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Re: Nary a week goes by without Peterson dancing on the grave of Christopher Hitchens
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 7:10 pm
by DrStakhanovite
IHAQ wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 12:30 pm
I don’t understand Peterson's obsession in trying to sully the mans memory with such childish snark? Did they have a falling out whilst Hitchens was alive? Anyway, here is how Hitchens has been remembered by some very notable people…
Daniel has staked out his territory as the guy who engages low hanging fruit and that is precisely what Hitchens is. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve read a lot of Hitchens and there is a good deal to admire in his prose and moral compass, but his material concerning religion can be some of the worst examples of his work. Hitchens is entertaining and occasionally insightful, as any good journalist ought to be, but there isn’t a terrible amount of depth to what he has to say when it comes to religion proper. Factor in the polemical nature of Hitchens and the deliberate manner in which he tries to provoke readers and you have something too good for Daniel to pass up.
I don’t really see it dancing on a man’s grave, rather it is Daniel going back to the same old talking point over and over again due to lack of content. Daniel has poor reading skills, he struggles with dense texts that demand a lot from readers and often makes rudimentary errors involving basic context or categories. To make matters even worse, Daniel spends next to no time actually thinking about any of the topics he blogs about and thereby accrues no genuine insight of his own; this is why Daniel will often quote a paragraph from a popular book and then spends another paragraph simply summarizing what he quoted in just slightly different terms.
Hitchens often relies on secondary and even tertiary sources when critiquing a particular religion, this makes his position incredibly vulnerable to people with the background and skills to access primary sources. That kind of rote work of tracking down sources and looking particular claims up is going to come naturally to Daniel; he can note whatever position Hitchens advocates and then spend a little time looking up what other people say on the subject and BOOM the blog post almost writes itself
Daniel isn’t beating a dead horse, he has embalmed it and put it on display in the den, so he can tell the same basic stories about beating the horse when it was a fresh carcass to anyone who comes into the room.
Re: Nary a week goes by without Peterson dancing on the grave of Christopher Hitchens
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 7:15 pm
by DrStakhanovite
Bought Yahoo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:22 pm
I otherwise see him as the next Nibley, and that is how he will be forever seen. Greater than Nibley in some cases.
dear god lol
Re: Nary a week goes by without Peterson dancing on the grave of Christopher Hitchens
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 7:59 pm
by Bought Yahoo
Dr Exiled wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:44 pm
Bought Yahoo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:35 pm
So, again, we should leave Hitchens alone because he died young. I wonder where the logic is with that.
Nope. DCP can obsess over Hitchens until his last breath. However, perhaps he should look in the mirror the next time he complains about people supposedly obsessing over him, something he craves, something that comes with the territory of putting yourself out there.
Maybe, but it isn't the same thing. But, as I am reading this thread, the overwhelming position offered is that Peterson should bow down to Hitchens and worship his every saying now that Hitchens has died young and can't defend himself anymore. I get it. All the critiques of Einsten, Feynman, Oppenheimer, C.S. Lewis, Freud, etc are all to be ignored if they came after the great man's death. Such a stupid and absurd view, in my thinking.
Re: Nary a week goes by without Peterson dancing on the grave of Christopher Hitchens
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 8:13 pm
by Dr Exiled
Bought Yahoo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 7:59 pm
Dr Exiled wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:44 pm
Nope. DCP can obsess over Hitchens until his last breath. However, perhaps he should look in the mirror the next time he complains about people supposedly obsessing over him, something he craves, something that comes with the territory of putting yourself out there.
Maybe, but it isn't the same thing. But, as I am reading this thread, the overwhelming position offered is that Peterson should bow down to Hitchens and worship his every saying now that Hitchens has died young and can't defend himself anymore. I get it. All the critiques of Einsten, Feynman, Oppenheimer, C.S. Lewis, Freud, etc are all to be ignored if they came after the great man's death. Such a stupid and absurd view, in my thinking.
I don't read it that way. I wouldn't require DCP to bow to Hitchens and he can criticize him all he wants. Those here will continue to do the same. No one is above criticism, even DCP and Hitchens or anyone here.
Re: Nary a week goes by without Peterson dancing on the grave of Christopher Hitchens
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 8:22 pm
by malkie
Bought Yahoo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 7:59 pm
Dr Exiled wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:44 pm
Nope. DCP can obsess over Hitchens until his last breath. However, perhaps he should look in the mirror the next time he complains about people supposedly obsessing over him, something he craves, something that comes with the territory of putting yourself out there.
Maybe, but it isn't the same thing. But, as I am reading this thread, the overwhelming position offered is that Peterson should bow down to Hitchens and worship his every saying now that Hitchens has died young and can't defend himself anymore. I get it. All the critiques of Einsten, Feynman, Oppenheimer, C.S. Lewis, Freud, etc are all to be ignored if they came after the great man's death. Such a stupid and absurd view, in my thinking.
Are you starting to run out of straw yet?
Re: Nary a week goes by without Peterson dancing on the grave of Christopher Hitchens
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:14 pm
by huckelberry
Jason Bourne wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:49 pm
Bought Yahoo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:50 pm
And so, you would say, the mopologists should ignore this because the guy is dead.
No they should not. But Hitchens cannot refute them now can he?
There probably are a few people willing to go to bat for the fellow and further his arguments even if he is dead.
Re: Nary a week goes by without Peterson dancing on the grave of Christopher Hitchens
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:21 pm
by huckelberry
Physics Guy wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:30 pm
Heh. I have to give Hitchens a tip of the hat for so deftly connecting Twain's famous chloroform remark with the Book of Ether. It's one thing to notice the opportunity for a one-liner in there somewhere, chloroform-ether-ha-ha, but making it into a breezy aside is harder than it looks. Apparently the man could write.
He was probably sought-after as a writer of introductions. If I could get someone like him to write an introduction to a book I had written, I'd jump at the chance. That doesn't mean he was a great or deep thinker; being a dab hand at smooth prose is kind of perpendicular to the talent you'd want in an original scholar. But it is worth something.
Physics guy, I think you have made a good observation about this subject despite it lying in an unpromising arena.
Re: Nary a week goes by without Peterson dancing on the grave of Christopher Hitchens
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:37 pm
by Doctor CamNC4Me
huckelberry wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:21 pm
Physics Guy wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:30 pm
Heh. I have to give Hitchens a tip of the hat for so deftly connecting Twain's famous chloroform remark with the Book of Ether. It's one thing to notice the opportunity for a one-liner in there somewhere, chloroform-ether-ha-ha, but making it into a breezy aside is harder than it looks. Apparently the man could write.
He was probably sought-after as a writer of introductions. If I could get someone like him to write an introduction to a book I had written, I'd jump at the chance. That doesn't mean he was a great or deep thinker; being a dab hand at smooth prose is kind of perpendicular to the talent you'd want in an original scholar. But it is worth something.
Physics guy, I think you have made a good observation about this subject despite it lying in an unpromising arena.
I mean, what do you expect anyone to say? Hitchens was a polemicist. He had an unusually gifted knack for barfly parlance with regard to heady topics, which made him incredibly popular with midwits and drunk politicos. If Dan “there isn’t a wikipedia page I can’t plagiarize” Peterson wants to sully Hitchens’ name to a few Mormon cultists and their antagonists who is anyone to tell him otherwise?
- Doc
Re: Nary a week goes by without Peterson dancing on the grave of Christopher Hitchens
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2022 10:29 pm
by huckelberry
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:37 pm
huckelberry wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 9:21 pm
Physics guy, I think you have made a good observation about this subject despite it lying in an unpromising arena.
I mean, what do you expect anyone to say? Hitchens was a polemicist. He had an unusually gifted knack for barfly parlance with regard to heady topics, which made him incredibly popular with midwits and drunk politicos. If Dan “there isn’t a wikipedia page I can’t plagiarize” Peterson wants to sully Hitchens’ name to a few Mormon cultists and their antagonists who is anyone to tell him otherwise?
- Doc
Doc, you and I seem to have found ourselves on the same page for this difficult subject.
Re: Nary a week goes by without Peterson dancing on the grave of Christopher Hitchens
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:31 am
by Philo Sofee
Jason Bourne wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 6:49 pm
Bought Yahoo wrote: ↑Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:50 pm
And so, you would say, the mopologists should ignore this because the guy is dead.
No they should not. But Hitchens cannot refute them now can he?
Well, I mean..... right now he is debating Jesus, and Jesus is sneaking into the Library of Congress late at night undetected, to do more research in order to find an overall good answer to The Hitch.