A Note on Christopher Hitchens

Thanks Brian for your comment on my earlier post, concerning Christopher Hitchens. Looking back at the article I admit that I didn't provide adequate context for that particular quote. However, Hitchens has made many inflammatory (and what I consider to be entirely unreasonable) statements regarding religious people and their beliefs, so I don't think I am completely misrepresenting his position. For example, he's also said this about the Christian Right:

"If they won, if they elected a president or member of Congress to ban abortion, impose school prayer as mandatory, or instill the teaching of Creationism, that would be the end of it... It wouldn't last very long and would, I hope, lead to civil war, which they will lose, but for which it would be a great pleasure to take part. But they're so stupid, they don't think about these things."

Putting aside my disgust at his "hope" for civil war, I want to point out how this quote (and the previous one) is illustrative of several tendencies that appear in Hitchens' comments about religion. First, his habit of lumping together an entire group of people into a single entity that must be defeated is simplistic and frankly, dangerous. Stripping a group of people of their individuality makes it much easier to apply labels and prejudices, because you are no longer dealing with humans, but abstractions of what they represent. Second, his absolute confidence that "it will be them" or "they will lose" is characteristic of his more general arrogance toward all religion that (besides being bothersome), is harmful because it immediately shuts down any productive dialogue about the problem. Now, I am not so idealistic to believe that we'll be able to engage religious extremists in a discussion, and that's both unfortunate and frightening. Radical extremism poses a real threat to our society, our security, and our individual freedom — and we urgently need to take action. But this action and this dialogue will most likely have to come from people of both secular and religious backgrounds, and they'll need to tackle the common challenges of our time with an open mind — and some humility. I do think Hitchens expresses a real outrage (that I share) against people who use their religious convictions to justify horrific and hateful acts. I also think he has every right to criticize religion. However, his "I have all the answers" attitude can be as frustrating as it is polarizing, and he should be called out on it. Some of his critics, like Chris Hedges, do just that:

"Hitchens's arguments are the mirror image of those used by the fundamentalists he despises. He embraces a self-serving and simplistic view of the world. This allows him to create the illusion of a dualistic world of us and them, of reason versus irrationality. And once this vision has been adopted, as the events of the past six years prove, it is possible to view military intervention, occupation and even torture - anything that will subdue the "irrational" or "dangerous" - as necessary. "Necessity," William Pitt wrote, "is the plea for every infringement of human freedom." This is done in the name of his substitute for God, "reason" - which looks, like all personal idols, an awful lot like Christopher Hitchens."

The full critique is here. Hitchens will undoubtedly come up again in these posts; he has a habit of getting himself noticed. Related link: The Four Horsemen, a 2-hour discussion with Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris.