JTaylor

Although I've never met him, I am so familiar with his work that I feel as though he was a friend and ally. Mr Hitchens has been the greatest teacher and inspiration and I shall miss him dearly.

http://t.co/V7DzhiSh

legb4rsk

Thanks for that.Never heard of him before.I like it when you hear someone challenge the way you think & why you think it.
Makes my brain hurt a bit but that's because it's like every other muscle & it hurts when it dosen't get enough excercise .

Shame he was so young (62)

I will be checking his stuff out.

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

RIP, a very interesting man who people criticise because he moved from the left to the right throughout the course of his life yet he did so with reasoning and logic unlike so many others.

Martin2005

Very sad news

Always enjoyed listening/reading him, even when you didn't agree with some of his views you had to respect his thought process and reasoning

RIP

JTaylor

My pleasure, it's a quite brilliant speech. I've never felt so sad about the death of somebody I never met. According to Newsnight, who broadcast a tribute this evening, there's a programme dedicated to Mr. Hitchens on Sunday evening. I can't find any details about it presently, but I think she said it was 9.30pm on Sunday.

hodgy0_2

Having read his obituary this morning, one phrase struck me, ludicrous but blindingly accurate in equal measure.

When describing his upbringing in Portsmouth it was said that his family moved (as George Orwell may well have described it) to the fringes of the lower-upper-middle-class

lower-upper-middle-class

Those four words, strung together in a seemingly absurd sequence are like a verbal GPS, placing him with devastating accuracy within the British class system in particular and the British society in general

No other country, and without doubt not his adopted home in the US, would have a clue what those fours words, connected in that way, convey.

and it seems, looking at his life, that the he knew all to well what they meant.

sad loss, his demolition of Blair in a debate on religion was a thing of beauty

JTaylor

This is often said of Mr. Hitchens and, in my view, erroneously. Since the Iranian peoples' hijacked revolution of '79, the shift in the World Order has been so marked as to render redundant the left-right polarity of the preceding decades. Paxman asks Mr. Hitchens whether he still considers himself a 'leftist' - from about 17mins - 'though it's well worth watching the full interview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-s9AyNQyCw

f1_fan

iTrader: (9)

Yes I can see how one can consider the left-right polarity redundant... we only have to look at out own political landscape to see that all political batlles are now fought on the centre goround... contrast that to the mid 70s when the left right divide was a gaping chasm.

That said I am still unsure as to how a man who considers himself a Marxist can align himself with the Bush adminsitration. That is not a criticism of him, but more probably a lack of understanding of his thinking there on my part.

Great interview btw

Bonehead

I'd never heard of this guy until his death but I'e watched a number of his speechs since.

Any idea which specific speech this was from as I'm sure it'd be something worth listening to.

JTaylor

Yes. When communism collapsed there was nothing ideological for the hard-left to fight for which brought them closer and closer to the centre; this in turn saw the right shift in the same direction. This was the point I was trying to illustrate (and failing, I think) in posts 51 onwards in this thread:

https://www.scoobynet.com/881175-whe...billion-2.html

My peroration states:

Fukayama explains the idea much better than I could ever dream of in The End of History and the Last Man.

I'm of the view that this is why the left co-opt the narrative of political Islam; it allows them to continue the fight against their old enemy, the right or, more accurately, those who they construct, misunderstand or misappropriate as being 'The Right'. It's an enemy of my enemy is my friend scenario which leads to absurd scenes where the new hard-right (the EDL for example) are pro-democracy and anti-fascist and the new hard-left (the UAF) stand shoulder to shoulder with Islamofascist like Islam4UK. It's all a bit topsey-turvey. Anyway, Mr. Hitchens was (that hurts) an internationalist and for said reasons. That he states he is "Leftist" is more out of solidarity with his Trotskyist roots and affinity with the working class than it is to do with any position he might have taken up on the now (virtually) defunct political spectrum (with regards to the World stage).


Mr. Hitchens states, at 18:40ish that he "still thinks (sic) like a Marxist" and goes on to reference The Dialectic and the Material Conception of History. He accepted that the economic system which stemmed from Marx and Engels has failed and doesn't lament that. In this instance Mr. Hitchens is describing how he thought, rather than what he was thinking.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism

Regards "align himself with the Bush administration" - here's a quote from Mr. Hitchens:

He supported the Bush admin. for no other reason than that he believed in liberal intervention. His support was for the greater good....what Plato's Socrates may have described as "a noble lie".

ETA. Also from 1hr 4mins in Hodgy's link below. Oh, and this always makes me chuckle:

He also called Mother Teresa a "lying, thieving, Albanian dwarf!"

hodgy0_2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddsz9XBhrYA

45 mins in is a peach

JTaylor

Page 50 on this thread is good fun:

https://www.scoobynet.com/904707-wom...-update-2.html

Blair V Hitchens

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddsz9XBhrYA

Galloway V Hitchens

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&sou...J15rG48PoN5uRg

Enjoy.

lozgti1

A clever chap.Very on the ball.Very enjoyable to read or watch

Turbohot

Relational to late Christopher Hitchen's views, has anyone come across Professor Cameron Vs Dawkins "read-all-about-it" yet?:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2011...n_1155246.html

Some snippets below:


Dawkins will keep Hitchen's work alive for as long as he lives.

JTaylor

I actually have some sympathy with Cameron's thoughts around Christianity and, dare I say it, Blair's in the debate above. There's a brand of non-evangelical Anglicanism that accepts The Bible as allegorical and, in my view, adds value to our society. For highly evolved mammals like Dawkins et.al. a deep understanding of moral philosophy and literature and a fulfilling life removes the need for a framework such as Christianity. I'd argue, however, that for vast swathes of people on these shores a grounding in the Christian tradition would be preferable to the nihilism of consumer culture and could act as a gateway to deeper learning. I personally found that the fables and symbolism and parables and allegory of my youth gave a point of ethical reference that in no way diminished my capacity for free inquiry. The Christian culture of the flavour described by Cameron isn't the stuff of theocracy and blind faith. I think Dawkins is just protecting his turf.

hodgy0_2

Christianity "lite"

I think we may have been here before

JTaylor

Sure, and I did a lot of work on it before and I've done a lot of work on it since and I remain convinced that aggressive secularism, which has now morphed in to fundamentalist anti-theism, has left a gapping God-sized hole in society. We've tried to fill that hole with plastic stuff and it doesn't appear to have worked terribly well*. Dawkins has the luxury of coming at this from an academic perspective where as Cameron has a country to run.

* And if you've done your homework on neurotheology, evolutionary consciousness and integral thinking, which I have, you'll understand why.

DCI Gene Hunt

Good thread - resurrection time

JTaylor

Sky Arts 1, 8pm, for those interested.

warrenm2

So that's a non-existent hole then.....

JTaylor

https://www.scoobynet.com/892736-is-...-darwin-2.html

Have you read Hegel, Warren?

GlesgaKiss

The death of god seems to have created an abundance of holes...

JTaylor

I noticed you'd been reading Nietzsche the other day when you quoted him on Trout's thread. I like to think it was my referencing Übermensch in the Socialism thread that did it, but that's just hubris on my part.

GlesgaKiss

I actually just said that as it was the first figure of speech that came to mind. Was only once I'd posted it that I thought Nietzsche. Knew you'd pick on up on it though.

I read "Human, All Too Human" a while ago, and will no doubt read another in the new year. I enjoyed it - it was before he starting writing the reaaal 'crazy stuff'.

warrenm2

That would be the bit where someone spends a large proportion of their life arguing the finer logical points of a made up story clearly cobbled together from earlier ideas, that then undergo major revisions as other people pick holes in said story? Hmmm. Why would anyone do that?

JTaylor

Oh dear.

warrenm2

**** - got me there!

JTaylor

Well ok, given that you're being facetious, I'll indulge you and put you right. Your polemic is that of a child. An under-evolved, narrowly conceived and barely developed take on the notion of God; one that has been lifted from the pages of The God Delusion and explored no further. Your inability to recognise how the limitations of language leave progressive thinkers relying on the goodwill of others, hoping they'll explore ignosticism before wading in, is exasperating. You've not extended your reasoning, nor have you asked qualifying questions. You've not read the thread I linked, or worse, you lack the cognitive dexterity to understand it. I'll spell it out for you in simple terms: YOU'RE ATTACKING THEISM. I'M NOT A THEIST.

There, that's better.

Now, if you wish to ask those qualifying questions (they're clearly needed) before you mount your next half-arsed attack, I'll happily take them, and if you'd like me to school you further I'm happy to do that, too. Merry Christmas. X

warrenm2

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pretentious

Trouble is, you may well be widely read, but you seem to have learnt nothing, your thinking muddled, your reasoning non-existent and dull verbiage merely vainglorius attempts to make up for your lack of coherent argument.

I'm not sure if you put yourself in the category of "progressive thinkers", but if it helps, you come across as a pompous windbag, rather than anyone of any understanding.

My reasoning is straightforward (on theism), there is no evidence for any type of God. None, Nada, Niente . There is plenty of evidence for mental illness, hallucination and delusion. Common religions explain nothing about the world, but say plenty about their proponents. There is nothing to be gained on intricate discussion on the merits of one fairy story over another, how one fabrication and plagarised fantasy can be tweaked by the tortuous invention of yet more unbelievable drivel. All fantasy whether it be the Bible, Koran, Harry Potter or the flying spaghetti monster have equal basis.

If you want to quote other peoples ideas, dont just name drop like a little boy trying to impress teacher, try using them correctly and appropriately. Christopher Hitchens (of who I hold tremendous respect and is after all the topic of this thread) would do so to illuminate his audience with the validity of his argument, rather than to puff up his own self-importance.

To summarise, all religious experience is a psychological phenomena, best dealt with by a mental health professional, and you sir, are an ***

Merry Christmas

Martin2005

And thus you close your mind...tragic