A Hero Dead
- Christopher Hitchens & Salman Rushdie
Courage, Peter Hitchens writes, most comes to mind when thinking of his brother. Rather than the courage of those who have no idea what it is like to be afraid and are thus able to do frightening things, the courage Christopher Hitchens possessed was a “courage which overcomes real fear, while actually experiencing it.”
To former Prime Minister Tony Blair, Hitchens “was fearless in the pursuit of truth and any cause in which he believed.” There “was no belief he held that he did not advocate with passion, commitment and brilliance. He was an extraordinary, compelling and colourful human being whom it was a privilege to know.”
On 14 February 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini, on Iranian radio, announced the following: “In the name of God the Almighty… I would like to inform all intrepid Muslims in the world that the author of the book Satanic Verses, which has been compiled, printed, and published in opposition to Islam, the Prophet, and the Qur’an, and those publishers who were aware of its contents, are sentenced to death. I call on all zealous Muslims to execute them quickly, where they find them…”
This was no symbolic gesture. Not only were people attacked, but a Japanese translator of the book was murdered and killed, while the novel’s Norwegian publisher was shot three times. The author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie, was forced into hiding for a decade.
When so many voices refused to come forward in defense of Rushdie, Hitchens took up his friend’s cause. Along with a small group of others, Hitchens declared himself co-responsible for the publication, in order to “sort of widen the area with which the Ayatollah’s people would have to deal, if they really intended to destroy the book or threaten the author.”
To Rushdie, Hitchens became “the most extraordinary ally and helper in those hard times.” Rushdie claims that his main memory of those years was “Christopher always [being] there when I needed him.” When asked whether Hitchens was motivated by his friendship for Rushdie, Rushdie responded that Hitchens would probably “have reacted exactly the same way” for someone outside the sphere of his friendship. Hitchens himself has said that “it doesn’t really matter than he [Rushdie] was a friend of mine, although I am proud to say that he was and remains one.” It was the principle of the matter. In the face of Rushdie’s death sentence, people either said nothing or, as Cardinal John O’Connor of New York did, said the book was blasphemous; directing criticism at The Satanic Verses rather than, according to Hitchens, calling “the Ayatollah Khomeini a blasphemer for using religion to mount a contract killing.”
Several years ago, when Rushdie received the Knighthood, Baroness Shirley Williams noted that as Rushdie was “a man who has deeply offended Muslims in a very powerful way, [and] who has been protected by British police against threats of suicide[-murderers] for years and years at great expense to the taxpayer,” the decision to grant him the Knighthood was “not wise and not really clever.” She received some applause for her comment, but at the same round-table discussion was Christopher Hitchens, who stated: “I think that’s a contemptible statement and I think everyone who applauded should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. Do you think, really, that it’s a waste of time and money to defend free expression from suicide murderers? “
Hitchens was brilliant. He was a fantastic writer, and a debater whom I never saw bettered. He cared deeply about the pursuit of truth, and courageously communicated what conclusions he had drawn. He once said: “It will happen to all of us that, at some point, you get tapped on the shoulder and told not just that the party’s over, but slightly worse: The party’s going on, but you have to leave.” The party goes on, but Thursday evening the sixty-two year old Hitch left.
Here’s hoping he’s found a better one.
K.
Kelly Wilson is a Seminarian for the Archdiocese of Winnipeg. Besides Vox-Nova he writes at his blog Musings.
Comments are closed.
A quote from Christopher Hitchens on the beatification of Mother Theresa:
“One of the curses of India, as of other poor countries, is the quack medicine man, who fleeces the sufferer by promises of miraculous healing. Sunday was a great day for these parasites, who saw their crummy methods endorsed by his holiness and given a more or less free ride in the international press. Forgotten were the elementary rules of logic, that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and that what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. More than that, we witnessed the elevation and consecration of extreme dogmatism, blinkered faith, and the cult of a mediocre human personality. Many more people are poor and sick because of the life of MT: Even more will be poor and sick if her example is followed. She was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.”
For the full article, please see here.
A brilliant writer? maybe, though not to my taste. To be praised for his defense of Salman Rushdie? Certainly. But the encomiums need to be tempered, I think, by a clear memory of what else he said and stood for.
I think those who are calling him to remembrance are more than familiar with what he said and stood for. I certainly am.
Kelly Wilson in this post, and Mark Gordon in the previous post on this site: Both of you have focused our attention on the man -Christopher Hitchens- whose views on religion are known to have shaken up more than a few of our complacent contemporaries, particularly some of the more doctrinaire believers within our Christian tradition.
Both of you now provide us with a rare opportunity for shared comment & dialog on such dynamics in our postmodern world, sometimes referred to as the “post-Christian” world.
I particularly relish the compliment from this post by Kelly, referring to Hitchens:
“He cared deeply about the pursuit of truth, and courageously communicated what conclusions he had drawn.”
It seems to me that both of you, Kelly and Mark, qualify for that same accolade. You have both ably demonstrated in your posts on this man Christopher Hitchens, how the pursuit of truth is all that is finally satisfying in our human quest for understanding.
The pursuit of truth, and communicating what conclusions we have drawn with courage, is an extremely rare and precious gift in our contemporary society.
Unfortunately, there are many Christians today, who are leaders and spokespersons (including some of us who occasionally engage in posting Christian blogs) who, rather than pursuing truth and communicating our conclusions for the sake of the world, are inclined to cultivate favour with those in the established circles of secular power.
Kelly’s citation of how the late Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York once blasted the book of author Salman Rushdie rather than challenging the Ayatollah Khomeni, “for using religion to mount a contract killing” is but one glaring example of our historic pattern of Christian collusion with, for example, the formerly unchallenged authority of Wall Street, as if it were indeed the centre of the known universe.
How different the example of the late Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, who was murdered in 1980 while standing at the altar, celebrating Mass in the chapel of a hospital for women in palliative care. Just one day prior to his assassination, Romero spoke the truth to power in a way that apparently sealed his illustrious and eminent martyrdom, when he courageously made this bold appeal to the men of the armed forces in his beloved nation El Salvador:
“Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, ‘Thou shalt not kill’. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. …In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression”
The recent phenomenon of the Occupy movement spreading across the globe from the Middle East to the farthest reaches of the planet, is effectively demonstrating the immense capacity of the human conscience to help us realize that there is a huge difference between influence and power.
This is a critical historic moment for integral human development. I think of it as a “quantum leap” in collective understanding.
As a species, we humans are beginning to comprehend the dignity and the glory of being human, as we simultaneously discover our personal and collective responsibility within the context of our universe.
As Thomas Berry once asked a distinguished gathering of corporate & political managers of global organizations:
“And what are you going to do about the sun?”
Sometimes speaking the truth to power is simply a matter of asking the really important questions.
From the conclusion to Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card:
“The book that Ender wrote was not long, but in it was all the good and all the evil that the hive-queen knew. And he signed it, not with his name, but with a title:
SPEAKER FOR THE DEAD
On Earth, the book was published quietly, and quietly it was passed from hand to hand, until it was hard to believe that anyone on Earth might not have read it.
Most who read it found it interesting — some who read it refused to set it aside. They began to live by it as best they could, and when their loved ones died, a believer would arise beside the grave to be the Speaker for the Dead, and say what the dead one would have said, but with full candor, hiding no faults and pretending no virtues. Those who came to such services sometimes found them painful and disturbing, but there were many who decided that their life was worthwhile enough, despite their errors, that when they died a Speaker should tell the truth for them.”
Help me out here David. Relevance?
In speaking of Christopher Hitchens, it seems appropriate to “say what the dead one would have said, but with full candor, hiding no faults and pretending no virtues.”
Hitchens is neither a dead hero nor a dead villain, unless perhaps he is both. He was a man of certain talent, with equally many failings. I suspect he would not be willing to admit to those failings, but I also think he would expect people to be as critically honest as he was. Hitchens was an anti-Catholic bigot and pretending otherwise (albeit by omission) does him and us no favors.
David, I thought that was what you meant. It wouldn’t have been charitable for me to assume this was your meaning, however.
Speaking positively about someone is itself not a hiding of the faults of such a person. My post, while having a few general comments about Hitchens (comments I maintain), approaches Hitchens through the lens of the Rushdie affair. That I do not mention his being “an anti-Catholic bigot” (as you choose to call him), might more easily be attributed to the fact that the Rushdie affair had little to do with Catholicism.
Nor do I see myself as attributing pretend virtues to him.
I live in India. India gave Mother Teresa a state funeral in Calcutta not because of her hospice work for India’s most wretched and deprived but because of her enormous contributions to healing this country’s multifarious sectarian divides. This is why what Hitchens wrote about the woman should be excoriated and a very good reason why–aside from his cheerleading (never repented) for never-ending war against the Muslim world–that Catholics should not celebrate him or his “courage.”
Of course, the way she responded to Hitchens’ vile slander that she coerced the dying into professing Catholicism also gives many Fundo Catholics and Prot Fundos indigestion: she said, in so many words: “I do not ask of the Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists or Jains whom I help to make a good death that they should embrace Christianity. Instead, I plead with them that, in their dying hours, they should be better Hindus, better Muslims, better Buddhists or better Jains, because I believe that, in so doing, they will inevitably grow closer to Jesus Christ.”
Mother Teresa’s form of Catholicism–the kind that forthrightly denies the Augustinian, Lutheran and Ratzingerian notion of “salvation by faith alone” and profession that only Christianity has “soteriological efficacy”–is the only form of Catholicism that is going to survive in the modern world. This Hitchens–a scholar of, among other things, the European wars of religion, particularly as they affected Britain–knew Mother Teresa understood, and this is why he feared and hated her.
“To be secularly literate and religiously illiterate produces an unbalance within the man. He finds himself with two eyes which do not focus–a strong eye which sees life as the world sees it, a weak eye which sees life as Faith declares it to be. The temptation is overwhelming to close the one eye, the weak eye naturally.” [Sheed, F.J. (1957). Theology for Beginners. New York: Sheed & Ward]
David, I agree that Mr. Hitchens is no hero. He did more than close the weak eye, he plucked it out. He is hero to those who worship at the altar of the intellect. The prayer of his razor intellect was contempt which is why he coundn’t fathom the exaltation of love. He did provide a service in some sense in that he challanged the flaws of religious practitioners vehemently and thus moved some to pursue a purification or clarification of beliefs and action. In this sense he was providential. And he was as human as the rest of us bearing the divine seed (even unwittingly) so we can rightly praise the good that he did. But in truth he doesn’t deserve adulation, and in charity we can lessen the scorn.
Tausign, your comments strikes me as having emerged from a context of unfamiliarity with Hitchens. Does the fact that, in the end, Hitchens did not embrace the same religious convictions as you, indicate that he was religiously illiterate? Your language of Hitchens’ not simply closing a weak eye, but plucking it out, borders (in my view) on adolescent, so how have I misread you?
Mary was an adolescent when she said “yes” and brought Christ into the world, and a great many men and women have been in their teens when they did far more than any of us here.
For the record: I was never a big fan of Hitchens while he was alive, I found him smug and allied myself with religious and non-religious critics of him. But I certainly dare to hope for him and only desire that he rest in peace.
Sam
Kelly, I’m not certain what amount of awareness would take me from unfamiliarity to familiarity with Hitchens. I have listed to him speak in debates and forums several times until I felt that I could anticipate his responses, generally speaking. I inserted the quote above to speak of the lack of balance that results from omitting the spiritual dimension of man. Of course, he was well aware of religious claims and teachings, but was not content to ignore or even deny them. He went well beyond a critique or religious practice; he engaged in a systematic campaign to ridicule and denigrate religious practice into a degenerate endeavor for fools or worse. Sorry if you think my language is silly.
Tausign, I don’t think your language is silly. That was a less-than-accurate choice of words on my part, and I changed “silly” to “adolescent” almost immediately after my comment appeared. That term (adolescent) is not meant disparagingly. I think your perspective requires some maturation. Hitchens truly believes that religion is a poison. I don’t honestly believe that he would hold to that perspective if “religion”, as he (and many others) have experienced it, was not poisonous. When Hitchens began to speak of matters religious, there was a great deal I could not agree with, and yet, I understood where much was coming from. Hitchens viewed much through the lens of what was “just,” and in what he says about religious practice, and the texts such practices are alleged to be based on, there is a profound concern that such practices were not just, and a profound concern for those who experience the perceived injustice. I never got the sense that his intention was to ridicule. I genuinely believe he cared deeply about people, and that this is what motivated his critique.
Kelly, to detect the ‘poison’ in religion is not something that’s limited to intellectual pursuit. It’s as much (and even more) a spiritual endeavor which is greatly aided by prayer and humility. In fact, since a proper purification of religion involves the Spirit of God, we could hold that whatever true insight Hitchen’s received regarding religion was not his own.
Now understand, when I say he ‘plucked out his spiritual eye’, it is not a casual remark. Nor am I speaking pejoratively, but observing a well known fact about his life. He styled himself an ‘anti-theist’ as opposed to a mere ‘atheist.’ This shaped all of his thinking, his approach to fellow human beings; and it affected his pursuit of justice.
Yes, I applaud his standing up for Rushdie, but I also feel it’s incongruous in this Catholic forum to pick one of his stances to laud without a broader consideration of his life; particularly since he is so aligned with a highly militant stance against religion. In all of this, I found him fascinating and regarded him as modern day Saul…hoping for him, with his zeal and brilliance, to be converted and purified in love. It’s still my hope.
Here, here, Tausign. This is precisely the point I am driving at in this thread.
Sam
Since my post on Hitchens and Kelly’s appear consecutively, I feel the need to clarify my own position. For the record, I do not consider Hitchens to have been a hero in any respect, even for his role in the Rushdie affair when he did what any decent person should have done. I’m aware that many did not to the right thing in that case, but in my book you don’t get the label “hero” for doing what is “right and just.”
I wrote about Hitchens as a public intellectual, which I’m qualified to do as someone who has followed his public career for thirty years, including reading his books and columns, and watching him in debate. I wrote that he “was a reminder that there is great value in intelligence, clear articulation and the honest search for truth.” His intelligence was prodigious. His powers of articulation were, in my view, superior to just about anyone else in the public square. And I really do believe that his positions – not just on religion, but on a host of topics – were arrived at and communicated with unfailing honesty.
That said, I also believe he was sincerely wrong on many, if not most, things. Hitchens was wrong about Mother Teresa (and, yes, I did read “Missionary Position”). He was wrong about Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. He was wrong about Iraq. He was wrong about Trotsky. He wrong to indulge his penchant for intellectual brutality when engaged with an interlocutor he found especially galling. He was wrong about a lot of things, which is another way of saying he was just like you and me. When he saw he was wrong, he admitted it. When he didn’t, he didn’t. But wherever he stood, Hitchens was intelligent, articulate, and honest, and I’ll miss his voice.
My feeling is a little different: Choosing the “right and just,” when doing so (more-or-less) alone, is heroic (even more heroic when that choice carries a personal risk).
Maximilian Kolbe was/is what I think most serious people using ordinary language mean by the word ‘hero.’ Hitchen was/is no such thing — and neither am I. I’ll pray for him and ask that he pray for me, too.
Sam
Except that Hitchens wasn’t alone in his defense of Rushdie, not by a long shot. I remember the time and large percentage of the Western literary and media establishment rallied around Rushdie. Hitchens, typically, was notable for the pungency of his criticism of the Iranian regime. Whatever, Kelly. If you feel compelled to honor Hitchens in that way, that’s your business. I thought my own sentiments needed clarification due to the proximity of our posts.
But it’s not really a contest, is it Sam? The argument is not that no person possessing heroic qualities existed prior to Hitchens. He’s not competing with Maximilian Kolbe, nor are we bound to choose one or the other. As I said to Mark, to “choose the ‘right and just,’ when doing so (more-or-less) alone, is heroic (even more heroic when that choice carries a personal risk).” For Hitchens to stand-in, on at least one occasion, for Rushdie, during Rushdie’s book tour, was a heroic act, and I don’t think his only one.
You can use words however you want to, Kelly. But, again, most serious people who use the noun ‘hero’ do not use it in the way you are using it here.
Someone who does something “heroic” is not necessarily a hero. Imagine someone recounting a “heroic” act done by a famously monstrous person. It would certainly not make that person a hero. The rest of the life would speak against that.
Kolbe and other heros (and sheros, like Mother Theresa) are not merely “heroic,” they are real, true, beautiful heros in a complete, holistic sense. We can add many names to this list — the idea that this is a contest is just silly — but we also can NOT add certain names to it.
Hitchens’ name and my own both do not belong on that list, in my view.
Sam
Sam, how do most “serious people” (as you call them) envision a hero?
Dictionaries will talk about a hero as being a person who is distinguished by his or her courage. I’ve gven an example (the Rushdie affair) which I believed demonstrated Hitchens’ courage. His brother, who presumably knew him better than both of us, states that “courage” is the one word which best describes him. Certainly plenty of other examples of his courage could be given if the purpose of this post was to offer a litany. We’re not attributing one heroic act to a famously monstrous person here (or are we, to you?).
The association between courage and heroism seems serious enough. Hitch wasn’t my hero, but he certainly was one to a good many. While I understand that you (for whatever reason) might prefer the term not apply to Hitchens, I don’t undersand the degree to which you are trying to present my understanding of the word as differing from the common one of “most serious people.”
I agree with you Kelly. He was heroic as opposed to Cardinal O’Connor or other high profile leaders who did not speak out against the Rushdie contract. His statement against JPII’s elevation of Mother Theresa to sainthood needs to be examined closely. What is his anger really about? Is it about one person being honored rather than the entire membership of the faith being called to the same sacrifice beginning with those in the highest positions? Does he see that the saints are used to lift the church to the illusion of greater heights while those who dictate the dogma of beliefs continue their lives in the same comfort and safety that they have been accustomed to, as the poor remain poor with their hope being placed on the hereafter while getting crumbs from the tables of those in power.
Again, heroics and heroism can occur in certain instances, and if all you mean is that certain people (like R. King) found this instance to be heroic, then, we have no issue about it.
However, to use this particular scenario to extend into an overall statement about his entire life and legacy, is to use the term ‘hero’ in a way that is not the usual way of speaking.
(BTW: By “serious” I mean not joking around.)
If you simply wanted to credit Hitchens for the Rushdie incident, then that seems fine. Call it heroic if you want. But the headline “A Hero Dead” does not give that sense of the matter, it gives the impression that you are talking about the life and legacy of Hitchens, not just this particular incident.
You only further make yourself unclear when you write, “Hitch wasn’t my hero, but he certainly was one to a good many.” If he wasn’t a hero to or for you, then what do you mean by ‘hero’? Were you being serious about this if the guy wasn’t even a personal hero to you?
Serious people call people who are heros “heros.” To do anything else one must be joking or speaking in riddles.
Sam
Sam,
I don’t find my post, my subsequent comments, or even my chosen title as lacking in clarity. If persons do, they are welcomed to seek clarification.
You don’t appear to be making much of an effort to take my position as I present it. You appear more comfortable with appeals to what serious persons would claim, and to contrasting that with those who are joking or speaking in riddles.
Hitch doesn’t have to be my hero in order to be one to some. I don’t think of too many people in those terms, but in choosing “A Hero Dead” as a title, it is my way of attributing some validity to the way in which others have experienced him. I don’t think there is a problem with that.
And yes, as I already said, I don’t think the Rushdie affair was an isolated incident. I have no problem extending what Hitchens showed in this particular scenario to his larger life (especially since it is consistent with what he showed in that larger life); to seeing this affair, and the qualities he demonstrated therein, as representative of something central to his person.
Ah, well, intellectual cogency be damned, girls just love a bad-boy, and so do boys. Some of us have taken advantage of that irrational predilection, rooted in atavism. for fun and profit. But in the case of Hitchens, his self-canceling support for a trumped up war, besmirched any talent he had. That is unless you are titilated by bad-boys
Okay, Peter…
It couldn’t just be that some of us actually think he was a good fellow even if we didn’t agree with everything that came out of his mouth?
Kelly,
Because it is about a subject as serious as war, let me be dramatic:
“You cannot serve both God and shammin’”
Noticing the adulation paid to Hitchens, not only in this post but in the popular press, I was struck by the relatively muted reaction to the death of a much more important contemporary thinker and activist, Vaclav Havel. Evidently I was not the only one:
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/just_one_hitch_with_all_those_eulogies
It seems to me that Hitchens will ultimately be remembered (if at all) primarily for being outrageous, Havel for being truly courageous.
Ron, which aspect of “adulation” in this post do you disagree with?
What feature of my post is in need of correction? Give me a specific quote and tell me why.
Ron,
Thank you for linking to that essay. That was a truly brilliant evisceration. I completely agree with it too. I would just like to add a bit of spiritual psychodynamics to explain the bizarreness. To wit, Hitchens gave safe outlet for a lot of believers to deal with the vast realm of the “absence of God” that, I would contend, is part of the spiritual path for virtually all human beings. In other words, what in Catholic spiritual direction is known as “dryness” or sometimes even “dry bones” of the spiritual life. In fact, in the normal course of life God is both present and absent from life. I personally believe that it is the real movement of maturity of person to deal with this fact, and NOT get into vast and silly explanations for it. E.g. God is using this dryness as a “test” for me to teach me thus and so, yadda, yadda, yadda. No, it is in the nature of everything that God is both present and absent, and that this should not diminish our faith or enjoyment of life, not our trust in Providence.
But, lamentably, people get stuck in silliness. And so a clown figure is the best they can do in dealing emotionally and spiritually with the opposite side of belief. So send in the clowns, like Hitchens. He was a safe outlet for many, and a terrific entertainer; not more. But a “thinker”?? Remember clowns are really sad, and so the “thinker” ascription is too sad to even be funny.
And a post scriptum:
I just saw a video of Hitchens with the very charming Monsignor Albacete, which Michael Winters posted. But I was more interested in Michael’s take on it, which is revelatory of how Hitchens worked on other people. Somehow that little video snippet conveys to Winters that Hitchens was flummoxed by Albacete especially interesting argument. When in fact it is clear as day that Hitchens was using it for his using vaudeville act. He thought he was going to argue with someone who “believed in God” and instead he got the Monsignor who attests seemingly to the “human” or “biological” genesis of religion. (Btw, it is interesting that Albacete said this because using that view of biological genesis of religion has often been used by Catholic apologists as a de facto epithet against others. Alabacete’s whole style is so close to one of my seminary professors at St. John Vianney seminary in Miami. He was one of the few people I really liked from the experience, a terrific and brilliant guy named Solis-Silva.) Be that as it may, Hitchens seizes on the obvious rejoinder, so it is really hard to see why Winters sees him as at all flummoxed. Namely, that the distinction between religion and faith, in terms of biological genesis, is arbitrary. Even though Albacete identifies is charmingly with a per se inexplicable feeling of “being in love.” The real question of religion and faith both is is persistence — which is massively shown in history. Simply put, something that huge and vast is not going to be explained by Hitchens’ sort of handy negations. It is just there, and in my view, no holds are barred in explaining that fact, and that certainly does not exclude the cosmic embrace of love. In this way, Hitchens was just exercising his right to be arbitrary and adventitious. The essence of entertainment, not thinking.
You’re right, Ron, but more than anything else, it’s simple Anglo-centrism (i.e. negligence of the non-English-speaking world), which is, to say the least, rather strange to find in a ROMAN Catholic website. I believe that Rocco Palma is generally more romanitas than most of us writing here.
I don’t read much of Rocco Palma’s stuff, but I’m sure you are right, digby.
Expect “romanita” somewhere else, perhaps in whispers in the cloistered loggia of some medieval antiquity but you’re not likely to find much of it here.
The emphasis and appreciation of all things Catholic which I find here on Vox Nova, is delightful. One reason for that, is due to the depth of insight and the passionate pursuit of wisdom which is not locked into the box of tradition from the past, but is in fact breaking new paths, pioneering the tradition here and now in the present, with a view on the future of the community of Christian Catholic faith within the created universe.
I do not despise tradition. In fact I revere it, I treasure it but I do not worship it or any of it’s manifestations such as the Latin language. Furthermore, I believe that tradition is such a good thing, we should start a few new ones right now. That is what our ancestors, our forebears did in their time of salvation history. And in order to be true to our tradition, we can and should do no less in our own time, for the sake of future generations.
The deposit of faith is a living reality. As John Henry Cardinal Newman explained it, the development of doctrine is essential to the life of the authentic Christian community. Newman is one of those whom I consider heroic. His contribution to Catholic Christianity is priceless and dynamic. May it continue to the end of time, in tandem with the Holy Scriptures and the primary revelation which we encounter in the world of nature & all of the vast universe.
Except that after the 1550s, there’s not much Roman Catholic tradition in the Anglo-Saxon world. Contact with that ancient tradition was violently broken, as Newman himself pointed out–which made of the English-speaking world an intellectually provincial and shallow backwater, in terms of the “development of doctrine.”
[Okay, folks, perhaps we can let this comment end this particular thread which isn't, in my view, all that relevant to the original post. KW.]
Kudos to Kelly Wilson in this post, and to Mark Gordon in the previous post on this site: Both of you have focused our attention on the man -Christopher Hitchens- whose views on religion are known to have shaken up more than a few of our complacent contemporaries, particularly some of the more doctrinaire believers within our Christian tradition.
Both of you now provide us with a rare opportunity for shared comment & dialog on such dynamics in our postmodern world, sometimes referred to as the “post-Christian” world.
I particularly relish the compliment from this post by Kelly, referring to Hitchens:
“He cared deeply about the pursuit of truth, and courageously communicated what conclusions he had drawn.”
It seems to me that both of you, Kelly and Mark, qualify for that same accolade. You have both ably demonstrated in your posts on this man Christopher Hitchens, how the pursuit of truth is all that is finally satisfying in our human quest for understanding.
The pursuit of truth, and communicating what conclusions we have drawn with courage, is an extremely rare and precious gift in our contemporary society.
Unfortunately, there are many Christians today, who are leaders and spokespersons (including some of us who occasionally engage in posting Christian blogs) who, rather than pursuing truth and communicating our conclusions for the sake of the world, are inclined to cultivate favour with those in the established circles of secular power.
Kelly’s citation of how the late Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York once blasted the book of author Salman Rushdie rather than challenging the Ayatollah Khomeni, “for using religion to mount a contract killing” is but one glaring example of our historic pattern of Christian collusion with, for example, the formerly unchallenged authority of Wall Street, as if it were indeed the centre of the known universe.
How different the example of the late Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, who was murdered in 1980 while standing at the altar, celebrating Mass in the chapel of a hospital for women in palliative care. Just one day prior to his assassination, Romero spoke the truth to power in a way that apparently sealed his illustrious and eminent martyrdom, when he courageously made this bold appeal to the men of the armed forces in his beloved nation El Salvador:
“Brothers, you came from our own people. You are killing your own brothers. Any human order to kill must be subordinate to the law of God, which says, ‘Thou shalt not kill’. No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. No one has to obey an immoral law. It is high time you obeyed your consciences rather than sinful orders. The church cannot remain silent before such an abomination. …In the name of God, in the name of this suffering people whose cry rises to heaven more loudly each day, I implore you, I beg you, I order you: stop the repression”
The recent phenomenon of the Occupy movement spreading across the globe from the Middle East to the farthest reaches of the planet, is effectively demonstrating the immense capacity of the human conscience to help us realize that there is a huge difference between influence and power.
This is a critical historic moment for integral human development. I think of it as a “quantum leap” in collective understanding.
As a species, we humans are beginning to comprehend the dignity and the glory of being human, as we simultaneously discover our personal and collective responsibility within the context of our universe.
As Thomas Berry once asked a distinguished gathering of corporate & political managers of global organizations:
“And what are you going to do about the sun?”
Sometimes speaking the truth to power is simply a matter of asking the really important questions.
One of Bob Dylan’s more memorable lines (from the song “Dirge” on the album “Planet Waves”) comes to mind in this connection:
“The naked truth is still taboo, whenever it can be seen.”
A Hero Dead?
Clearly many of his subjects saw him as a hero, so he meets all your criteria, right?
Is that what you perceive, Sam?
In no place did I present being seen by some as a hero as being the sole criteria. What I said was, first, that “Hitch doesn’t have to be my hero in order to be one to some,” and, second, that in choosing a title such as “A Hero Dead,” I attribute some validity to the way in which others have experienced him.
If someone admires Hitch’s courage, and that makes Hitch a hero to such a person, I can entirely agree with the admired quality (and view it as being possessed by the person it is being attributed to) without, myself, adopting so personal a term as hero.
Exactly. So then the same goes for Kim, who many, many of his countrymen (and women) perceive as a hero. Look, for instance at how it fits by replacing one for the other:
“In no place did I present being seen by some as a hero as being the sole criteria. What I said was, first, that “[Kim] doesn’t have to be my hero in order to be one to some,” and, second, that in choosing a title such as “A Hero Dead,” I attribute some validity to the way in which others have experienced him.
If someone admires [Kim’s] courage, and that makes [Kim] a hero to such a person, I can entirely agree with the admired quality (and view it as being possessed by the person it is being attributed to) without, myself, adopting so personal a term as hero.”
See? How can you deny the validity of these North Korean faithful’s experience? A hero dead, too, right?
Sam
“Hitchens was… a debater whom I never saw bettered.”
I’m guessing you never saw him debate William Lane Craig…
That’s an interesting comment. Craig was always one debater I thought might give Hitchens a run for his money. I can’t remember whether I saw their debate (was it the one at BIOLA or Baylor or some “B” named university/college?), but I seem to recall having the opinion that Craig did not succeed in bettering Hitchens, although Craig was not overwhelmingly bettered himself, so I think I did see it somewhere…
@Sam–
Is there a set of objective criteria, applicable to all cases of legitimate heroism, which we can use to evaluate all pretenders to the designation “hero” in order to settle the current controversy and avoid such controversies in the future? If so, please provide the short list so that we can quickly determine if Mr. Hitchens fits the bill better than Mr. Kim.
No, Rodak. But there are some exemplars, like the ones I mentioned: Kolbe, Theresa, Mary, Joseph and so on… By those exemplars I think neither Hitch nor Kim qualify—both for different reasons—especially considering the hero aesthetic within a Catholic context.
Sam
In that case, Sam, aren’t you saying that any given person’s hero will be any second party whom he sees as heroic, and no third party has any basis to say that he is wrong in his evaluation?
If it’s a matter of taste, as you indicate by your use of the word “aesthetic,” then Hitchens is a hero, simply because Kelly sees it that way.
Not quite, Rodak. And Kelly is being very difficult about whether he sees Hitch as heroic or not — or if whether it is simply a matter of many other people seeing him that way.
My use of the term ‘aesthetic’ was meant to suggest a “hero-aesthetic,” i.e. what a hero roughly looks like. If I want to verify if someone is a cowboy, a real one, or not, I look for a “look” (and actions), and aesthetic, a cowboy-aesthetic.
I think we can see the hero-aesthetic, the look of a true hero in Mother Theresa, in Maximilian Kolbe, in Ghandi, in Mary, in Joseph, and so on. Hitchens doesn’t seem to share that “look,” that hero-aesthetic with those people—most of whom he openly hated.
Sam
Sam, I think it is important to attempt to understand Hitchen’s remarks about Mother Theresa, God, Iraq or anything else he passionately verbalized. It does take courage to make statements that will create a reactionary anger from a large population. He certainly was working through the crisis of freedom and taking the heat for it. He told everyone who would listen what he stood for. It certainly seemed that he had a lot of anger with those who appeared to him to hurt others. Rage seemed to be underlying his search for truth and that rage along with his intelligence seemed to defend him from psychological vulnerability. What seems apparent to me is that he did not know how to nurture himself as was evident when he continued to smoke after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Rage is the outcome of intense fear and pain when there is a loss of a nurturing parent. What he seemed to be expressing concerning Mother Theresa is that he knows that those who suffer loss and rejection,, do not need heaven, instead need the entire human community to care for them. In my ignorant opinion she seemed to symbolize the ineptitude of the believers of different religions to be passionate enough to sacrifice enough in order to care for the millions who die needlessly everyday. He saw passivity instead of passion. One saint is not enough and perhaps Mother Theresa is the identified saint who could not do enough while the rest of us go about our daily business as usual and take part in rituals that provide nothing for those who suffer.
Just guessing Sam.
The difference, Sam, in the case of my associating someone with heroism, would be not the way in which that person is perceived (or said to be perceived) by others, but in my agreement with the admired quality, and in viewing that quality as possessed by the person it is being attributed to…
Round and round the mulberry bush…
Sam
A hero? Seriously? The guy who said of Mother Teresa, “I wish there was a hell for the bitch to go to?” I found I couldn’t help but like him at times and I pray for the repose of his proud and often bitter soul. But “hero”? Spare me.
Or, Mark, Hitchens could’ve just been wrong about Mother Teresa. That wouldn’t diminish (what many perceive to be) the courage Hitchens showed during the Rushide affair, nor would his being wrong about Mother Teresa have any bearing on whether the courage shown during the Rushdie affair was representative of Hitchens and not just an isolated incident.
At the risk of triggering Godwin’s law, any asshole can show courage. I once had a reader remonstrate with me when I criticized some Tea Party dunce running for Congress who was part of an SS reenactment group. I made plain that I get that reenactors need to play bad guys, however, this particular group’s website was all about the glories of the SS with no hint that these guys were responsible for mass slaughter and boasted Josef Mengele among their alums.
Things got really bizarre when a reader logged on to ream me out, not for attacking the Congresscritter wannabe, but for attacking Josef “Angel of Death” Mengele. He was, doncha know, “courageous” because he once saved some troops from a burning tanks or something. Courage, detached from the other virtues, is one of the first refuges of the brutal scoundrel. Hitchens was brave in savaging grieving families and the memories of saint, as well as standing up for Rushdie. And Mengele was courageous in saving SS fellow troopers, as well as bucking bourgeois opinion concerning the value of the lives of untermenschen.
And, please, can we cut back on the “Hitchens was always fearlessly honest.” No. He wasn’t. He often said lazy and patently dishonest things because he couldn’t be bothered to know the truth if it inconvenienced his hatred. From his ridiculous claim that the canon of Scripture was only settle at the cost of many lives, to his dismissal of St. Maximilian Kolbe as having “apparently acted nobly” to his groteseque attempt to say that the crimes of atheistic communism were really the fault of religion, Hitchens was often deeply dishonest.
He was not a hero particularly. He was somebody who got some things right, who spoke he mind whether it was stupid or not, and who exhibited certain qualities at certain times that made him likeable, even to me. He was also capable of extraordinary spite, pride, and malice that could turn even his prodigious verbal gifts to shit. Don’t exaggerate that to “heroism”. It’s silly.
Again, with feeling: Hitchens attacked two real heros, M. Theresa and M Kolbe, during his colorful life when he also defended Rushdie. Scanning the first three names: one of these things is not like the other.
I cannot be more clear than this—especially when it is repeated over and over and over.
Sam
Actually, Mark, I think you’ve just given the most accurate characterization of Hitch: all the while I watched and listened to him, I always thought, “Man, you are an extraordinarily WOUNDED soul.” He made Literaaaaatuuure his god, and destroyed his own soul and body in its behalf, when actually literature is supposed to SERVE man’s ethical and moral nature, and not be idolized. All you have to do is study his biography as a youth, and you will understand where and by whom he was deeply, deeply wounded.
I agree with Sam. I also suspect that with titles like “Gay Rights Are Human Rights” (with banners flying), and “A Hero Dead” in referring to a famous atheist (that is, famous for being an atheist), it just might be the case that Kelly is trying to press people’s buttons on purpose. : )
Hey guys, I hope you can quit chasing each other around that bush over there. Stop for a moment, look around and notice the flames are leaping higher & higher without the bush being consumed.
I’m sure you get the message.
I’ve always found the burning bush story to be splendidly ridiculous. Thanks, Larry.
Sam
Again: If Hitchen’s life legacy does not include his remarks about Mother Theresa — and God! — or only includes them in some diminished way, along with his Iraq gaffes, and is more typified by his support of Rushdie, then, something seems a bit off. At best, Kelly, I think you can say we have a mixed bag, a live to learn from, to love, to appreciate and reject — but certainly not a hero.
BTW: I wrote about Michael Jackson some time ago in reverent tones and I deeply empathized with the sentiment of Mark’s previous post. But this seems out of balance and order.
Sam
@Sam–
You previous response to me has reminded me of a parody of the song “The Streets of Laredo” that the Smothers Brothers once performed on their TV show (I quote from memory):
“I can see by your outfit / That you are a cowboy / If I had an outfit / I could be a cowboy, too!”
HA! That’s great! My argument is, in these terms, that Hitchens’ life isn’t wearing a hero outfit. He may have some pieces but the ensemble doesn’t quite match the outfits of the exemplars I’ve named again and again. Thanks for such a fun metaphor to make sense of this with!
Sam
You’re welcome! With the possible exception of some sight gags, humor that works only works because of an embedded idea. Anything that makes us laugh also teaches us something. Usually it is something about ourselves.
I don’t think I’m being too difficult about whether I see Hitch as heroic. When viewed through the lens of his courage (an aspect which his brother Peter [with whom Christopher would have often disagreed] says best sums up Hitch), I have no problem viewing Hitchens as heroic.
With that said, I nonetheless find something intensely personal about the language of “my hero.” To use the example of someone many would identify as a hero, Gandhi might not be “my hero,” but I wouldn’t say he isn’t a hero. He might not be my hero, but I recognize validity in the way in which some speak of him, and thus I too could speak of him as “a hero.”
Hitchens isn’t my hero. I’ve said as much and while I have never called him “my hero,” I do think calling him “a hero” is an appropriate enough distinction. I stand by the title which seems to be the only thing people are taking issue with here. I stand by that title because I recognize validity in the claims of those who would speak of Hitch as their own hero.
If the courage Hitchens showed during the Rushdie affair is representative of a larger theme of courage that characterizes his life (and I think that courage is representative), then that isn’t diminished if he gets things wrong about all sorts of important matters. I don’t think, for example, that his energetic support of the invasion of Iraq is a moral failing, even if he was wrong. My feeling, and I’ve mentioned this prior, is that Hitchens had a very strong sense of what was right and just (even if he wasn’t always right about what was right and just) and when he stood up for what he believed to be right, I think he often acted heroically, especially considering that, at times, such stands carried personal risk.
Was Hitch a mixed bag? Sure. But the lens through which we view a person matters. The author Graham Greene, for example, is not just someone whose writings I enjoy: I very much admire the man. I think Greene, like Hitchens, was a man of great courage, and that is the lens through which I choose to view someone like Greene. I think “courage” genuinely characterizes Greene, even if it is not the only lens through which a person might view him. For example, in volume 3 of Norman Sherry’s biography of Greene, there is an appendix which is a photocopy of a sheet upon which Greene hand wrote (for Sherry) a list of Greene’s favourite prostitutes (the paper details 47). That’s, kind of, despicable, but if someone were to look at Greene through the lens of his failed marriages, or his interactions with prostitutes, I would say look for more, because I would not think this was representative of the man.
It’s the same with Hitchens. We all know he was an active anti-theist. But is it right to reduce him to his stand on God or can we see his stand on God as a consequence of something deeper? Much of Hitchens’ views emerge from the lens through which he views the world, and it is a lens, if you haven’t noticed, preoccupied with “justice.” Instead of reducing Hitchens to his stand on God, could we not see such as stand as having emerged out of the relationship between (1) the strong sense of justice that coloured the way in which Hitch examined life, and (2) the way in which person’s lives were (are being/have been) adversely affected by what Hitchens perceived to be their experience of God, and holy texts.
When I listened to Hitchens speak about religion, I often did not agree with what he said, but I almost always understood why he said it, and I always respected him for his contributions. It’s not apparent to me why I am so obviously wrong about this.
Kelly,
I confess I really do not understand. This was a person who defended a farcical war in which untold numbers were either killed, maimed, or permanently traumatized or impoverished. How is anything in connection with such a person even tangentially heroic or wanly close to heroism?? I think, honestly and with respect to your intellect, that you are mistaking being a fan of an entertainer, for appreciation of some quality. it was not there.
Kelly,
I hate to say this, but your own tortured self-defense has become a parody of what is wrong with this post. It doesn’t take an ordinary language analysis to see that you’re just being stubborn at this point.
Sam
Generally, I can understand where atheists are coming from, but Hitchens really lost me with his attack on Mother Teresa. What surprised me was the level of venom — to me, it seemed extremely disproportionate to how any other non-believer or atheist would react to her and her work with the poor. I’ve always wondered whether his over-the-top vitriolic fixation on Mother Theresa was a sign that, subconsciously, he wasn’t as certain as he made himself out to be, when it came down to his stance in opposition to God and to people who believed in Him.
Hero was the wrong word – why not admit it and move on?
It depends what you mean when you say it’s the wrong word choice.
On one hand, the word has distracted from the post, and since the intention of the post could hardly have been to distract people from the post, then from that perspective, knowing the reaction this word has caused, I probably would have used a different word.
On the other hand, I maintain, and have maintained that what his own brother (and devout Christian) attributed to him — courage — was not simply manifested in the isolated incident of the Rushdie affair but was representative of his larger life. A lot of this I’ve already repeated so I see no need to do so again…
This is not so much a story of courage and heroism as it is a conflation of two distinct evils. The one most readily condemned is the infamous fatwa. But what is overlooked is the intensely inflammatory nature of Rushdie’s novel. It is not fair to characterize ‘The Satanic Verses’ as simply ‘controversial’. It went so far beyond the bounds of what Muslim’s could tolerate that it’s foment was nearly inevitable. It seems to me that this sentiment of disdain was what Rushdie and Hitchens shared in common and why each regarded the other as friend.
In revisiting this issue I noted that many clerics and state officials (not just Cardinal O’Connor) condemned ‘The Satanic Verses’ with a great trepidation of the whirlwind that was to follow. I never appreciated how deeply offensive this work actually was. We’ve become immune to public blasphemy; we can easily tolerate art shows with a crucifix in a bottle of urine; but my sense after reviewing some criticisms is that TSV was far more provocative. We apply western standards to this affair and in doing so are entirely insensitive to another worldview.
Hitchens and Rushdee saw themselves as highly intellectual, progressive, and secular: far above the sanctions or taboos of religious culture. Neither, was interested in finding anything resembling common ground in which to approach the Muslim world. I suspect in this matter, Rushdee in particular knew how provocative he was, but failed to gauge the response.
Ultimately, this entire affair is one prominent thread woven into a flag of war between the ‘Islamo-facist’ and the modern secular world, as Hitchens brilliantly argued for. All religious fundamentalists were already lost in his mind and so the next step of backing the war on terror was the logical progression. A hero dead?
@Tausign–
What you say about Hitchens and Rushdie is correct. But to have known the inevitable reaction to what the novel states and to publish it anyway, is courageous. And to stand alongside the courageous author, thereby putting your own safety at risk (when others who agree with you mostly do so silently) is also courageous. One can say “discretion is the greater part of valor” and make a valid argument in this case. But I don’t believe that it has ever been a necessary condition of heroism that its practioner be either prudent, or morally correct. Do you want to say that Rushdie was braver than he was smart? Fine. He was still brave. If part of his reason for writing the novel was (in his own mind, as it certainly was in Hitchens’ in defending him) to help liberate people from the grip of what he considered to be a medieval superstition, and to do so regardless of the consequences, then that risk-taking on behalf of an ideal of freedom is…heroic.
A Caveat: I don’t want to create an equivalence regarding the ‘two evils’ mentioned above. I should have clarified that more. The fatwa was the greatest evil and even the reaction of violence is unjustified in my mind. I simply want to point out that significant provocation occured, at least to the Muslim mind.
“I simply want to point out that significant provocation occured, at least to the Muslim mind.”
@Tausign–
Yes, I stipulated that at the outset. My point was that the violent reaction was almost inevitable and that this very fact made proceeding with the publication, and then publicly defending it, and its author, heroic.
This comment is very helpful for me, because it addresses the question of whether or not we are actually faced with “a conflation of two distinct evils”.
For me, it is fairly clear that probably conflation of two distinct realities is a very common mistake of logic and consequently, a problem of human communication. And thus, we may be fumbling around in the dark without paying attention to this flag which has been raised.
However, in this post, which Kelly has introduced for discussion about Christopher Hitchens death, I am not yet OK with declaring the book The Satanic Verses, as something which we can recognize as fundamentally and “per ipso facto” EVIL.
At the risk of taking this discussion on another tangent, let me add that on the matter of the fatwa declared by the Ayatollah against Rushdie, we may have another discussion which could prove fruitful, because I find it extremely difficult any longer to find the practice of murder or any order to execute any human being something that can be justified for any reason whatever.
Let the moderator decide.
I am not yet OK with declaring the book The Satanic Verses, as something which we can recognize as fundamentally and “per ipso facto” EVIL.
It’s not really important whether you or I regard this work as evil. The point is that a significant portion of the population of the world did. Rushdie knew this and anticipated a response, but he seriously miscalculated the blow back according to his own testimony.
The question that remains for me was whether Rushdie’s attempt was to offer something of ‘redeeming’ quality, if so I’ve never seen that discussed or highlighted. Or was it just a religious fantasy meant as a barb, one that escaped into a firestorm of hatred?
I’d sincerely like to hear from someone who read this book, and found it evil.
The idea that a “significant portion of the population of the world” found this book offensive, or that Rushdie has offended the world’s Muslims (which I think was the Baroness’ claim) does not give enough credit to persons to be able to read critically. The generalizations of someone like the Baroness border on condescending.
Even if the book was offensive, or blasphemy as the Ayatollah painted it, it wouldn’t matter. Rushdie still would have had the right to free expression, and the Ayatollah still would have been using religion to mount a contract killing, and Hithcens still would have rightly been standing up to this aging cleric.
“Even if the book was offensive, or blasphemy…”
True enough (at least according to western sensibilities…which are all that count), but then why bother challenge the Florida pastor who wants to have a Koran burning party?
One would challenge because one would disagree.
I would not challenge Rushdie because I do not agree with the criticism against his work.
I would challenge the Pastor because he was high-jacking Jesus, when he said on ABC`s “Nightline” that whle Jesus “would not run around burning books,” he probably “would burn this one.”
Nonetheless my challenge of the Pastor would not go beyond identifying my disagreement, and trying to persuade others (if I felt the issue important enough) of my own view.
Kelly, I’m not gonna argue the correctness of your (which is really our shared) view. But I will point out that it is a parochial view. Note this little excerpt from Wikipedia on ‘The Satanic Verses Controversy’:
There is no space between us regarding how senseless and vile this affair became. But even ‘freedom of expression’ has responsibilites which include taking into account the ‘where, when, manner and consequences’ of such expression. I’ve said enough.
This is a rich observation, Tausign. It goes beyond the terminological critique and gets more into the depth of the problems with this post.
Sam
The point of my post just now is that a human being has died, hero or not. A person with certain undeniable gifts and talents. This must never taken lightly, no matter the history of that individuals choices and actions.
An earlier comment raised some profound questions about how Hitchens & Rushdie may have arrived at their convictions, due to circumstances and the actions of other persons who impacted their lives at some critical moment.
Although judgement is necessary in this life, It really is difficult and sometimes absolutely dangerous to judge others wrongly or unjustly, lest we be judged in the same manner.
Larry,
I am really loathe to put a sharp point on this matter, but I can only read your comment to mean that there are people around who seriously thin the Iraq war was a good thing. Even after the admissions of lack of evidence of WMD, they would still defend it on other grounds. Of course we all should avoid hasty judgments, but does that matter still count as such, and Hitchens’ dogged inability to retract and apologize for his stance, really like a matter for compassionate ambiguity???
I am currently working with a number of refugees from iraq. They had family members imprisoned, tortured, raped and abused beyond imagination by the government of Saddam Hussein. The discussion over whether the war in Iraq was a good thing could well depend on ones perspective. The majority of them think 1. That the war was a good thing, because it got rid of Saddam, and 2. Our pulling our troops out is bad because it will allow the nutjobs to run wild. One client, a former conscripted soldier who was in the Iraqi military during the first gulf war, whose family home was destroyed by sectarian violence, who was beaten and tortured for refusing to shoot a fellow soldier who refused to shoot civilians, and who, as he was leaving for Syria with his family was brutally beaten by fellow Sunni Muslims for intervening when they were going to kill a Shia Muslim mother and two little boys (the mother na boys escaped…that is heroism..by the way) said that from his perspective the US intervention represented the best hope the ordinary people of Iraq ever had for something different. He is predicting that the country will be in flames 3 months after our withdrawal. The reality of life on the ground is often different from our pseudointellectual analysis and pontification on the moral rights and wrongs. As far as heroes go…I meet many ordinary people who have become my heroes…an I really don’t care if someone else disagrees with my assessment. This whole devolution into arguing of who is heroic and who isn’t, becomes, after the first couple of salvos, meaningless ego intellectual ego masturbation.
Some, here, seem to be presenting support for the war, even energetic support, as itself a flaw in a person’s moral character. That doesn’t strike me as credible, even if such support for the war is assumed by others to diminish the heroic quality of a person.
Brian, you wrote: “This whole devolution into arguing of who is heroic and who isn’t, becomes, after the first couple of salvos, meaningless ego intellectual ego masturbation.“
Glad someone noticed…
Brian,
I have to confess that my first thought when reading your (very interesting!) response was — wow! why do gay guys and girls want to go into the military, thought I am sure glad they can in principle! For the type of descriptions you provided would surely scare off most intellectual gay-guys like me for sure! But please note as well, or do I need to remind you, that we live in a civilian republic. Not a military despotism. Soldiers are certainly lauded and admired for their heroism — and by the way, that is what is really heroic per our discussion here! But in a civilian republic the opinions of the military are not dispositive for what a country should do, nor to the morality of the situation per se. To suggest it is, which you are coming close to I am afraid, at least in vibe, if not explicitly is similar to the impulse of military despotism.
Therefore, by the standards of civilian justice — not military justice or standards — this case is a slam-dunk. The was was immoral from start to finish. Those who propagandized for it guilty of grave offense. Those who ruled over (started it) it war criminals. Period.
Still, those who fought bravely by following orders — still heros.
OR: it might be someone with serious reason to defend the credibility of a weblog that he has contributed for sometime against someone who seems willing misrepresent something to the very edge of credibility.
Call me an egoist is you like. My argument stands as it is. I won’t let it go. The truth is more important.
Sam
In regard to war…It is easy to make moral and intellectual judgements of validity or right and wrong, justified or unjustified from the confines of certain degrees of seperation that comes from sitting in our home or office as opposed to living the experience. In reference to discussions: My life is infinitely more blessed on those occasions where I open myself to hearing the experience of the other and not settle into the “i’m right, your wrong mode of conversation that for some reason passes for intelligent conversation in the current age. (and which, far too often, I find myself engaging in)
Which comment of mine did you mean, Peter? I did not even mention Iraq. Let me say that I have a lifelong deep, personal and, I would add, “natural” ethical aversion to the use of violence, particularly when it comes to deliberately killing another human person, as a means of solving human problems.
Let’s face it: War is a form of organized state sponsored violence. It has been used since time immemorial as a crude way to resolve conflicts, usually between two or more nations. But this thing has become monstrous since the beginning of modern weaponry and bombs and airplanes were invented.
While there may have been a time when war could be considered “just”, I take it as a given that war can no longer be justified in our scientific context of weapons of mass destruction etc.
I challenge and reject the seductive power of war that so deeply grips and compromises our human creative imaginations and our enormous capacity for conflict resolution, as individuals and as a species of intelligent rational beings.
For me as a Catholic Christian, this is not any longer a matter of declaring myself a pacifist or of being considered a pacifist by others. It is much deeper than that in my life. For me, it is taking the word of Jesus seriously and knowing that nonviolence is the only way for me to live. As Martin Luther King Junior so brilliantly explained his understanding of the choice we must now face as a human species:
“It is now either nonviolence or non-existence.”
Well stated, Larry Carriere.
I am inclined to agree with you…however, i struggle with the question of “at what point does it become legitimate to resort to violence?” You suggest that since war has become mechanized it has become more monstrous and less justified…..
How does one confront the monstrocities of Hitler…and the attempted extermination of large groups of undesireable people?
How does on confront Saddam Hussein, who gased, killed, murdered, tortured his own people? There is something about listening to a client describing his soldiers using the head of their grandmother like a soccer ball that has me questioning if not then, when?
Larry,
Thanks for clarifying so beautifully. Let others take note, apropos Larry’s words, this is what “being a Christian” actually sounds like in the real world. This is the impulse, which I would add does not mean always having to be a strict pacifist, which I am not, and I bet Larry is not either. Otherwise, religion could just be summed up in an garbled version of a Proof from Anselm’s Proslogion: “Religion is that than which nothing is greater than my desire to do what I wanted deep-down anyways.”
On a lighter note, I have to add that that this whole discussion, with Kelly’s occasional chiming-in, has clarified a rather perplexing matter for me. Namely, how it is that at this very moment of rather terrible reactionary tendency in the RC Church, and excellent, smart and wide-ranging guy like Kelly is involved with it all as a seminarian. Mystery solved.
Sam, far be it from me to impugn anyone at this weblog. If I may offer, as a daily reader and occasional participant in these discussions, this observation: It is the willingness of the authors here to put out an idea, and be willing to discuss in a civil manner with people who disagree with them that gives Vox Nova it’s credibility. As anyone who frequents this site can see, there are disagreements between contributing authors. To me, that adds to the site’s credibility, rather than detracting from it. Clearly, however, I don’t have the same level of investment as a visitor as you do as an author, so I can’t define it for you.
Peter Paul…
Sometimes in my trying to make a point, I don’t make the background clear. The individual I was discussing is an Iraqi refugee. He was a conscript in the Iraqi army. That is why what i described sounds like a military despotism is because it was. Please re-read my post. It is Iraqi refugees describing our intervention as a positive thing…justified in their eyes. My point is not to say the war was justified or not justified…I believe that it is far too easy to make those pronouncements from the shade of my backyard, or the comfort of my livingroom, or my office. I am blessed to be working in a community mental health setting and seeing a number of clients who are from Iraq. These are adults and children, men and women. The stories they tell and the things they describe are horrific. To have someone sit with little affect and describe their grandmother’s death at the hands of Saddam’s soldiers and describe watching them kick her head around the yard like a soccer ball…is something I never imagined….And it moves one very quickly to understand that intellectual moral judgements about right and wrong may hold up very nicely in polite conversation, but in the face of reality there are a lot of gray areas…it isn’t quite as simple as “Bush Lied…people died” = Unjust war. Nor is it as simple as “Saddam evil = Justified war”.
Clearly we went there under false pretenses…so would we have been justified in interveniong if we had said..this evil leader is brutalizing his people and we cannot allow our brothers and sisters to be treated this way?
@Brian Martin —
One wonders why, if your client is truthful, and if such things were widespread enough to in any way justify a war that killed tens of thousands as a remedy, just why the Americans were not met with cheers and flowers upon arrival in Baghdad, as predicted by the neocon warmongers? And one wonders why they are now being asked to leave on schedule, despite the risk of looming chaos? What does your client have to say about these things?
1. It is clients…plural 2. I said they felt it was justified 3. There were parts of Iraq where they were greeted as liberators…and then the people who met them were killed 3. my clients fear for their families. My post was not meant to say the war was justified, but to call into question people’s absolute certainty. I acknowledge that many Iraqi people wanted us gone. I am glad we are out of there.
My point was, and is, it is bloody easy to have high minded ideals and make judgements about things halfway across the world when nothing about the events affect us. Ones perspective may well change when it is our family members or ourselves who are being brutalized. And it is interesting that you immediately go to questioning 1. the veracity of my client’s experience and 2. by inference, my veracity. Is it so hard to acknowledge that life is a lot more complex than one would like, and one wonders, based on you responses in other threads, if you would be so quick to doubt if it were someone making some accusation of some sort against a priest or the hierarchy of th Church?
Brian,
Well, it seems Kelly is exercising his editorial rights in lot allowing a rather sharp response to you go forward here, so I will try to be diplomatic. The morality of any situation is not to be based on anecdotal data. Further, I am surprised that professionally you perceive no problem in using such data for a blog like this. That you are not able to clearly make this distinction linked to the ethics of your own profession tells me you are not given to truly making moral distinctions crisply at all. Sloppy in small things, sloppy in big things. The whole way you are defending the war here, based on some sense of mere diversity of opinion, is extremely strange in my view.
@ Brian–
I’m sorry if my scepticism was offensive to you. I really didn’t mean for it to register at an ad hominem level. It’s just that, even at the height of the war-hyping propaganda effort on the part of the neocons trying to justify this unnecessary war, we were not being fed stories on the level of soldiers decapitating grandmothers in order to play soccer with their heads.
If your anecdotes were meant to demonstrate how the American invasion of Iraq and the resultant destruction of any semblance of law and order gave rise to sectarian violence that previously hadn’t been a major problem, I heartily agree with that observation.
Prior to the American invasion, Christians were allowed to worship in Iraq. Saddam’s governmental second-in-command was a Christian. Sunni and Shia lived in a situation that was no worse than a prolonged truce, and inter-marriage was not uncommon. There were thriving liquor stores and Baghdad University was a respected institution of higher learning.
The Americans destroyed civil order in Iraq and were then not able to protect the people they now ruled–who were now living under desperate circumstances. If these were the points you were making, again, I heartily agree.
When we are told of Saddam slaughtering “his own people,” we are largely being told about Saddam slaughtering insurgent Kurds. The Kurds were Saddam’s own people, largely in the way that the Sioux were Custer’s “own people.” That doesn’t make Saddam morally right, any more than Custer was morally right. But to refer to the Kurds this way is to deliberately mislead a largely geographically and historically ignorant American people.
Again, I apologize for the offense I clearly caused with my previous comment.
Peter Paul
It seems that my ability to express my thoughts is falling by the wayside. I do not mean to be defending the war….just stating that the justification or lack thereof is so possibly not quite so black and white. If we know our neighbor is being abused or brutalized..do we have a moral obligation to defend them? And to what degree?
As far as using anonymous anecdotal information to make a point…or in this instance..attempt to make a point…I have no issue with that ethically. Given your degree of knowledge that is evident, however, I appreciate your comment, and will give it further thought. I do not operate under the delusion that I cannot learn anything, and your criticism is indeed constructive
Thank you
and may you and those dear to you have a truly Blessed Christmas!
On this Winter night, December 23rd in the year 2011, as midnight now approaches, I am extremely grateful to all of you and I am almost overwhelmed by the richness of intelligent human insight and deep compassion which has been shared and explored here at Vox Nova following the original thread of this post initiated a week ago by Kelly Wilson and the ensuing comments from a wide range of other participants who have engaged in conversation on a topic that was rather starkly titled: “A hero dead”.
My heart and mind and my soul have been pitched to and fro over this week with the experience. One thing that has riveted my attention and troubled me deeply was the question of the horrors of war, namely the war in Iraq, and particularly that tragic and yet compassionate story introduced yesterday by Brian Martin: of his work in a community mental health setting with an Iraqi refugee who witnessed soldiers decapitating his grandmother and then watching them kick her head around the yard like a soccer ball.
I am somehow reaching for a way to comprehend it all and still maintain my humanity and my Christian faith perspective. I recall two sources of wisdom:
First, the words of John Donne: “No man is an island….every man’s death diminishes me…therefore, send not to ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.”
Second, the words from our Christimas song O Holy Night:
“Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
‘Til He appear’d and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.”
With these words, I bid you all good night, and a Blessed Christmas.
Going to Brian’s question: “If we know our neighbor is being abused or brutalized..do we have a moral obligation to defend them? And to what degree?”
The United Nations has very recently declared on this and refers to our collective human “Responsibility to Protect” civilians and to intervene when they are suffering from attacks on their human rights and their lives, even when the perpetrator is their own government.
This is an area of very recent development of international law and humanitarian activity. We should encourage it and we should engage ourselves in the implementation of this policy whenever and wherever we can.
This, in my view, is the work of the Church in the Modern World. (cf. Gaudium et Spes, Populorum Progressio etc. right up to and including Caritas in Veritate)
Rodak,
It is I who must apologize, both for my poorly presented thoughts on this thread, and even more so for the disrespectful last lines and intemperate tone of my last response to you. While the reality of the many individuals I have worked with from Iraq differs greatly from your relatively idyllic portrayal of life pre-invasion, just as clearly your portrayal of post-invasion sectarian violence matches their descriptions….
Basically, my only excuse is I was struggling with terrible things I hear, and have had a hard week. I thank you for your patience. Have aBlessed Christmas
No apology needed, Brian. My choice of words was poor. My notions of pre-war Iraq are far from idyllic, however. My point is that the invasion only made things infinitely worse for virtually everybody in Iraq than they were pre-invasion. We did not invade to end Saddam’s tyranny; we invaded to protect Dick Cheney’s investment portfolio, and tens of thousands of ordinary people have been murdered by Americans, wielding American weapons in that infernal effort. As an American, I have that guilt smeared all over me, and I resent it with every fiber of my being.
Rodak,
So, if we had invaded for the purpose of ending Saddam’s tyranny, would it have made a difference in how justified it was? Presuming that there was actually a plan in place on what to do when he was gone etc.?
My point is not to challenge your position as much as it is genuine questioning. I have gone from being a fairly unthinking rabid conservative Pro-intervention (scary when I now think of what I believed) to a pretty absolute pacifist, and now have swung back a little, more because I believe there is some responsibility to protect the weak from tyranny. I don’t think we are to sit idle in the face of Genocide, ethnic cleansing, or tyrants murdering their people at will. I just have not figured out what response is moral and just.
Larry,
I think you saw through my poorly presented thoughts to what I was attempting to say. Thank You.
I am not sure if sustained conversation about the legitimacy of the war in Iraq, or the circumstances wherein it would have been just, really serve this post.
I do think, however, that the fact that sustained conversation can occur, and intelligent persons can come to differing conclusions, does serve my earlier comment which was: “Some, here, seem to be presenting support for the war, even energetic support, as itself a flaw in a person’s moral character. That doesn’t strike me as credible, even if such support for the war is assumed by others to diminish the heroic quality of a person.”
Are we willing to move in this direction?
It would seem to me to be possible for a person to be heroic without also being consistently moral. Therefore, one could support even an unjust war and still be, overall, a heroic character. I think that Hitchens fits description. I think his stance on Rushdie (among other things) demonstrated his courage and his willingness to put his own life on the line in defense of his priniciples. I also think that the war in Iraq was immoral and that supporting it was, therefore, immoral. That doesn’t lessen my conviction that Christopher Hitchens was capable of real heroism with regard to other circumstances.
Kelly,
Only because you asked, I will answer. No, I am not willing to move in that direction because I think for once it really justifies the phrase “dictatorship of relativism.”
kelly,
It’s your thread. Thanks for your patience and the latitude given
Merry Christmas
@PPf –
Are you suggesting, then, that there are no flesh-and-blood heroes, and the hero is exists only as a mythical ideal?
@ Brian Martin –
Yes. I think that motive and intention are crucial. If your motive for going in is not self-serving, but sacrificial, then it might be justifiable, even though it all turns out wrong in the end.
If, however, your motive for going in was self-serving from the git-go, then your invasion is an act of piracy and all of the resulting deaths of non-combatants are murders.
Rodak,
I guess I was not really focussing on the hero issue per se, though I know that is what is the point of contention here. But since you press me, well, I guess I don’t think I really believe or have a use for heros. Perhaps that is because I think it is easier for me to admit others are better than me in many ways in terms of virtues, than it is for others. I have noted in my time on this globe that people like to think they should sum- up in themselves the whole panoply of human virtues. And when they don’t they mostly feel dejected or pissed. Really they mostly feel pissed, because they think of it as a come-down. I think the whole thing is bunk from the start. Some people are better than others in some ways, and not in others. I am all about praising people when I see real virtue, because I feel it makes everyone better. It might make me look a bit worse, because I have called attention to the fact that the person praising is not the great possessor of said virtue that the person being praised is. But if you follow Jesus, in the first Beatitude, who really cares?? I don’t at this point.
If you want to call that person being praised a hero, OK with me. I tend not to think of them that way, because I am a deep student of human nature and I know there is probably another side. See, not thinking of them as hero helps avoid the deep instinct to knock “heros” off their pedestal. If you just think of the person as better than you in some way, you avoid all that.
Rodak, part of this may relate to the type of therapeutic work I used to do for so long. I was privileged to work with some very important people. I was also privileged to see their very human side. It makes you realize that there is always another less exalted side. What I owe them for that great privilege is utter confidentiality. But the insight I can share. People are people. We are all weak in some ways, And strong in others. Everyone is fragile in some way. But not in the same ways. Some people ARE better in some ways. But some people are worse. The tragedy of our present “we applaud ourselves” culture is that we can no longer acknowledge the simple realities, which are so clear in daily life. No wonder there is so little virtue, and so little of it in those obsessed with religion.
So, to get back on topic, keeping what I just said about Iraq in mind, I think we can say that the public defense of Rushdie was sacrificial, and not self-serving. Hitchens was already famous. He didn’t need the publicity. And, in fact, the publicity he did receive only magnified the risk he had taken in making the public defense. Hitchens also demonstrated bravery by going to several different hotspots around the globe during his lifetime, even though he was not, strictly speaking, a “foreign” or “war” correspondent. His intellectual bravery bordered on arrogance, but heroes are often arrogant, are they not?
@ PPF –
Then, if I understand you correctly, the answer to the question I asked you would be “Yes” (if we admit that the question even makes sense in the first place.)
To be a hero, one would not only need to be brave, but also possessed of every virtue. As for the rest of us, it’s “the dictatorship of relativity” (“Some people are better than others in some ways, and not in others.”)
I guess Kelly should have titled his piece “The Death of a Really Bright Drunkard Strangely Enamoured of the American Adventurism in the Middle East.” Or words to that effect?
Rodak,
Well, yes, I guess he was brave in defending Rushdie. There’s guts for sure. But it seems admixed with a measure of foolishness, and frank xenophobia on his part. Can anyone possibly believe Mr. Hitchens did not hurt the possibility of co-existence with a certain segment of the world’s population based on his “Islamofascism” idee fixe. Like all deep down Trotskyite types he loved abstractions. That is why he was so incredibly nasty to the Clintons. Leaders who are anything but abstractionist and whose virtues consist in doing the incremental and the get-along that actually does some good for the world. Maybe that way of thinking is not the most high-minded, but in the end it is a lot better given the world. I will take that over what we had which started that horrible war. Look, Hitchens’ virtues, such as they were, were largely negative ones. The cutting wit, the quick insight into hypocrisy. There seemed to be little real philosophical reflection. The world is filled with hypocrites, and no one really escapes some measure. But there are better and worse ones. Trotskyites don’t get that. Well, it doesn’t take much to impress the likes of Michael Winters, but if you can defend the Roman Church and be a great confirmed bachelor, you can defend Mr. Hitchens like nothing.
I think that our problem here is that we lack a common conceptual definition of “hero.” Heroes have Achilles’ heels. Heroes suffer from hubris. Heroes rarely die in bed of old age. Those who do have usually sold out in some crucial way. Which is to say that big hearts have dalliances with major flaws. Most heroes are remembered for one or two peak moments that outshine their many foibles in the memories of their people.
If one is talking about perfection, one is not talking about heroes; one is then talking about saints. Heroes are necessarily both “in” and “of” the world. Saints are in it without being of it. Hitchens was clearly no saint. He had his moments of heroism.
very many saints had parts of their lives that were decidedly unsaintly
@ Brian –
It’s what they finally became that matters, not where they came from. If the parts of their lives that you speak of persisted until the end, then they weren’t really saints–they were only the recipient of a kind of “lifetime achievement award” for exceptional service to the institution. A true saint can come from any religious context, or from none at all.
Rodak,
Bingo!! (in more ways than one– you hit the mark, and you hit the tawdry center of most Catholic “spirituality” in parishes where they play it). The idea of a “hero” involves ineluctably tragedy. Or as the Alan Alda character in Crimes and Misdemeanors of Woody Allen say, “Oedipus, now that’s funny!” What are all these recent Catholic apologists talking about with “marriage as heroic virtue” ….the “lives of saints are heroic”. and then like Father Barron they try to portray them as filled with joy. The whole concept is way too fraught for adequate use in my view. But if you are going to use it, do it with the sense that the gods have blighted us too. “It is the blight that man was born for, it is Margaret you mourn for.” And a Catholic, not a pagan wrote that!
This whole discussion proves to me that this whole notion of “heroism” in the spiritual life is so problematic as to produce vastly more problems than it could help. For if we cannot even agree in a progressive forum like this on VN that a man who shilled for phony war does not meet that criterion, the category is beyond useless, it is a pestilence.