Worth your while
- March 4th, 2013
- Posted in For Discussion
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This transcribed conversation between Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Hitchens is quite interesting. As always, I am fascinated by the MORAL OUTRAGE of the materialist. Does anyone else find his moralizing peculiar?
Yessir. I do.
Is it moral outrage or just the preening of someone who loves to hear himself talk, believes in his own schtick, and cannot turn down an argument? (j/k)
What do you identify as moral outrage that isn’t just Hitchens being an ass?
It can be both. He relishes the term “wicked” for example. And, pardon me Jack, but you yourself use such language at times. I sincerely seek an understanding of the basis for such language (i.e. moral judgment), or is it merely rhetorical flourish?
I don’t use the word “wicked.” And I’m not morally outraged, Abonilox. You seem to equate materialism with a tendency to express moral outrage? Show it, at least. Show where.
Thanks Jack… I definitely don’t equate materialism with moral outrage. But in many cases I find it puzzling. So with Hitchens, his hostility to religion seemed very emotional. He had a good mind and way with words, so he was able to make that hostility appealing, and many of his critiques were on the mark. What I call moral outrage is this combination of passionate disdain coupled with moral judgment. It’s the moral judgment part that I find question begging, particularly when it is put forth in the context of extreme skepticism about moral realism (which tends to go along with materialism, but not necessarily so). It’s one thing to be hostile to religion and religious people–that’s an emotional response. It’s another to make the claim that religion is evil. That, to me, requires a basis in some kind of normative ethical system, the basis of which I find lacking in Hitchens and other materialist moralists.
As to lumping you in with them, I may have been hasty. If so, I apologize. I will go back and re-read some of your posts to see if I have misunderstood your point of view.
It’s not like musunderstanding isn’t essential to the human experience, or anything.
It comes with not sharing heads and memories, at least in any intimate immediacy.
Anyway:
I’ve met John Ashcroft. He is, in person, a polite, genteel, sedate, restrained, frugal, nice man. His faith is sincere, his manner gentlemanly. I neither condemn nor approve of his temperament. I haven’t formulated any opposition to him based on that faith, his works, or his manner of living.
My materialist opposition to John Ashcroft comes only from his (a) membership in the ruling class and (b) his service to that class.
I am not outraged by John Ashcroft’s life of loyalty to his caste, kith, kirche, kin and class. I expect it. It’s the group to which he belongs.
But, given the right set of circumstances, I would judge him deserving of any and all consequences subsequent to his service to the ruling class of which he is a member. I would not hesitate to treat him tribunally. Any judgment against John Ashcroft stems from his class, not his persona.
A woman with the exact same attributes, and faith, but acting as an enemy of the ruling class, I consider an ally.
But absent PROOF that your “faith” whichever and whatever said faith is, even religious moral “systems” are at their core are not “objective” and are the same thing ALL moral “systems” are…cobbled together by imperfect human beings over time, usually serving the needs of the local elites best, etc. etc. etc. Prove to me the Christian moral system is “normative” in being based on the true dictates of a supernatural being.
I would also argue that defining something as “evil” can still be done on the basis of a contingent, self-defined or community-derived moral system. Your argument to me skirts dangerously near the cliff of the “You cannot be moral without Je-sus” crowd. If Hitchens observes the crimes and problems with religion throughout history, and develops a moral response of revulsion towards such history based on his own, fallible, contingent and all tooo human sense of ethics or morals, why is he unable to use the word “evil” to describe such a human cultural trait?
Yeah, I understand what you’re saying. I certainly want to avoid falling over that cliff you mention. I’m not saying he can’t use these words. I’m not trying to censor him. There’s actually two things going on here. One is that you have a lot of people nowadays, really smart people, who have sort of accepted some kind of materialistic version of the world. Maybe they haven’t thought about it very much, but they’re quite happy with the idea that everything can be explained by physical processes of some kind–even if we can’t understand some of the finer points. Then a lot of these same people have some very strong opinions about what’s right, what’s good, what’s evil and so forth. And among our little motley group of bloggers, for example, we have a lot of anarchists. (I’m still an anarchist, by the way). And being an anarchist usually entails some strong opinions that are ethically motivated. We can say that the “State” is bad, for example. And the reason it’s bad is because it’s coercive. But I find it hard to make that stick if I can’t appeal at minimum to some sort of moral value that is tied to human freedom. I know there have been plenty of atheist anarchists, so obviously it’s not impossible. But for me, it’s difficult. The second thing that I’m getting at is the emotional part of it. That’s why I think I use the term “outrage”. There is a kind of rage that is almost non-objective. So in Hitchen’s case, there’s a rage against this idea of God that seems out of proportion.
This is why I blog. Thanks for the pushback.
But, being cantankerous and quarrelsome, I can do the same thing here. A lot of people (still) accept a theistic view of the world without thinking of the implications of it, either. Most people don’t think that deeply in their daily lives. I guess it is comforting for the mother of a child lost to leukemeia to believe in vague ideas about God’s plan, but to me such a belief makes said god monstrous.
Belief in a spiritual realm “beyond materialism” has its own host of problems, including definitions, claims to transcendent truth, the rise of doctrines and priesthoods, etc. etc. etc.. Christian apologists’ response to The Question of Evil are unconvincing at best (mumble mumble free will, mumble mumble inscrutable) and evil at worse (the various tribes slaughtered (mythologically) in the Old Testament DESERVED genocide for getting in the way of Yaheweh and His chosen People).
“Spiritual” doesn’t answer a lot because it based on vague feelings and philosophies. I just don’t see a lot of there there. Maybe that’s all we can do given the nature of our limited minds and the character of the universe.
Hey…also…you might find this discussion (and the site in general) of interest,
http://deusdiapente.wordpress.com/2013/03/12/truth-vs-morality-rationality-vs-intuition/