOWEL HEADS"
 
Recently I received a warning about the use of this politically incorrect term, so please note, we all need to be more sensitive in our choice of words.
 
I have been informed the Islamic terrorists, who hate our guts and want to kill us, do not like to be called "Towel Heads", since the item they wear on their heads is not actually a towel, but in fact, a small folded sheet.
 
Therefore, from this point forward, please refer to them as "Little Sheet Heads."  Thank you for your support and compliance on this delicate matter.
 
And, God Bless America.

Just so you know, I agree with what I see implied in this joke.  That a major dimension of today's problems go undiscussed because of political sensitivities.  We're so careful not to offend anyone that we avoid discussing the real issue.  This hyper-sensitivity to anything cultural bothered me to no end at [college] and still does today.  Believe me, I am no bleeding heart liberal.

The terrorism problem is cultural and religious regardless of whether the politicians are willing to say so.  I was discussing this recently with a [work] friend.  He found some amusement in his relatives relating insular church anecdotes when today's problems with terrorism and the Middle East are also due to insular church attitudes- Islamic medievalism.  We in the West are lucky enough to stand on the shoulders of giants, all the great scientists and writers of our past, whereas those brought up in Islamic culture do not enjoy such advantages.  Their culture and religion has not yet found a way to live in the modern world mainly because they are not comfortable with science and free speech. In my mind, that is the real issue.  Also oil, in the sense that we subsidize corrupt Arab regimes and therefore buy social stagnation.  We give the Arab royals our money, they grant us oil rights.  Then they tell their Islamic clerics, "Look, we could make life for you and your followers miserable if we wanted to.  We hold all the money and power. But we won't- if you never say anything bad about our leadership.  We don't criticize your (medieval) religion, and you don't criticize our (profligate) lifestyle.  That's the bargain."  So we in the West are partially to blame.

After this conversation I dug up a quote from a scientist, Richard Feynman.  He was a brilliant, eccentric physicist.  He wanted to understand how the world worked, in all its dimensions.  I consider him a hero of mine.  The quote basically sums up my feelings of what is causing all our post Sept. 11th problems with Islam and terrorism.  Though I don't think the leadership of our country recognizes or is willing to discuss these issues.

What Is Science?

The question is: Is it possible to learn more rapidly what somebody learned from some accident than the rate at which the thing is being forgotten, either because of bad memory or because of the death of the learner or inventors?  So there came a time, perhaps, when for some species the rate at which learning was increased, reached such a pitch that suddenly a completely new thing happened; things could be learned by one individual animal, passed on to another, and another fast enough that it was not lost to the race.  Thus became possible an accumulation of knowledge of the race.

This has been called time-binding.  I don't know who first called it this.  At any rate, we have here some samples of those animals, sitting here trying to bind one experience to another, each one trying to learn from the other.  This phenomenon of having a memory for the race, of having an accumulated knowledge passable from one generation to another, was new in the world.  But it had a disease in it.  It was possible to pass on ideas which were not profitable for the race.  The race has ideas, but they are not necessarily profitable.  So there came a time in which the ideas, although accumulated very slowly, were all accumulations not only of practical and useful things, but great accumulations of all types of prejudices, and strange and odd beliefs.

Then a way of avoiding the disease was discovered.  This is to doubt that what is being passed from the past is in fact true, and to try to find out ab initio, again from experience, what the situation is, rather than trusting the experience of the past in the form in which it is passed down.  And that is what science is; the result of the discovery that it is worthwhile rechecking by new direct experience, and not necessarily trusting the race experience from the past.  I see it that way. That is my best definition.

-Richard Feynman

Islamic culture falls far short of this goal.  How many men or women raised in Islamic culture have gone on to win Nobel prizes in biology, chemistry, or physics?  Very few, if any.  Where is their equivalent of the Protestant Reformation?  In other words, where is the loosening of religious superstition to accommodate science and democracy?  I don't think it has occurred yet in the Islamic world.  So a culture and economy of One Idea (what the clerics allow) finds itself competing against the culture and economy of Many Ideas (the Bill of Rights, separation of church and state, the free press, respect for science).  It's an unfair fight.  That's what creates all the desperation, sense of humiliation, hatred, and ultimately, violence.  It's cultural, but we're too afraid to talk about it for fear of offending someone.

Well, that's my politics.

     

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