There was simply no one like him...Hitch produced more fine work, read more books, met more interesting people, and won more arguments than most of us could in several centuries. [–The Blog]And, this morning, reprinted in a local newspaper from The Washington Post was Kathleen Parker's "There was just one Hitch":
To say I was a friend of Hitchens would be an exaggeration, though I did enjoy the pleasure of his company on several occasions. But one needn’t have known a writer to mourn his passing or to feel profound sadness about all the silent days to come. No matter what the topic, I always wanted to know what Hitchens thought about it, and, lucky for the world, he seemed always willing to end the suspense....And Ms. Parker referred to yet another remembrance, that in The New Yorker by whom she calls "The Other Christopher" (Christopher Buckley), "Postscript: Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011. It begins thus:
Among the many things that made Hitchens unique was his precision of thought and expression. What made him rare were his courage and tenacity. He was fearless in the field and relentless in his defense of the defenseless with that mightiest of swords—his pen. Judging from his final essays, he was also fearless in the face of death. Terrified that he might lose his ability to write and therefore his being? Well, that was something else.
We were friends for more than thirty years, which is a long time but, now that he is gone, seems not nearly long enough. I was rather nervous when I first met him, one night in London in 1977, along with his great friend Martin Amis. I had read his journalism and was already in awe of his brilliance and wit and couldn’t think what on earth I could bring to his table. I don’t know if he sensed the diffidence on my part—no, of course he did; he never missed anything—but he set me instantly at ease, and so began one of the great friendships and benisons of my life. It occurs to me that "benison" is a word I first learned from Christopher, along with so much else.And, brought to my attention by an email just read from a friend, Robert Scheer's "Christopher Hitchens: Reason in Revolt," on Reader Supported News:
...This was a man unafraid of intellectual challenge and committed to pursuing the heart of the matter.
That was his driving force, a seeker of truth to the end, and a deservedly legendary witness against the hypocrisy of the ever-sanctimonious establishment. What zeal this man had to eviscerate the conceits of the powerful, whether their authority derived from wealth, the state, or a claim to the ear of the divine.
On page 73 of Christopher Buckley's 2008 comic novel, Supreme Courtship, I came across a definition that Ambrose Bierce might have included in his Devil's Dictionary:Pollsters, n pl. Overcompensated and usually self-regarding political functionaries who instruct leaders what to do, based on the biases of a largely uninformed electorate.
Like everyone else, I knew of William F. Buckley, Jr. before I knew of his son Christopher. The father was the never-doubting Roman Catholic, Conservative icon, author of God and Man at Yale. I heard him debate at the Yale Political Union around 1962 and was so persuaded by his brilliance and fire that I shot upright in the standing vote to register my opinion that Buckley had won. Then there was "Firing Line" and The National Review, which I even subscribed to for a time. (I also subscribed over the years to The New Republic, Mother Jones, Ramparts, Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, The Wilson Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, The New York Review of Books, as well of course as to Time and Newsweek and The New Yorker.)On a discrete signal from Graydon, Hayden turned to another page of his briefing tome and in a mild tone of voice said, "Judge Cartwright, your father...[is] a minister, down in Texas."
"First Sabbath Tabernacle of Plano. Giving witness to the Word, twenty-four seven, rain or shine, hell or high water, no sin too small, no crime too dire. Yeaaaah, Jesus!"
"Sorry?"
"It's how he begins his Sunday broadcast."
"Ah. Yes. Growing up in that environment must have affected your own religious views?"
"Certainly, sir. But as to that, I don't really have any religious views."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, Senator, we all keep the Sabbath in our own way."
"May I ask how you keep it?"
"In bed with a crossword puzzle, coffee, and a croissant."
"I see."
"I could leave out the croissant part at the hearings, if you want, if you think it sounds too French. Want me to substitute bagel? Or is that too Jewish? What about crumb cake? Crumb cake sounds American enough."
Hayden and the other senators exchanged uneasy stares.
Hayden said, "Your lack of religious views, again, if I may, I don't mean to...what I'm trying to get at is..."
"Let me help you out here, Senator. When I was nine years old I watched my momma get hit by lightning. Now, my daddy interpreted that as the Almighty's punishment for playing golf on the Sabbath and built a whole church around it. I drew a different inference."
Hayden said, "The inference being...I don't mean to pry, but..."
"That God is a son of a bitch," she said.
She said that?" the President said.
It was later the same day. He had just handed a worn-out-looking Graydon Clenndennynn a double martini and had poured himself a frosty schooner of beer.
"Freely," Graydon said. "Gleefully. She's an atheist. Proud of it."
"Oh, my," said the President..."There have been Supreme Court justices who didn't believe in God. Haven't there?"
"Yes, but I don't think they presented their views quite so gleefully or vividly at the confirmation hearings..."
"Hmm," the President said. "Well, maybe it will come off as refreshing. Santamaria [one of the sitting Justices, seemingly based on Antonin Scalia] practically wears his Knights of Malta feather cap to Court. She's honest. Transparent. A breath of fresh Texas air. The people will respond. I know it."
"Donald, according to polls, more people in this country believe in the Immaculate Conception than in evolution. I don't know why you're always carrying on about the so-called 'wisdom of the American people.' Half of the population seems to me to be demented. Belong in cages..."
"Maybe it won't come up," said the President.
"I wouldn't count on that. There are five thousand reporters out there, digging. Like worms."
The President sipped his beer. "Her father, the TV reverend. He'll balance out the religious aspect. It'll be fine."
...
"God, please, no. He'll start speaking in tongues...She seems fond of the grandfather. Former sheriff. His name is JJ, wouldn't you know? Droopy mustache, big shiny belt buckle, soulful eyes. He'll do. Your wise American people love that sort of thing." [pp. 63-66]
My recent discovery that a man celebrated as one of the foremost intellectuals of the twentieth century—William F. Buckley, Jr. [1925-2008]—devoted a considerable portion of his brain power to theology (the invention of loopholes to avoid certain problems of religious belief) has inspired me to revisit my March 30 post, "Definition of theology," and add a few more examples of theological concoction:Problem to Avoid: It is unendurably sad to contemplate that after a loved one or I myself die, we shall never again see one another.
Loophole: We don't really die! We will be resurrected (so long as we believe the prescribed things) and will enjoy each other throughout eternity.
Problem to Avoid: But I can't stand many of the people I might have to spend eternity with.
Loophole: When people are resurrected, only their pure parts are revived. If they were personally insufferable and hideously ugly in real life, they will in heaven be exceedingly nice and gloriously beautiful to look upon.
Problem to Avoid: The good die young and even those who are not so terribly bad often die before their time.
Loophole: Whoever dies before his or her time (and believes the things prescribed to get into heaven) will be proportionally recompensed in heaven so that by the time eternity has elapsed, it will all have evened out and everyone will have gotten his or her precise due.
...And those who live beyond their time (perhaps because of having been put on life support against their DNR order) will be proportionally penalized, etc. As I said, it'll all have evened out by the time eternity has elapsed.
Problem to Avoid: But eternity will never elapse! In fact, heaven could become terribly boring at some point.
Loophole: The Director of Heavenly Amusements already has (and has always had, throughout preceding eternity) a continuously diverting program planned. No one will ever, ever get bored. For one thing, we will sit around a lot and play theology.
The half-gainer concocted by Buckley in his son's book (not that it was original with Buckley) isn't any more convincing than the ones above, now, is it? All such concoctions down through the ages (since those recorded in the Israelites' ancient literature) have similarly been in the service of trying to demolish unpleasant, inconvenient facts or beliefs about the world in which we live. It is ironic that some such concoctions (starting at least with the Israelites' attributing jealousy to their god in order to avoid the problem of his vengeful destruction of people who offended him) have been accorded special authority as "revelations of God": the author of Exodus 20:5 had his god "reveal" the attribute in his own voice: "...for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God." Revelation of God is the reverse 3½ somersaults of theology, and the writer in question was undoubtedly one of our earliest theological geniuses.
In my short review of Martin Scorsese's documentary about the Rolling Stones, I mentioned the famous incident of the Stones' peeing against a wall in public and remarked that "A part of your average Joe (particularly your average Republican Joe) wants to be able to pee in public and get away with it." At the time I thought of "peeing in public" as merely symbolic of some other, factual act. Imagine my surprise, then, upon reading the following passage from Christopher Buckley's memoir about losing his mother and father:I'd been looking forward this year to [our annual ritual of driving up to the town in northwestern Connecticutt where Pup had grown up with his nine brothers and sisters]. I sensed that it would probably be our last Thanksgiving drive up to Sharon. I'd brought Caitlin along. Pup dotes on what he called "my favorite granddaughter." (He had only one.) I'd warned Cat that driving with Pup now often involved a tendency that she might find a bit unusual—namely, his habit of opening the front door while the car was moving, and peeing. He did this routinely now, including from his limousine, in traffic. I've often wondered if there are people out there scratching their heads and saying, Marge—was that William F. Buckley Jr. who just peed on our Lexus? –p. 163, Losing Mum and Pup, Twelve, New York & Boston, 2009
In Christopher Buckley's unexpectedly caustic memoir about losing his parents, Patricia Taylor Buckley and William F. Buckley, Jr., he recounts his father's regret that a beloved friend whose ashes he and Christopher have just scattered was not a Catholic. "What do you mean, Pup?" Christopher asked.He replied matter-of-factly that as Harry was not a Catholic, he had no expectation of seeing him again in heaven. This truly hit me like a smack in the face. Pup loved Harry wholeheartedly, but rules were—apparently—rules: The gates of heaven were shut against nonbelievers. I was crushed, for I too had loved Harry. I was, at the time (age twenty-eight), very much a believer, and I tended to take Pup's theological pronouncements as having ex cathedra papal authority.Theological half-gainers! I wish I'd thought of that for my "definition of theology." Having only a vague sense that a "half-gainer" is some sort of dive, I looked it up (in yourdictionary.com):
Sometime later, he spoke—with genuine relief in his voice—of his discovery of a loophole called "the doctrine of invincible ignorance," which, if I understand it—theological half-gainers can leave a lad's head spinning at times—means that the normal rules with respect to admission to heaven are suspended if you are incapable intellectually or culturally of accepting that the Catholic Church is the one true Church, the only means of redemption. How Pup smiled with relief as he explained it across the lunch table that summer day! –pp. 39-40, Losing Mum and Pup, Twelve, New York & Boston, 2009
gain·er (gnr): n. 2. Sports A dive in which the diver leaves the board facing forward, does a back somersault, and enters the water feet first.What's fancy about a theological half-gainer is the believer's adroitness in positioning his head. Buckley is astute in classifying such theology a sport.
half gainer: a fancy dive in which the diver springs from the board facing forward and does a back flip in the air so as to enter the water head first, facing the board.
The invention of loopholes1 for trying to step around the moral, psychological, scientific, and philosophical problems that arise from the almost certainly false belief that "God" exists.For example,
Problem to Avoid: Bad guys often make it big while good guys suffer and die young._______________
Loophole: There will be a day of judgment, after which the bad guys will burn in hell and the good guys will have seventy virgins—or is it raisins?
