Chris Hitchens, Christmas, and Christians

The Blogosphere rages on.  Much is  being said regarding  Chris Hitchens' anti-Christmas tirade.   But they might do well to consider Hitchens and Kierkegaard as brothers under the skin,  in their attacks on the inauthentic nature of the organized Church.  They say that Hitchens reveals the bankruptcy of atheism,  and of anti-theist arguments.  That he misses the power of archetypal myth is his tirades against Christianity and Christmas,  making the claim that if the post-Cavalry body were located,  all the world's meta-questions would be changed radically.  Yes,  he may be missing the point here.  But I think there is one profound philosopher,  who considered himself perhaps the only authentic Christians in existence in his time,  who would very much side with the spirit of Hitchens' tirade:  Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard considered Christendom to be the opposite of authentic Christianity,  and he wore himself to an early death at age 42 with his own cigar-smoking,  drinking and decidedly Hitchens-like presentation.  He was the Socratic gadfly in the body of Christianity,  par excellence.  So philosophers like Ross Douthat and others who sneer at Hitchens,  ought to brush up on their Kierkegaard:  Edifying Discourses,  The Journals are the best.  Kierkegaard would not be anti-Hitchens.

Kierkegaard on Christianity and Christmas:

""Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware  of it."

"The official preaching of Christianity is in no way the Christianity of Christ or the New Testament."

"Christianity has long stood in need of a hero who,  with fear and trembling before God,  would forbid the reading of the Bible.  This is something as necessary as preaching against Christianity itself. "  

"All have their little family of Mary and Joseph and worship their llittle Christ child;  this is foolishness and blasphemy,  and the true Christian is not concerned with marriage or child but with freedom."
~The Journals ~ 

Those who have read Kierkegaard's Attack on Organized Christendom know that he considered the Church and its holidays as a colossal hoax and blasphemy against an authentic encounter with Christ.  His existential belief in the individual against the crowd and his assertions on this in his writings leave no doubt that he considered the Church and all within to be the machinations of a crowd-machinery which was in his own words,  "the true crucifier of Christ".  Thus it is important for philosophers who sneer at Hitchens to recall the similarities between this post-modern attack on theism and the solitary Dane who might well seek Hitchens out for a drink and a smoke,  were he to be transported suddenly into our own age.  A hater of sysems  -  and he attacked Hegel relentlessly  -  Kierkegaard would be sympatheric to Hitchens' impatience with the sentimental bleating of many defenders of Christianity in our midst. 


Addendum:  Just in the way of additional thoughts,  Nietzsche says:
"A stroll through a lunatic asylum proves that faith proves nothing."

 

 

"The very term 'Christian' is a confusion;  in reality,  there was one Christian,  and he died on the cross.  There have been no Christians at all. . . what has been called Christianity is an historical self-misunderstanding which grew cruder with each step. . . " 

Donor Fatigue Hitting Obama Machine; Feds grilling Barack pre-Ball

No-bama!  His political machine is hitting donor fatigue;  Huffington Post says Inauguration will be effected http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/25/donor-fatigue-contributio_n_153507.html    and on top of all ,  the Feds are grilling him regarding the Blago fiasco.  As the Daily Telegraph aptly says,  "here the guy has not even gotten his tuxedo out for his Inaugural ball, and the prosecutors want to speak to him".  The online news mag says Obama has the dubious distinction of being the only president elect who is being grilled by federal agents between his election and inaguration.  

There may be a public relations /corporate sponsorship solution in the future. . . To be continued. . .

LEITER'S PHILOSOPHICAL NATURALISM CRITIQUED

The Social Science research network has a review of Leiter's text, a collection of essays entitled,    Naturalizing Jurisprudence (Oxford University Press; 2007)  and available for purchase @ Amazon.com.

 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1139808 

The review is a critique of Leiter's book and also of the philosophical naturalism it advocates.  Naturalism  -  the stance that we ought to look to nature and evolutionary biology when explaining causality of all phenomena  -  has been in vogue through the '80s and '90s and has been applied to moral topics and gender relations ad nauseum.

Moment of Nostalgia : Remembering Clinton Era PTown

Remembering the PTown of the Clinton Era  There was something about that time;  the Clinton Era,  the prosperity,  the sense of  a new generation of high-brow gays up in Provincetown.  Wally White's Lie Down With Dogs came out in 1995,  and it caught the mood of that  time,  its very zeitgeist,   with remarkable unconscious precision.  For a brief moment,  White was the chronicler of the age. 

(Gay film producer/actor Wally White; 

with Randy Becker in Provincetown, as the lead in Lie Down With Dogs, Miramax Films, 1995)

                How different this dawning era will be:  two Bush Administrations ,  the Iraq war,  and a dissolving economy separate this time from that Wally White moment like a vast impeccable ocean;  a barrier which cannot be breached.  We can never go back.  I recall being up in Provincetown on a hot summer night in 2001,  and Bowie's All the Young Dudes was playing in the little bar,  at the A-House.  The door was open,  it was hot,  August,  and the bar was filled with smoke (no smoking ban yet;  that would come 2 years later);  and it is odd,  but that song made me feel that Wally White was being serenaded,  and bid adieu.  I was correct;  an era was closing.   
We do not know what changes Obama will bring,  along with the forces which are in the saddle now,  and ride our nation.  But we can know for certain that it will be different.  In any case,  I remember with fondness Wally White.  My husband had never seen two men go at it the way they did,  Wally and Randy Becker :  Macho,  very butch,  but full of sensitivity.  He told me he experienced  White almost as a revelation from a distant land.  How often these life-transforming moments will come in the form of a look,  a gesture,  of someone in a film.  My husband has now been dead almost three years.  My hat's off to him,  and to Wally White. . .

Our Moral Minds

Moral Minds:  The Nature of Right and Wrong by Marc D Hauser,  2006,  Harper Collins

Just received this book as a Christmas present from my 21 year old son.  Have already been reading parts of it,  and it seems  chock full of information which is philosophical and useful.  The Humean and Kantian components of our moral faculty  is discussed in the light of offenses such as adultery and murder;  there is also a chapter entitled,  "Justice for All"  which examines Rawls and the concept of fair distribution.  Fascinating stuff,  and very necessary if we want to manouver our was through the current cultural and political landscape.

The evolution of our moral faculty, how it occurred,  and the manner with which  we have made use  of this deontologically;  taken together with questions concerning how the epistemology of morality and ethics may be set forth  are among the most important questions  -  or meta-questions -  of philosophical jurisprudence.  Perhaps most compelling  is the idea set forth that our normative principles can themselves lead to injustice.  Two intriguing ideas are the exploration of  a.the selfishness which is the second half of The Golden Rule ,  which exists in all the major religions of the world;  and b.  the concept that religious faith is necessary not to create morality but rather to prevent its decay.    An analogy between the development of language and the evolution of morality  is an especially interesting theory from the author. 

"Morals excite passions,  and produce or prevent actions. Reason of itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality,  therefore,  are not conclusions of our reason."~David Hume,  British Empiricist

From my Google notebook. . .

FROM MY GOOGLE NOTEBOOK:  POLITICAL PHILOSOPHERS AND THE US CONSTITUTION ONLINE:

The importance of John Stuart Mill,  Thomas Hobbes and John Locke cannot be overestimated in understanding our constitution,  and our diverse political theory and various  ideologies. http://www.usconstitution.net/philosophers.html

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2008

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2008 and next year,  an Obama Christmas.

OBAMA INAUGURAL PINS AND BUTTONS SELLING STRONG

Youth 4 Obama: Nothing to Fear but fear itself

OBAMA WILL HARNESS YOUTH  :    Does this have to be a cause for paranoia?

  Sean Hannity and others on the right have expressed concern regarding the Obama-mania which the surging Youth Voters displayed,  and which served as the propelling force  that may have  won Barack the Presidency.  Most alarming to these pundits on the right is the idea that Obama will have "Youth Camps"  which to them are reminicent of those of Hitler, in which propagandizing,  re-education and forced labor rule the day. This should be of no concern,  however,  to those who are not given to paranoia.  If anything,  this program will be similar to the civilian corps of the FDR era,  and may be the thing which our inner cities need,  at least in this particular moment of economic and social crisis.  Service to community is a virtue,  and does not preclude individuality in the most important senses of the word.  In any case the domains of hip hop,  drugs and promiscuity could use a bit of competition.  In most schools a sense of service has been posed as an ideal,  at leat to be paid lip service.  I think that some on the right actually harbor the secret wish that Obama turn out to be a disaster on the grand scale of Hitler,  so the taint on the Democrats would never vanish.  Youth for Obama already has a website and a special store under construction,  and I welcome all signs that a unity which is productive of virtue and service may take root under the Obama Administration in its early stages.  

OF NARTH AND ANTI-NARTH

Of NARTH and Anti-NARTH

I remember in early 2002,  while browsing in a bookstore,  a random selection of an anthology of essays on American culture brought to my attention the organization, NARTH ( an acronymn for National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality).  One of the essayists was talking about the inevitable return of conservative and classical values,  and suddenly pointed out the fact that NARTH was now in the closet,  in the same way gays were closeted just prior to Stonewall.  He then reasoned that those in the closet are bound to come out.  A reversal and revaluation of values is in the offing,  he concluded.  It is true,  NARTH's latest publication online spoke to the effect that "now is our time to take on the establishment,  and to win."  Interesting.  I recall reading Camille Paglia's  Gay Stalinism,   and realizing that she   -  herself a lesbian,  and a blatant fan of all things gay male  -  had a decided bias toward the NARTH stance on homosexuality.

Among NARTH'S research findings/POV: That cultural acceptance of homosexuality is correlated to increase in people trying homosexual behaviors;  that adoption/foster parenting by gays subjects children to far more stresses on average than when placed in heterosexual homes;  that sex-change operations are a collusion with illness,  and not therapeutic intervention against it;  that many who have same-sex attractions would like to be able to repress these.

Although some of these "findings" would be dismissed as subjective by gay rights leaders and activists within the LGBT community,  the fact that much of this has been rigorously documented and comes from the mouths of clients who longed to escape inclinations toward same sex relations,  is compelling.  In an essay entitled,  "The Paradox of Self Acceptance",  the point is made that gay advocacy methods may be short-circuiting natural feelings of shame in many individuals.  The insistence to "embrace oneself"  can be foolhardy:  For example,  who would tell the pedophile to embrace his "natural" self?

And it is surely true that organizations such as PFLAG (Parents and Family of Lesbians and Gays)  have been over-zealous and on the look-out for "recruits".  Many studies and books have come out which reveal the success of persons who have wanted to embrace heterosexuality,  and who felt deeply alienated as they followed their "gay"  inclinations.  The fact that a superb researcher and clinician like Joseph Nicolosi His Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality text is at left)  finds so much transference in male same-sex attraction is a powerfully compelling idea,  that ought to give thinking people stern pause. 

But much remains to be seen.  Advocates form lines on both sides.  As our founding father James Madison observed,  "Ambition will  counteract ambition".  One sees backlashes against the Gay Agenda ( such as NARTH itself comprises),  and then there are backlashes against the backlash,  such as in the exposes of the "Ex-Gay Therapies".  Where it is leading,  to paraphrase the author Horsley,  is anyone's guess.

(* I would like to add that my own opinion is that NARTH serves best as a counter-balance and compensation to some of the more excessive aspects of the pro-gay agenda;  other than this,  I am rather suspicious of the organization. SMK)

~The excessive increase of anything often causes a reaction in the opposing direction.~  Plato

AGAINST CENTRISTS AND THE MIDDLE WAY

~  The middle way is no way at all.  If we finally fail in this great and glorious contest,  it will be by bewildering ourselves in groping for the middle way.  ~    John Adams,  1776




Fantastic John Adams quote;  
Piece against Centrism  (though not quite reflective of my own thoughts) from Huffington Post,  by Bob Cesca,  "Fightning Back in the Age of Obama":http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/fighting-back-in-the-age_b_153376.html

    

Was Kwanzaa Contrived? Thoughts on a Vanishing Holiday

I remember the disappointment I felt some years ago, when reading of how an anthropological study conducted in the '60s, on the Senoi of Malaysia and their method of working with their dreams, was contrived to fit a budding American hippie ideology. I had always thought there was something fishy there, but I did not think such blatant hoax behavior would go on within academia. Of course, after reading Christina Hoff Sommers and her research on Neo-Feminist hoax methodology and faked statistics, I was downright annoyed.

Now I am hearing that the supposedly authentic African tradition of Kwanzaa was another such fabrication; created by ex-cult leader and radical Ron Everett in 1966 to serve black racist ideology, and based on pseudo-historical facts of Pan-African tribal societies. In any case, Kwanzaa is not what it was in the '90s, as one blogger put it, "when it was the fastest growing and selling holiday to be found". Is it another casuality of the 1990s political correctness movement, and all the silliniess thereof?

Can it be that Political Correctness itself including its proponents  was more divisive than the problems it  proposed to find solutions for?  Unity would seem to be something to strive for,  by stressing that regardless of ethnicity or gender, we are all at bottom human ,  with the same basic needs and rights and duties.  I would say that Everett was most likely sincere in his efforts to help.  I would not presume to impose my stance on him,  nor anyone he acted as a beacon for. 

  Nonetheless,  I am assuming that a return to a general consensus society is inevitable, and will be fulfilled under Barack Obama, reversing the Political Correctness mania which raged through academia and media all throughout the 1990s. So if Kwanzaa is a dying breed, it is a sign of the times, which are a' changing. That indeed is Change we can believe in, and endorse! My attitude toward Afican-Americans is one of respect for their individuality as a people, but my belief is in inclusion and the equity principles of the Enlightment: Equality regardless of race, gender, orientation; and not splintered identity politics. That is the way forward.

In Anthony Case, the apple did not fall far from the tree

In Anthony case,  the appled did not fall far from the tree. 

I have not bothered to give the Casey Anthony case any atterntion on my blog until now,  because I dislike sensationalism and media hype.  It is always upsetting when a child dies,  especially when the mother is the prime suspect,  but these things have always happened,  and always will.  What bothers me now is the amount of so-called experts who are babbling on about Ms. Anthony being a sociopath,  as though that term is static and fixed,  and not fluid.  The person who is sociopathic does not have a disease like diabetes;  nor were they born monsters.

  It is usually an adaptive stance,  a camoflouge tactic because a parent was too invasive.  From what has been seen of Ms Anthony's mother,  Cindy,  it is clear that more than a little something is amiss there.  She appears to have been using the grandchild as glue for her failing marriage,  and her daughter clearly had hostile feelings about this.

  There is a lot more there than meets the eye;  the death of the infact is only a last consequence in a long chain of antecedents which nobody can untangle from without.  I do wish American media would stop this sort of ghoulish speculating about the suspect,  and get on with more important matters.  The dead child belonged to these people,  and it is ultimately their loss and their future burden,  which may be handed down in some subtle way through the generations. 

OBAMA AND EMANUEL BOTH QUESTIONED IN BLAGO INVESTIGATION

Both Obama and his chief-of-staff,  Rahm Emanuel,  were questioned in conjunction with the Blagojevich investigation.  http://www.nation.co.ke/News/world/-/1068/506668/-/sdytnk/-/

A SNAPSHOT OF ASCENSION AND DECLINE OF GENERATIONS

"Both ascension and decline appear at the same historical moment,  and owe their origins to the same causes." ~Friedrich Nietzsche, Human,  All Too Human  A little comic relief:  In the changing of the generational guard, former President Bill   Clinton looks mad as a hatter,  while President -Elect  Obama looks primed for challenges.

These photos,  of Boomer[generation] Clinton and Thirteenth [generation] Obama (post-Boomer)  show clearly the decline of the former and the ascension of the latter within the Anglo-American saeculum of history.  The Boomer Generation is clearly "losing it":  pouting and sulking;  the rising post-Boomer generation is virile,  and primed for serious tasks.

Gay Rights Leaders Feel Betrayed by Obama, but They Misread the Signs of these Times

Much is being made of Obama's choice of the Reverend Warren to lead the invocation prayer at the Inauguration,  in terms of the feeling of betrayal this has raised within the gay community.  Other concerns have been the fact that gays did not get certain Cabinet positions granted by the President Elect.

Obama knows that however high-profile the gay community may be in the media,  they comprise only a small percent of the population (2-4%,  according to conservative estimates).  Being a populist,  and a true "man of the people", this may be why he is not overly concerned.  Incidentally,  this would not make him crass or uncaring with regard to the gay community;  it certainly would not make him homophobic.  It would simply mean that 90s-style identity politics mean little to him.  I think this is in  fact the case.  The gay community expected a resurgence of the Clinton era,  however unsucsessful it may have been for gays in the long run.  It is the spirit of that era they are lining up for,  like acting students bringing last semester's scripts for their auditon with a radical new acting coach.  This behavior is what Howe and Strauss called post seasonal  as opposed to pre-seasonal in The Fourth Turning:  An American Prophesy.  Post-seasonal behavior lags behind the times:  we show up wearing beach clothes in the nippy fall weather.  Conversely,  pre-sesaonal behavior is on time,  and even early:  We have taken our winter clothes out of storage,  and had them drycleaned,  and are prepared to dress for the coming snow.

Many things are clear to me,  when I eye them through the lens of this American prophesy.  Howe and Strauss,  by the way,  predicted some reversal of the gay rights agenda.  Again,  I have been decidedly "pro-gay"  all of my adult life;  but I am anti-90s identiy politics,  to a marked degree.  In the words of Forrest Gump,  "and that's all I have to say about that.".  (Actually,  I do have a bit more to say.  Camille Paglia's Gay Stalinism  was an intoxicating essay for me in the '90s,  when the PC "Nazis"  were taking over the national campuses and running everything.  So to see history sort of catch up with her;  well,  it is a bit of a thrill.  But this is only in terms of political theory.  )

During election season,  Future Blogger asked,  "Can we outrace the Fourth Turning?".  The answer to that is,  no,  we cannot.  No,  we have not.  It is expedient that we go through this crisis.  I am not sad to see the Third Turning go.

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE INCONVENIENT TRUTH?

Always on the look out for argument and refutation,  as they are tools for keeping one's philosophy robust,  and preventing self-satisfaction and complacency,  I trawl the Internet always looking for articles from the right (as I am to the left).  

Found this site and interesting critique of Gore's environmental doctrine: http://antigreen.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html

CAN OBAMA CREATE AN FDR- STYLE PUBLIC WORKS NATIONAL PROGRAM?

Reading this blog essay,  A Federal Stimulus for Public Parks,  in tandem with dwelling on the Fourth Turning scenario described by Howe and Strauss,  and targeted for this era, regarding  a resurgence of civic pride in times of economic crisis  -  seen in the FDR era  -  has given me a feeling of anticipation.  But we shall see.  The blog,  Going Coastal, has this fine piece out today:  http://goingcoastal.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/a-federal-stimulus-for-city-parks/

POLITICO, HUFFINGTON POST, INTERNET SAY OBAMA IS FIT TO RULE

Our "smokin' hot" Prez-elect.   On vacation in his home-state of Hawaii,  Barack shows press he is fit to rule. ( Why am I beginning to cover Obama like I'm a tabloid?  Dunno. . . )

WARREN TRYING TO APPEASE GAY ANGER AT OBAMA?

From AmericaBlog.com,  Rick Warren pulls anti-gay phrases from his Website:

                            http://www.americablog.com/2008/12/rick-warren-pulls-anti-gay-language.html


Apparently,  the fury which gays have been expressing over Obama's choice of the Reverend Rick Warren to conduct the invocation/prayer at the Inauguration has caused the Reverend to alter his website.  Warren has supported Proposition 8.  So much for openess and unity.  

An interesting analysis,  which raises many questions about Obama's strategy in all of this Warren business,  the answers which will foretell the future of Obama and his relationship to the gay community , The Rick Warren Whirlwind   by Wayne Bensen @  Huffington Post:


                          http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-bensen/the-rick-warren-whirlwind_b_153000.html