Contrarian: Christopher Hitchens Comes to Pitzer
Bryce Gerard
Last Updated: 12/6/08 Section: Athenaeum
One of the most distinctive and irritating features of the Far Left is their persecution complex. In almost any debate they will try to frame themselves as the underdogs, rebels, or freedom fighters being persecuted by the ideologically intolerant and closed-minded majority. Ironically, one need only walk through Pitzer College to see that it is hard to find a more ideologically homogenous conglomeration of people. It is interesting, therefore, to see how they react when they encounter a speaker who does not fit their dichotomy of either progressive revolutionary or right-wing reactionary.
On November 11, the students of Pitzer College were confronted by just such a speaker. Dining with Democracy brought Christopher Hitchens, the Slate and Vanity Fair columnist and outspoken commentator on world affairs, to Pitzer College. Hitchens has both written and spoken on a diverse range of issues, ranging from his attacks on religion to his unabashed support for the US involvement in Iraq.
Christopher Hitchens started off the discussion at Pitzer by saying that he had asked the students with whom he had dined on what topic they would like him to speak. Of all of the topics they could have requested, they asked him to speak on his stance against religion, which he recently outlined in his latest polemically titled book God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Of all of the many famously controversial stances that Hitchens has taken, at Pitzer College there could not have been a safer lecture topic.
Hitchens began the talk by stating that he finds religion atrocious because it "attacks us in our most basic human dignity." He stated that theists, specifically of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic persuasion, often advance the idea that without a belief in God, there would be no concept of morality. He disputed this by noting that in biblical history, society existed for many generations before God delivered the Ten Commandments, from which morality is supposed to have been derived.
He questioned how any society could have survived without at least the basic taboos against murder, theft, and perjury, asserting that any society that permitted those actions would not be able to survive for forty years in the desert. He went on to note that the Ten Commandments were, aside from those commandments, largely immoral, for they did not prohibit slavery or genocide, which occur with alarming frequency in the Old Testament.
Hitchens also likened religion to totalitarianism. North Korea, he said, is probably the most religious state that he has visited. Despite that it has no theistic religion, they practically worship Kim Jong-Il. Kim Il-Sung, despite having been dead for over fourteen years, is still president of the country. Hitchens coined the term "necocracy, thanatocracy, and mausocracy" to describe this odd situation. He amusingly said that North Korea seemed like a place that had been specifically designed to be as close as possible to Orwell's vision of Oceania.
The response to Hitchens attacks on religion from the crowd was enthusiastic. Yet the tone changed once the question and answer session began and some of Hitchens' less Pitzer-friendly views began to come out. When asked about Proposition 8, he said that he had no problem at all with homosexuals or gay marriage, but wondered why of all the issues facing the gay community they are choosing to focus on this one. He noted that the don't ask don't tell issue, which was such a big cause during the 1990s, is now conspicuously absent from the public discourse - and in the middle of a war no less, when the army is in need of recruits and would be more likely to change that policy.
When asked what he wished Obama would change in his platform, he said that he wished he would defend his stance on the Iraq War. This prompted of deluge of questions on his own war stance. Over the course of answering these questions, he demolished much of the far-left orthodoxy on the subject. He disputed the notion that the war was illegal by saying that the peace of the first gulf war was a cease fire the terms of which Iraq clearly violated.
On the morality of the war, he said that despite Bush making "a pig's breakfast" of the evidence, he supported the war because he came to his own conclusions about its costs and benefits, and then he encouraged those in the audience to think independently, too. Just because Bush exaggerated the threat of WMDs does not mean the war was a bad idea; in his own opinion, he said, it was foolish to have Saddam Hussein controlling such a large fraction of the world's oil supply, and he reiterated Iraq's violation of the cease-fire conditions. He added that we all owe a debt to our troops in Iraq; when the crowd only weakly clapped, he chastised them, saying that's not enough; when a few more people applauded, he insisted that it still was not enough.
A student memorably asked him if he considered the capitalist-corporatist power structure to be as totalitarian and destructive as religion. The ex-Marxist no doubt shocked the crowd by responding that he sees the drive to acquire wealth as one of the noblest facets of humanity, and that only by gaining your own dough can you insure your independence. After that, he demolished another left wing sacred cow by defending President Bush, saying that the rumors about him invading Iraq "because God told him to" are utterly untrue. Don't waste your life on this stuff, he said.
One final gem is the way in which Hitchens responded to a student who referred to Bush as the "so-called President." Hitchens challenged this implicit accusation, and the student muttered something about the 2000 election being stolen, but said that he "didn't want to get into it." Hitchens countered, "Well, you have an odd way of not getting into it." Even the most anti-Bush in the crowd could not help but laugh.
By the end of the night, Hitchens had still won over the crowd through his witty style and obscene limericks. Yet most of the students missed his overarching point: he was attacking their own religion as much as the traditional theistic ones. He traced religion back to being based on pattern seeking behavior and conformity devoid of logic; but the views of the Far Left, after all, are based on the very same fallacies.
Bryce Gerard is a sophomore at CMC and a staff writer for the CI.
On November 11, the students of Pitzer College were confronted by just such a speaker. Dining with Democracy brought Christopher Hitchens, the Slate and Vanity Fair columnist and outspoken commentator on world affairs, to Pitzer College. Hitchens has both written and spoken on a diverse range of issues, ranging from his attacks on religion to his unabashed support for the US involvement in Iraq.
Christopher Hitchens started off the discussion at Pitzer by saying that he had asked the students with whom he had dined on what topic they would like him to speak. Of all of the topics they could have requested, they asked him to speak on his stance against religion, which he recently outlined in his latest polemically titled book God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Of all of the many famously controversial stances that Hitchens has taken, at Pitzer College there could not have been a safer lecture topic.
Hitchens began the talk by stating that he finds religion atrocious because it "attacks us in our most basic human dignity." He stated that theists, specifically of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic persuasion, often advance the idea that without a belief in God, there would be no concept of morality. He disputed this by noting that in biblical history, society existed for many generations before God delivered the Ten Commandments, from which morality is supposed to have been derived.
He questioned how any society could have survived without at least the basic taboos against murder, theft, and perjury, asserting that any society that permitted those actions would not be able to survive for forty years in the desert. He went on to note that the Ten Commandments were, aside from those commandments, largely immoral, for they did not prohibit slavery or genocide, which occur with alarming frequency in the Old Testament.
Hitchens also likened religion to totalitarianism. North Korea, he said, is probably the most religious state that he has visited. Despite that it has no theistic religion, they practically worship Kim Jong-Il. Kim Il-Sung, despite having been dead for over fourteen years, is still president of the country. Hitchens coined the term "necocracy, thanatocracy, and mausocracy" to describe this odd situation. He amusingly said that North Korea seemed like a place that had been specifically designed to be as close as possible to Orwell's vision of Oceania.
The response to Hitchens attacks on religion from the crowd was enthusiastic. Yet the tone changed once the question and answer session began and some of Hitchens' less Pitzer-friendly views began to come out. When asked about Proposition 8, he said that he had no problem at all with homosexuals or gay marriage, but wondered why of all the issues facing the gay community they are choosing to focus on this one. He noted that the don't ask don't tell issue, which was such a big cause during the 1990s, is now conspicuously absent from the public discourse - and in the middle of a war no less, when the army is in need of recruits and would be more likely to change that policy.
When asked what he wished Obama would change in his platform, he said that he wished he would defend his stance on the Iraq War. This prompted of deluge of questions on his own war stance. Over the course of answering these questions, he demolished much of the far-left orthodoxy on the subject. He disputed the notion that the war was illegal by saying that the peace of the first gulf war was a cease fire the terms of which Iraq clearly violated.
On the morality of the war, he said that despite Bush making "a pig's breakfast" of the evidence, he supported the war because he came to his own conclusions about its costs and benefits, and then he encouraged those in the audience to think independently, too. Just because Bush exaggerated the threat of WMDs does not mean the war was a bad idea; in his own opinion, he said, it was foolish to have Saddam Hussein controlling such a large fraction of the world's oil supply, and he reiterated Iraq's violation of the cease-fire conditions. He added that we all owe a debt to our troops in Iraq; when the crowd only weakly clapped, he chastised them, saying that's not enough; when a few more people applauded, he insisted that it still was not enough.
A student memorably asked him if he considered the capitalist-corporatist power structure to be as totalitarian and destructive as religion. The ex-Marxist no doubt shocked the crowd by responding that he sees the drive to acquire wealth as one of the noblest facets of humanity, and that only by gaining your own dough can you insure your independence. After that, he demolished another left wing sacred cow by defending President Bush, saying that the rumors about him invading Iraq "because God told him to" are utterly untrue. Don't waste your life on this stuff, he said.
One final gem is the way in which Hitchens responded to a student who referred to Bush as the "so-called President." Hitchens challenged this implicit accusation, and the student muttered something about the 2000 election being stolen, but said that he "didn't want to get into it." Hitchens countered, "Well, you have an odd way of not getting into it." Even the most anti-Bush in the crowd could not help but laugh.
By the end of the night, Hitchens had still won over the crowd through his witty style and obscene limericks. Yet most of the students missed his overarching point: he was attacking their own religion as much as the traditional theistic ones. He traced religion back to being based on pattern seeking behavior and conformity devoid of logic; but the views of the Far Left, after all, are based on the very same fallacies.
Bryce Gerard is a sophomore at CMC and a staff writer for the CI.
Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
Mel
posted 12/12/08 @ 7:48 AM PST
"he was attacking their own religion as much as the traditional theistic ones. He traced religion back to being based on pattern seeking behavior and conformity devoid of logic"
To the point, that's why "faith" can lead to totalitarianism and is dangerous for democracy, there seems no alternative to the good old enlightenment after all. (Continued…)
Alexander Haines
posted 12/13/08 @ 4:49 PM PST
You, and probably Mr. Hitchens as well, make a mistake when you claim the Ten Commandments to be the basis of Judeo-Christian morality. While important moral instructions, the basis of Jewish and Christian morality is in what are called the greatest commandments, the instruction to love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and the instruction to love neighbor as yourself. (Continued…)
RJ
posted 1/07/09 @ 1:41 PM PST
Not that Conservatives ever cling to orthodoxy over pragmatism (trickle down economics? and judicial activism?) but is the point of this article merely to point out that Pitzer is a close minded bastion of ultra liberalism? In that case, thank you for enlightening us all with such a wonderful fact that we were all unaware of. (Continued…)
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