The Hitch on Sarah Palin
Before we get down to the subject of this post, he of "the Internet is a Series of Tubes" ignorance has been convicted of corruption.
Now on to the money quote from Hitchens in a recent Slate piece:
"This is what the Republican Party has done to us this year: It has placed within reach of the Oval Office a woman who is a religious fanatic and a proud, boastful ignoramus. Those who despise science and learning are not anti-elitist. They are morally and intellectually slothful people who are secretly envious of the educated and the cultured. And those who prate of spiritual warfare and demons are not just "people of faith" but theocratic bullies. On Nov. 4, anyone who cares for the Constitution has a clear duty to repudiate this wickedness and stupidity."
Obama is no messiah and certainly no saint, but Palin represents the worst of the conservative evangelical demographic.
Politics | By Josiah Roe | 8:22 PM
Comments
Which, by implication, you no longer consider yourself a part of?
Posted by: ryan at October 28, 2008 9:45 AM
I think Hitchens is being disingenuous here, to the detriment of his argument.
He has a particular bone to pick with religion, and evangelical Christianity especially. He believes that they (we? me?) are complete, tragic dimwits. Whosoever affiliates themselves within the evangelical group will only ever receive contempt and scorn. The points regarding global warming and the End Times are to that mocking end.
However, this is where he elides a distinction to his detriment. He doesn't blame Christians for Sarah Palin. He blames Republicans. And he lumps the two groups together. His contempt for Christianity is substituted for contempt for the Republican party.
This is to his detriment, because while the whole New Atheism argument that he shadows is old and busted, his criticism of the Republican party as fosters of class warfare and intellectual slothfulness is biting and timely. I wish he would stop underlying every criticism as an attack on religion and instead focus on the institutions that allow his least-favorite dimwits to gain and exercise power.
Posted by: Noel at October 28, 2008 11:16 AM
Very fair point(s) Noel. The Hitchens anti-religion crusade has been quite the embarrassment, not the least of which is that there are far more substantive epistemological concerns with religion than the "refutations" Hitchens proffers.
Ryan: don't see the point answering in the affirmative or negative (the issue being too nuanced to come to some kind of clear resolution). Figure people will end up in the "camps" other folks assign them to regardless.
Posted by: Josiah at October 28, 2008 11:37 AM
Ahh... ignorance.
Posted by: Rob at October 28, 2008 3:28 PM
