tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post2944625099962834867..comments2024-03-27T07:18:39.229-05:00Comments on In Medias Res: Godspeed, You Brilliant, Thought-Provoking AssUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-36144439918995205992011-12-19T20:01:47.096-06:002011-12-19T20:01:47.096-06:00I'm not going to blog about Hitchins, but I st...I'm not going to blog about Hitchins, but I still wanted to put my thoughts out there *someplace*. <br /><br />When I got news of his passing, I was surprised by the level of visceral grief I felt. It only took a couple of minutes, but at least three of the stages of denial-anger-internalization-sorrow-acceptance were all there, about a gadfly whose logic I thought could be shredded like so much tissue paper in a hot strong wind. <br /><br />What I wanted most from his loud-mouthedness was for him to be personally and thoroughly refuted on his own terms by some 20-year-old college sophomore somewhere, since that was the level of reasoning I thought he was slightly beneath. <br /><br />Perhaps that's what I'll miss about him. Because his voice is no longer fueled by his energy, fewer people will rise to refute it, and their listeners won't hear the refutation. It's an opportunity missed, because none of the "brights" out there are as articulate or engaging as he was.<br /><br />Better a clearly seen fallacy than a complex one; it's far easier to refute clear illogic. Hitchins rendered a service by making his stuff easy to understand. <br /><br />And if I'm true to my own belief, then he's gone to a God he never knew, since no one ever taught him about that God, and to his revelation and surprise. Who knows, but what a guy like him won't turn on a dime, as soon as he sees where he's gone wrong?Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07541997928359883625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-60663823439474430672011-12-16T13:42:30.873-06:002011-12-16T13:42:30.873-06:00Matthew -
It's not fair to say that Hitchens&...Matthew -<br /><br />It's not fair to say that Hitchens' refused to acknowledge the literary worth or religiously-inspired work. He said many times that the King James Bible is a most remarkable creation, of cultural, literary, and political significance. He was a huge fan of devotionists like George Herbert, and wrote more than once about his appreciation for religious architecture. <br /><br />Hitchens didn't think religion was necessary for the production of fine culture, however, nor sufficient. And he thought that religion has stifled the creation of culture much more than it has facilitated it. That's an empirical claim that can't be easily answered, but it isn't right to say that Hitchens automatically ruled out any art or literature of a religious provenance.Kindred Winecoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14330671232391851377noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-19911978089524132502011-12-16T11:17:14.565-06:002011-12-16T11:17:14.565-06:00Matthew, thanks for the comment. Regarding Hitchen...Matthew, thanks for the comment. Regarding Hitchens's religious target(s), I can see your point: there is a very real sense in which many religious believers could read him serenely and with a shake of their head, recognizing that the concept of God and religion he was attacking didn't map at all onto their lived experience. For my part, as a Mormon I have enough authoritarianism in my faith life to recognize my own beliefs in his attacks...not that they dissuaded me from my beliefs, though.<br /><br />David, please don't take me as any kind of truly insightful reader of Hitchens; I'm sure I wasn't. But I suppose I can accept some of the credit you're offering me: as I mentioned just above to Matthew, I recognized my own faith in Hitchens's attacks, and trying to understand what he found some bothersome about those authoritarian elements of a religion he didn't believe in got me thinking about what religion, and a particular kind of "saintly" appeal, really means for me as a political thinker. So he has helpful to me--and if that's helpful to you, all the better.Russell Arben Foxhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03366800726360134194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-333483738080891132011-12-16T10:52:56.883-06:002011-12-16T10:52:56.883-06:00Huh. You managed to find some real meaning in the ...Huh. You managed to find some real meaning in the Mother Teresa stuff, where all I ever saw was banalities (saints aren't really saints) rounded up and forced into the service of his anti-religious bigotry (something I seem to have been more sensitive to than you, curiously). I'm willing to concede that my various frustrations with CH may have led to an inhibited capacity to learn from and engage with his work.David Watkinshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14954313265808615991noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7907752.post-61240087304843486352011-12-16T08:53:55.074-06:002011-12-16T08:53:55.074-06:00RIP Chris Hitchens. Not sure I completely agree w...RIP Chris Hitchens. Not sure I completely agree with your assessment of him, Dr Fox, but it was very well said.<br /><br />Certainly Mr Hitchens had an incredible mind, and I definitely agree that he was indeed a master of the written and spoken word in argument. But there is, at the same time, something very regrettable in his refusal to acknowledge the literary worth in any text which was religious or religiously inspired (which, in the West which he so rigorously defended, still constitute the bulk of our literary world). It seems to me to be slightly a waste of potential.<br /><br />Regarding his philosophical contributions, I'm afraid I haven't really shared your assessment there, since he was engaged more in speaking past my religious upbringing in Radical-Reformed Protestantism than against it. I never really bought into the sort of textual literalism which he erected as the model of 'true' religion and thereby directed most of his argumentation.<br /><br />I am very much in agreement with your political assessment of him, though. I think Mr Hitchens was a teacher of politics in a very Confucian way (as in 'when three men are walking together there is one who can be my teacher'). Personally he demonstrated for me a few of the ironies and dangers of such a 'this world'-ly liberal-interventionist ideology, which proved quite as adept at mythology-building as any religious value system can be.<br /><br />A fitting and thoughtful tribute to a man who delighted in controversy, though. Thanks!<br /><br />Best,<br />MattAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com