A few weeks ago, Christopher Hitchens delivered a lecture on the subject of Thomas Paine, the "unacknowledged founding father" who was "the greatest Englishman and the greatest American", as he put it. It is well worth reading. There is no more fascinating man than Thomas Paine, in my view. He was an integral part of two of the three most famous revolutions in the history of the world (American and French, with the Russian revolution being the third), and in many ways was the conscience of both. It was Paine who agitated most strongly for a revolution against the British King George III, even while Franklin and Washington and Jefferson were still loyal subjects of the crown. And it was Paine who argued so stridently that if the American revolution was to succeed in securing the rights of man, slavery had to be abolished. History would of course prove him entirely correct in both judgements.
In France, Paine was the one who stood up against fierce opposition in the Assembly and urged them not to execute the King. He said that America would offer exile to the king, and warned them that once they began down the bloody road of revenge, it would undermine what their revolution was intended to achieve. For that crime, he was thrown in prison by Robespierre and allowed to languish by the American government. As Hitchens put it:
In his great debate with Edmund Burke on the nature and content of the French Revolution and in his great engagement with the waverers of the United States, not just about independence, but about the Declaration and later the Constitution, we can say, of Paine, the following: He wanted the American Revolution to be more radical and more democratic, more authentic and more deep-going and he wanted the French Revolution to become less fanatical, less ideological, less rigid and less bloodthirsty. I think, in the context, those are extraordinary positions for anyone to have taken in the same decade and to have witnessed to it with such courage.And, again, who will say that the example of the betrayed or failed revolution means nothing to us and is something only fit for the study of history? Nothing could possibly be more relevant than the question of where and how it is that revolutions degenerate. Paine represents this in real time and, as he put it, rather modestly toward the end of his life, to have had a part in two revolutions is to have lived to some purpose.
Indeed it is. All the more sad that Paine is mostly ignored today. The contrast with Edmund Burke is an incredibly important one, Burke being the touchstone of true conservative thought to this day. Paine, by contrast, was the most radical of the revolutionaries in America, the most willing to take the logic of natural rights to its most obvious conclusion, and to do so immediately. Had we listened to him, we might have avoided the Civil War (though we may also have lost the Republic before it got started; such is the difficulty of alternative history). Hitchens nails Paine's radicalism and his emphasis on the primacy of human reason, in stark opposition to Burke, quite well:
Until then, there was the divine right of kings. There were rights okay, but only for the rulers. It was, in a sense, not all that radical to say, "No, we annex the concept of right. If there is to be right, it is innate in all of us." And it's at that very critical moment, John Locke would only go this far, John Locke who wrote the slave-owning constitutions of the Carolinas. He would only go as far as saying that these rights were life, liberty and property. And by a little shove and a little extension or extrapolation, Paine and his friends were able to begin the argument that says, "No, if there's to be right, it must be human and it must transcend property and, in a happy phrase, include the pursuit of happiness."...Now it could have been, I suppose, that Paine could have done this without the belief in reason, but I think it's extremely unlikely. It was a time when the view of science and innovation and endeavor was very closely linked to the concept of human emancipation. Edmund Burke, for example, bleated about the fate of Marie Antoinette and many others--while Paine said, if you remember, that Mr. Burke "mourns the plumage, but forgets the dying bird."
Mr. Burke approved the action of a mob calling itself church and king, a lynch mob, a group got up, incited by the British authorities and swearing in the name of the established church and the monarchy to burn and break and destroy and gut the Birmingham laboratory of Joseph Priestley, possibly the most distinguished scientist of his day. Think--we credit him with the discovery of oxygen and many, many other innovations. An incomparable man driven from the shores of England because the authorities knew, by instinct, that inquiries of this kind would indeed take the ax to the root of monarchy and the church and religion. And they were right in their suspicion, they were right in their intuition, and Priestley had to find a new home in the United States and a new friendship with Thomas Paine.
The intersection there of Paine and Priestley is quite a fascinating one as well. Priestley - founder of Unitarianism in the United States, scientist, preacher and political dissenter - is another giant of the Enlightenment whose life has been too long ignored. But that is for another post, perhaps.
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Thank you. That was very interesting.
Hi Ed
I think is funny that Hitchens praises Thomas Paine, when his, now beloved neoconservative allies, despise him so much (look at this to see what I mean). But well, he believes that George Bush is trying to promote secular and laic states overseas, while he and his party (and his allied evangelical and fundie friends) oppose it at home...naive or just sheer idiocy? Or maybe is just that he has a fanatical hatred against Muslims?
I think is funny that Hitchens praises Thomas Paine, when his, now beloved neoconservative allies, despise him so much (look at this to see what I mean).
I don't find anything odd about this at all. I think the problem is that you are thinking in very broad categories, as though if one agrees with the neo-conservatives on anything, one must agree with them on everything. Yes, Hitchens is an enthusiastic supporter of the war in Iraq. But he is still an outspoken atheist and opponent of theocracy in all its forms. It is, of course, logically possible to arrive at the same conclusion with very different starting points, or conversely to arrive at different conclusions from the same starting points. I agree with the neo-cons on school vouchers, for example, and at least partically on social security reform. Does that mean that I also must agree with them on foreign policy, or on abortion? Of course not. The mere fact that you can assign a label to someone because of shared agreement on a single issue doesn't mean that person is being illogical in not taking every position that label would ascribe to them. The problem is in the inexact label or category.
I think you miss -- or have simply avoided -- the point that Paine would strongly disapprove of the policies of the folks that Hitchens has allied with and defends. Your comment doesn't respond to the substance of Sergio's: "But well, he believes that George Bush is trying to promote secular and laic states overseas, while he and his party (and his allied evangelical and fundie friends) oppose it at home...naive or just sheer idiocy?" On what basis can Hitchens argue that the Bush administration wants to promote the sort of democracy that Paine advocated, when the Bush administration is bent on destroying the sort of democracy that Paine advocated?
I think you miss -- or have simply avoided -- the point that Paine would strongly disapprove of the policies of the folks that Hitchens has allied with and defends.
I think one can clearly see where Paine would disagree with the neo-conservatives on, for instance, church/state issues, but of course Hitchens disagrees with them on those issues too. But I think it's quite a stretch to say that he would have opposed the war in Iraq. The world that Thomas Paine inhabited was an entirely different one than the world we inhabit today, and Paine wrote very little on the subject of war and foreign policy even in the context of his own day. It's difficult if not entirely impossible to try and discern what he would have believed in a modern context of war between states. At any rate, even if we could know that Paine would have opposed the war in Iraq, there is no inconsistency for Hitchens to praise Paine for his brilliance in one area and disagree with him in other areas. The real problem here is that I think both of you are painting with entirely too broad a brush, assuming that if you agree with someone on one thing, you must agree with them on everything or it's funny or odd that you don't. But it's only funny or odd if you start from the assumption that beliefs come in package form, without any ability to logically distinguish between what one supports and does not support.
Hitchens would likely argue that a man who helped foment two revolutions against oppressive governments might very well be all for an active foreign policy that overthrows tyrants and dictators. But who really knows how the views of that day would have changed in a modern world with the ability to project military might around the globe in a matter of hours? It's impossible to tell how Paine's views might have evolved on that question.
You're starting to remind me of mynym, as you again don't respond to the substance:
"On what basis can Hitchens argue that the Bush administration wants to promote the sort of democracy that Paine advocated, when the Bush administration is bent on destroying the sort of democracy that Paine advocated?"
To make this more explicit -- this comment of yours is offensive:
"The real problem here is that I think both of
you are painting with entirely too broad a brush, assuming that if you agree with someone on one thing, you must agree with them on everything or it's funny or odd that you don't."
Because we quite explicitly did not assume any such thing, or make any such claim. You can get there only by ignoring the supporting argument that we actually did offer -- arguments that you failed to quote, only quoting the first line of each comment and not the supporting logic that negates your silly broad brush caricature of us as painting with a broad brush.
I should have put all these thoughts in one comment -- I apologize.
For some reason you seem to be taking us as criticizing Hitchens for praising Paine. But that is patently absurd. Its not that Hitchens admires Paine, which he is of course right to do, but that he admires Bush. Not that he admires Bush for going to war in Iraq to bring about democracy -- one could argue that he should admire him for that, and Paine might well have too. If it were true. But Bush's clear attitude toward democracy here at home makes it highly questionable that Bush was genuinely motivated to plant a Paine-style democracy in Iraq or anywhere else, and the details of his foreign policy and the policy statements of PNAC and so on make it highly questionable as well. This is nothing at all like your offsensive suggestion that we believe something incredibly childish and silly about some agreements implying all agreements.
Your statement to me was this:
I naturally assumed that by "the policies" of those he allies with, you meant the war in Iraq because it was the only thing that might be relevant to finding it odd that Hitchens would praise Paine and still support Bush. The ONLY thing that Hitchens supports Bush on is the war in Iraq, as near as I can tell, and he has been a staunch critic of practically every other policy that Bush has put forth. So there is really only two things I could see you as saying.
A. Paine would have been against the war in Iraq, or
B. Paine would have been against all the other Bush policies that Hitchens is also against
The first one is, as I stated, overclaimed at best. We really have no way of knowing how Paine would have felt about the war in Iraq. We do know that the people of Iraq are at least some distance closer to a Paine-style democracy now than they were under Hussein (which does not, of course, mean that the war was either justified or a good idea, which would involve many other factors to determine).
The second one is simply irrelevant to the argument that it's "funny" that Hitchens would praise Paine while Paine would criticize Bush, since the things on which Paine would undoubtedly criticize Bush are things that Hitchens criticizes him on as well. I frankly doubt that Hitchens ever thought that Bush was really interested in bringing "Paine-style democracy" to Iraq, nor have I ever heard him say anything to that effect. But I suspect he would at least argue that by going after the most dangerous and determined enemies of democracy, Paine-style or otherwise, Bush is, whether by design or not, advancing the cause of democracy/liberty. Now, Hitchens may be wrong on that, of course. But I don't think there's anything inconsistent about believing that and praising Paine, which was the only subject I was attempting to evaluate.
Hi again Ed:
Such a heated controversy I started! You are absolutely right to point that just cause Hitchens praises one aspect of the political thought of Paine, he has not to agree with everything he said (probably Paine and Hitchens will be at odds in many other areas, who knows). My point is that in this particular point (church and state relations), there is a terrible inconsistency for his part. Hitchens proclaims to be a fierce atheist and an enemy of theocratic forms of government...yet he is an ally of neoconservatives and republicans who are pushing for it at home. Since I do not believe Hitchens is a moron, and I also believe that anybody with an IQ of less than 80 can figure out there is something terribly wrong with such contradictory position, I am forced to conclude he is a hypocrite. I deeply suspect Mr Hitchens KNOWS that his neocon friends in Washington are using all this rhetoric of "spreading democracy and secular governments around the world", to cover their own ugly interests: for Christ's sake, Hitchens is a Marxist! He should know better (or does he thinks the biggest capitalist state in the world, run by rabid right wingers tied to the oil industry, are invading Iraq - the second largest oil reserve in the world- to "spread democracy and a secular form of government"?)
Since I don't believe Hitchens buy that rhetoric, I am left with only one alternative: That he, like his neocon friends, gives a rat's ass about "spreading democracy and secular forms of government throughout the world", and that he simply is pushing the agenda cause he hates one specific form of theocracy: the Muslim one. This, at its time, rests on all sorts of ugly assumptions: that all forms of non Christian (not in its religious form, but in its ethos), non capitalistic, non western forms of government or society are barbaric, backwards and primitive.
My point is that in this particular point (church and state relations), there is a terrible inconsistency for his part. Hitchens proclaims to be a fierce atheist and an enemy of theocratic forms of government...yet he is an ally of neoconservatives and republicans who are pushing for it at home.
This is where I think you are mistaken. He is an "ally" of them only with regard to the war in Iraq, and even there it is for different reasons than the ones they likely have. On virtually every other policy issue, Hitchens remains a scathing critic of the Bush administration, especially on church and state issues. He has never changed his position on those issues at all, nor has he ever stopped criticizing Bush's positions on them despite agreeing with him on the war. It's a bit like saying that since I support privatization of social security, I am now an ally of the neo-conservatives and therefore I'm being inconsistent in saying I'm for separation of church and state because I am now allied with those who are not. But there's just no connection between those policies, and one can logically be for one and against another. They are only lumped together because a group you oppose holds both opinions. But that doesn't mean anyone else is being inconsistent for agreeing with them on one thing and not on another.
I deeply suspect Mr Hitchens KNOWS that his neocon friends in Washington are using all this rhetoric of "spreading democracy and secular governments around the world", to cover their own ugly interests:
I would not be at all surprised if Hitchens does indeed recognize that at least some of the people who agree with him on the war in Iraq have a different set of goals in mind than he does, and are motivated by a different set of interests. But I still don't think that has much to do with whether his own positions are inconsistent or hypocritical. He is only required to be consistent with his own beliefs, not with the beliefs of others with whom you have chosen to group him solely on the basis of a single issue (and an issue on which he likely has different reasons for supporting than they do).
for Christ's sake, Hitchens is a Marxist! He should know better (or does he thinks the biggest capitalist state in the world, run by rabid right wingers tied to the oil industry, are invading Iraq - the second largest oil reserve in the world- to "spread democracy and a secular form of government"?)
Just for the record, I don't believe Hitchens is a Marxist. I believe he repudiated socialism quite some time ago, though I'm not 100% certain about that.
Since I don't believe Hitchens buy that rhetoric, I am left with only one alternative: That he, like his neocon friends, gives a rat's ass about "spreading democracy and secular forms of government throughout the world", and that he simply is pushing the agenda cause he hates one specific form of theocracy: the Muslim one. This, at its time, rests on all sorts of ugly assumptions: that all forms of non Christian (not in its religious form, but in its ethos), non capitalistic, non western forms of government or society are barbaric, backwards and primitive.
Wow, that's a lot to unpack. I think the first part is just an unjustified conclusion. You're basing your indictment of Hitchens on the motivations that you presume others who happen to agree with him on a single issue must have. On the second part, I would say this....
Hitchens, like me, hates all forms of theocracy, and at this point the Muslim form of it is undeniably the most dangerous and virulent form in the world. And I will say without the slighest hesitation that the sort of theocracy that the Islamic radicals seek to impose not only on their own people but on others as well is absolutely barbaric, backwards and primitive. And I have no doubt that Thomas Paine would agree with that without reservation as well. The Taliban was far more oppressive and destructive to human freedom than George III or Louis XVI could ever have dreamed of being, and Paine urged the violent overthrow of both of those men for far less poignant crimes against humanity. Islamic theocracy is everything that liberal-thinking people should despise - the imposition of a patriarchal system that literally dehumanizes women and treats them as property, a system that urges the cold-blooded murder of anyone who dares to disagree with the dominant religious myths. If you think Hitchens hates that type of theocracy, can you imagine what Thomas Paine would have to say about it were he alive today? I hate it too. I think you should as well.
All the talk of how unfair it is to judge them according to our "Western, capitalist values" is a crock of shit, especially if one accepts the ideas of Thomas Paine. Paine believed that human freedom was a universal value, not something that could be compromised on, and that securing it was the only goal of government. It is never right and never acceptable, from Paine's perspective, to acquiesce to slavery and oppression.
This is where I think you are mistaken. He is an "ally" of them only with regard to the war in Iraq, and even there it is for different reasons than the ones they likely have. On virtually every other policy issue, Hitchens remains a scathing critic of the Bush administration, especially on church and state issues. He has never changed his position on those issues at all, nor has he ever stopped criticizing Bush's positions on them despite agreeing with him on the war. It's a bit like saying that since I support privatization of social security, I am now an ally of the neo-conservatives and therefore I'm being inconsistent in saying I'm for separation of church and state because I am now allied with those who are not. But there's just no connection between those policies, and one can logically be for one and against another. They are only lumped together because a group you oppose holds both opinions. But that doesn't mean anyone else is being inconsistent for agreeing with them on one thing and not on another.
My point is that you can agree in particular issue with people that you generally oppose politically, but only when you both REALLY agree on the particular issue. You can agree with neoconservatives on the need on school vouchers, even if you disagree with them on most of the issues. Even Hitchens can be allied with neocons concerning the need of the war in Iraq, even if they disagree on how to handle the economy or whatever. What Hitchens can't do is to say he agrees with neocons concerning the need to establish a secular and democratic government in Iraq. And he can't, cause no matter how much neoconservatives repeat they are on the business of constructing a secular and democratic Iraq, we know this is not true. Basically, cause neoconservatives DON'T believe at all in democracy and especially on the idea of a secular state. How can you agree with neoconservatives in something they don't truly believe in? Is like you said that you agree with X on issue Y -even if you usually disagree with X on most issues- when at the same time X DOESN'T really believe the way you do concerning issue Y. You can say that Hitchens was fooled in his good faith by neocons when they proclaim to fight for a secular state in the ME countries. But Hitchens is an intellectual, and he should know better. Ignorance of what has been expressed so clearly (neocon hatred toward the ideals of secularism or the ideals of Thomas Paine) is unacceptable for a person like him.
I would not be at all surprised if Hitchens does indeed recognize that at least some of the people who agree with him on the war in Iraq have a different set of goals in mind than he does, and are motivated by a different set of interests. But I still don't think that has much to do with whether his own positions are inconsistent or hypocritical. He is only required to be consistent with his own beliefs, not with the beliefs of others with whom you have chosen to group him solely on the basis of a single issue (and an issue on which he likely has different reasons for supporting than they do).
The hypocrisy of Hitchens relies on the fact that he KNOWS what this people really think, yet he pretends both of them truly agree (did you see how he refers to Paul Wolfwitz and the rest of neocons in the link I posted? He truly admires them!). I suspect that for Hitchens neocons are the deus ex machina for his purpose: the force that will wipe out Islamic theocracy from the face of earth (the same way Marx thought that British imperialism was a good thing to push the evolution of Indian society from pre capitalist modes of production). And of course, if Hitchens support a bunch of theocrats in the hope they kick the ass of another bunch of theocrats, he is not being consistent at all (think it in the same way many leftists are hypocrites for supporting Islamic terrorism in order to kick the ass of the imperialist-capitalist-westerners).
Hitchens, like me, hates all forms of theocracy, and at this point the Muslim form of it is undeniably the most dangerous and virulent form in the world.
I am not sure that Hitchens hates all the forms of theocracy. I haven't seen the criticisms he has given the Bush administration, but I take your word on it. But even granting that, his almost religious and unconditional support to everything Bush and the neocons do outside the national boundaries is irresponsible and an implicit support for the ideology behind those actions. Who said you have to be pro Bush to hate Islamic theocracy? At least I can say that I am not, and correct me if I am wrong, neither you are. You can say that one thing is Hitchens support for the neocon external policies and another is his criticism for neocon way to handle internal affairs. But I am not sure that is the case. Neoconservative ideology works as a whole. The same reason they think "Judeo/Christian values" are the "cornerstone" of the western civilization, is basically the same reason they think they have the right to take over the world. It is not that they care to bring on democracy or secularism overseas. That is just their excuse. It is that they think that all the world must look exactly like they see the US: a society based on "Judeo/Christian" values. Democracy and secularism are just a way to make it acceptable to the public in general, but that is just the façade. And sorry, I don't buy for a second that Hitchens doesn't know this. So, I deeply suspect that his problem is Islamism, not theocracy in general. If it was, he will be opposing all forms of theocracy, and not just simply supporting one form in the name of strategic convenience.
All the talk of how unfair it is to judge them according to our "Western, capitalist values" is a crock of shit, especially if one accepts the ideas of Thomas Paine. Paine believed that human freedom was a universal value, not something that could be compromised on, and that securing it was the only goal of government. It is never right and never acceptable, from Paine's perspective, to acquiesce to slavery and oppression.
Here I think we must be careful. Like you and Paine, I support some basic set of universal values. I do not buy the extreme forms of cultural relativism where "everything is valid". But then, I think cultural relativists and post modernists are into something. First at all, many of our modern, western capitalist values aren't as perfect as we think they are. Behind the purported superiority of those values many ugly things were hidden: historically we have justified slavery, racism, sexism, sexual repression, colonialism and imperialism, to name some, using distinctions like "barbarian/civilized". And yes, that goes for enlightenment figures, like Thomas Paine and Voltaire, philosophical heroes for people like you and me (and I suppose, Hitchens). And lets not to mention how the nations and societies ruled by those values ended up fighting two world wars killing and ruining the life of hundreds of millions of human beings. We should be a bit more humble before calling other cultures barbaric (even if they are, like is the case of the Taliban). Here in my country we have a saying that explains what I am trying to say: "don't get close to fire if you have a straw tail". Now, this is not to say we should not judge what is wrong with other cultures (and there is a hell lot of wrong with the Taliban regimen, and, ehem, secularized Iraq under the control of BAS party...), but we should be very careful when people start yelling how all other cultures except OURS is barbaric, cause that arrogance is not only dangerous...it is usually a discourse that hides ugly interests.