http://www.slate.com/id/2187277
Hitchens addresses Obama's so called "post-racial" politics.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
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17 comments:
Good piece. Of course, if anyone can turn an old grandmother into the fountain of evil, it would be Hitchens (e.g. his book on Mother Teresa). He shares more in common with the good reverend (and less with his hero George Orwell) than he is able, or willing, to see, particularly the pleasure in prosecuting.
Manuel, don't confuse a dirty hatemonger with a vehement polemicist.
There is less difference than you suppose between them. For one thing, the hatemonger does not view himself as a hatemonger. Hitchens, corrupted by fame and the pleasure of his words, increasingly inhabits an imaginary world of evildoers with their sinister machinations. Every day Hitchens becomes more of a Christian. But he will have to be content with the insubstantial rewards for his inquisition.
That is an untrue and nonsensical statement.
I am sure Rev. Wright believes he is doing good in the world, and does not view himself as a hatemonger. (I'd say even the worst tyrants are devoted to something beyond themselves, but that's a more complicated matter to explain. They surely don't knowingly do what is wrong for the sake of doing what is wrong--no one does--so it's hard to see how anything like the Hitchens view, or any prosecutorial vision, can make any sense.)
That's a fascinating idea, especially coming from an authoritarian.
If you can't defeat the argument, try to impeach its source? But I'm not its source. Also, for the record, I'm a (classical) liberal, not an authoritarian, though distinctions like that are easy to overlook when one is in the grips of a radical and unexamined faith, so I don't blame you--not that anything ever is to blame (in the strict sense).
A combination of ad hominem attacks and nonsensical babble calling reason faith isn't worth my time to even begin to address.
Given all that's at stake--at least the justice of praise and blame--I'd think I'd learn more, and you'd learn more, if you spent some time trying to clarify this (if you can). True, I agree that means spending a little less time on your anti-anti-smoking and anti-anti-prostitution crusades. But life is a zero-sum game.
It's not "anti-anti-;" it's defense of freedom where it is threatened to be infringed upon. I'm defending the natural state. I could elaborate for hours, but I suggest you go read some literature on the subject instead, like at reason.com.
Your "pro" side doesn't make as much as impression in person as your "anti-anti-freedom" side, i.e. the way you get upset at the Opponents of Reason (you are partly joking but only partly--as shown by your belief that some of those who do wrong are "sinners," i.e. that they do wrong avoidably or for its own sake).
"as much as impression"
should be
"as much of an impression"
Criminals or wrongdoers of course know what they're doing is wrong. Basic morality is ingrained in everyone raised in civilization today. Religion can hijack morality though, for the worse.
Most wrongdoers don't commit a wrong just for the sake of a doing wrong. Such people would be by definition psychopathic, or sociopathic. Rather, they can see personal gain and somehow try to justify it in their minds; they convince themselves into coming up with an excuse. Alternatively, the more problematic evil comes from those who want to infringe upon individual rights not because they think it's wrong, but because they think it's their duty to override the autonomy of other individuals, because "people don't know what's best for themselves." That's a more insidious problem to address, because it involved a clash of differing perceptions of morality.
They do not know it is wrong. There are two issues here:
1. the ones who harm others but need an "excuse" to do so. (I believe it is not merely an excuse in their minds, but I'll leave that aside for now.)
2. the ones who harm others for personal gain without an excuse.
Even in the second case, this would not be the same as "knowingly doing wrong," and therefore you cannot rightly blame the person. (Or what is your argument as to why one should ever act in a way that, bottom line, appears to be harmful to oneself, i.e. against personal gain? I'd like to hear it.)
If morality or justice is merely "ingrained" from the outside by civilization, then the clash of moralities would indeed be an "insidious" problem to solve, as you say. It seems to me that the only way to get the true morality is through a correct understanding of what is justice (and why we care about it--e.g., the relation between our gain and our sacrifice for things beyond ourselves). But you seem far away from providing such an understanding, as shown by your contradictory stands on whether personal gain is or is not the criterion (and if personal autonomy is the criterion, it's hard to see how one can object to personal gain--or are you saying one has to favor autonomy come hell or high water, i.e. even when it's a very bad thing?).
OK, talk to any inmate, any of the ones not mentally ill, and they'll tell you that they knew it was wrong, but it's about personal incentives, perceived desperation, et cetera.
Personal gain is a good thing, but not when it comes at the expense of others, and moral agents are better to recognize their actions that would deliberately not harm others for its own sake.
In their moral choices, most people disregard any kind of religious reasoning, but then irritatingly, many attribute it to religion after the fact.
Your description of morality is a good one; we must overcome primitive egoism. I think that that correct understanding of justice is why we have different political ideologies today. The law doesn't accurately reflect everyone's morality, even though it may influence attitudes. Decades of legal abortion has made more people OK with it.
"we must overcome primitive egoism" -- you imply that your position is consistent with "refined" egoism. Maybe so, but you also say personal gain is not a good thing "when it comes at the expense of others." So what on earth is the rational basis for harming yourself in order to benefit others? (I don't deny that there are many things that benefit both others and yourself, but I'm trying to get at the rational basis for your belief that one should set aside one's own good, when that conflicts with the good of the group.) Maybe you can't explain it--but doesn't that mean you have more in common with the Believers than you realize.
You also add this twist, that personal gain must "deliberately not harm others." But I repeat, no one deliberately harms others except from some need they are trying to cure in themselves, perhaps a need they incorrectly understand, but in any case they don't deserve blame--it's a mistake, perhaps an incurable mistake given what they are, but not something one can justly blame, though one can take measures in self-defense (jail, execution). Your belief that there is such a thing as culpable, voluntary wrong-doing, is a sign of some deep confusion, I think.
p.s. Sure, some felons feel it was wrong in some sense--it would be difficult not to, given the fact that so many hate them and that they are in prison. But (1) at the time of the crime, they still thought it was the right thing to do, all things considered, and often that includes a belief that the "system" is unjust and out to get them, i.e. some sense of their own justice; (2) they never abandon the sense of their moral goodness in some respect, for instance, their gang loyalties & gang code or their superiority to and hatred of e.g. child molesters; and (3) some of them are attached to tough guy moralities, that criminals are real men and good. Of course, even remorse for crime can be a belief in one's moral goodness (i.e. that one can be redeemed, and that it matters).
I am quite puzzled by your statement. I don't think you're arguing what I am reading that you're arguing. Surely, I must be misreading this, because I had thought that your analytical skills were better than this.
Let me get this straight, before I go off attacking a straw man. You're saying that considering society in a moral judgments is the exclusive domain of those who believe in religion? If you're saying this, this conversation must stop here. I won't waste my time trying to talk sense where it won't be had.
I also hope I'm misinterpreting your statement that no one ever is conscious of committing an immoral action, because if they knew it was immoral, they would not do it. Is that what you're saying as well? If that's your point, the conversation also ends there, because that is flat-out wrong, and not worth my time to try to prove. Such a sentiment is axiomatically wrong. I think you're getting at the truth though, when you say those imprisoned know it was morally wrong because of the hatred and their position. That's where many morals come from in the first place, socialization in development. There are also intrinsic ones in pretty much every person, except for psychopaths or sociopaths, and that comes from evolution, and domestication, et cetera.
Clarify your points, because if you confirm that you're saying what I interpreted, I won't warrant such rubbish with a response.
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