"How Could You Ask Such A Question": The Christopher Hitchens Interview

By Mark Grueter

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Part Two

Click here for Part One.

MG: Do you understand what Freud described as the Oceanic feeling, the religious impulse?

CH: I don’t understand it in the sense of having ever been able to feel it myself. But it always turns up in the same thought. I know why I think someone’s schizophrenic but I don’t have to know by direct suffering. I don’t have to know how that would feel to invalidate it…for those who say, ‘well you have to have been through it yourself to understand’ No, because if I had, as with this case, I wouldn’t be able to understand the point. I would have no interest in anyone else’s mind…

I just spent the last month arguing with the defenders of Mel Gibson’s terrible film on the crucifixion. They say that a first century execution gives me a reason to livr and was conducted so that I wouldn’t have to answer for my actions. I haven’t the faintest idea what it would feel like to believe that. It’s a belief so absurd that it can’t even be justified by its own rationale. To say ‘well if you aren’t for suffering yourself, then you really don’t get it’. It’s like saying ‘well I feel Spinoza is a superior philosopher to DeCartes. I don’t give a damn what you think, I just feel that way. I’m not going to do any comparative assessment. If you don’t believe me you just don’t know what it’s like to be a Spinoza supporter.’ I mean, get out of here. I can’t take it. But this is considered to be a beautiful thing to say.

MG: Growing up Catholic I’ve always been told that you cannot be forgiven for sin unless you are truly sorry and only you and God know this. So I’ve never understood the point of confession and earthly redemption…

CH: I’ve listened to that my whole life and when I was much younger I used to think, ‘well, maybe it’s my fault.’ But really, I don’t understand a word of what they’re talking about…I was just reading some Christian writer who was saying that Gibson shouldn’t have put the Jews in the flame (in the movie). Well, that’s good. I mean, the Catholic Church conceded that a quarter of a century ago, only a quarter of a century ago. That all Jews living are not to be blamed for what the Jewish leadership undoubtedly did (crucify Christ). But what are Jews supposed to do about it now? Change their heritage? 'It doesn’t bind all Jews at all times,' they now say. Well, thanks a lot. I mean, what would make you think it did?

This same Christian who now says ‘let’s not blame the Jews’ says that each of them nails Christ to the cross every day.’ What are you talking about? What are you talking about? How am I bound by a first century execution? The whole idea is masochistic and sick. They’re saying that you (Jews) are inescapably tainted with this crime. If you accept that you are - in other words - guilty of doing something you would never dream of doing, then all your sins can be forgiven. That’s immoral. Religion is the cause of immorality. And one can see it every day, everywhere. The biggest moment in life, I guess, is when I worked that out for myself, when I was about 14, which any fool can do.

MG: Have you ever thought about writing a book about this?

CH: Everything I write is about this.

MG: I know, but what if you wrote ‘A Case against Religion’ and you stated it directly and explained why it’s immoral, how it causes immorality, etc?

CH: Well my letters (Letters to a Young Contrarian) have a bit of that.

MG: Yes, why not extend it? Because I know you know the subject, I know you read the Gospels…

CH: Yes, I read them again for this piece on Mel Gibson. I could do that (write a book) but there may be no reason to. It’s been done repeatedly. Everyone who has studied Spinoza and Hume - it doesn’t even have to be Voltaire - or who knows that religion is based on a false premise and a false promise. It’s been written about for a long time.

MG: What’s been written about it recently?

CH: I’m not going to improve on it. I think the only improvement I’ve ever made is in my little book (Letters). But I’ve since seen someone else, who I’m sure hasn’t read my book, make a similar point in a secular magazine. So these ideas are available to anybody.

When people say to you, ‘well, what if you’re wrong and you die and you come to a tribunal?’ Skipping over the answer that this scenario is improbable in the highest degree, I say my answer would be, ‘while I was sentient as a human being I didn’t believe the arguments for this tribunal were any good.’ In spite of any inducements, if you will disbelieve that then you’ll have a better chance in front of a tribunal. I would say, ‘I’m sorry, I thought those arguments were so easily discredited.’ If the tribunal was any good I’d always get an extra point for honesty over someone who said, ‘well, you know, I’ve always believed in you because my pal told me that if I didn’t I’d get a less fair hearing.’ And so I’m presuming this is not that kind of tribunal. That would not even be a wager; it is a bribe.

As far as I know, I originated this thought for myself. As I wrote it I wondered, ‘I cannot believe one couldn’t have read this somewhere.’ And within a few months I did read a version of it in a secular magazine, like I said. This is why I defend plagiarism. Originality isn’t to be expected, but intellectual honesty can be demanded, and the reason why I’d be a secularist anyway is because it doesn’t need at Church. People can independently come to the same conclusions, and will…It (secularism) doesn’t require regular rallies to reinforce it. You can have it privately; you don’t need a priest to keep asking you ‘how are you doing keeping up your vows?’ You have your own life, and that’s much more consolation than absolution would be.

MG: I agree that this is something felt early on. I’ve never felt comfortable in Church. I feel like I’m in alien territory. When I first read your stuff on religion and Mother Teresa it was exhilarating for me because you were putting on paper many of the things I had been thinking about for years.

CH: Well that cheers me up. Now ask yourself - connect this back to our other argument - why do I have something of a hard time, not just getting it known that I think Mother Teresa is an old fraud, but being taken seriously about it? My critics say, ‘Well, Hitchens thinks that; he’s a polemicist. He likes making trouble.’ They never ask, ‘Well, what if he’s right?’ If I’m asked to comment on this subject in the mainstream it’s as a curiosity, even with people who don’t think she was a saint. Why is that, given that the American Revolution was impossible without people who thought like me?

MG: One thing you disproved was the notion that the Kodak photograph of Mother Teresa by Malcolm Muggeridge was evidence of her performing a miracle.

CH: Oh yeah, but in a way I shouldn’t have. I should have simply said that Heaven doesn’t take into account the lighting arrangements of a British television studio...I shouldn’t have had to go to those lengths. No, David Hume’s “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” applies here. I don’t have to produce any evidence. I did in that case to show ill intent. But I claim no credit for it.

MG: I have trouble getting people to read this book (The Missionary Position), my religious friends, even my non-religious friends, even though it’s excellent journalism.

CH: Why though?

MG: Because they’re offended from the outset by the title of the book.

CH: What do you mean?

MG: The missionary position? It’s not a sexual innuendo?

CH: How could you ask such a question? It’s about the view taken by missionaries. Surely, this should be clear. I was going to call it “The Sacred Cow” but I thought it would be offensive.

MG: I’m told that the title is still offensive.

CH: I don’t know what else is wrong with it.

MG: Well, it refers to the most common sexual position between a man and a woman.

CH: I had no idea.

MG: You’re not playing dumb?

CH: Well aren’t they? And if I am, you just caught me at it, but you can’t catch them at it? In other words, yes they know it’s a title that has more than one meaning. I can live with that; if they can’t I’m really sorry if they won’t open it for that reason. I’ll open books where everything about the title nauseates and revolts me. If they won’t, they won’t. I don’t mind.

MG: Okay, they’re using it as pretext for not reading it.

CH: And if it wasn’t that, there’d be another excuse.

MG: Not all of them. I’m talking about intelligent people who, if they read the argument, it might convince them.

CH: No, it wouldn’t. Of course it would not…I don’t expect to change these people’s minds. I don’t care if they go on being ignorant.

MG: You’d rather convince than persuade, you once said.

CH: Much rather. And I would rather reinforce the morale of those who think this (Mother Teresa/religion) is evil. So when they say, ‘if only he put it a different way I might give it a chance’ I think, ‘do I say that to them?’ Do I say, ‘well, I’m not going to read your holy books which already have the assumption that you’re in the right’? Of course not…

MG: The way I’m judged on essays in grad school is, ‘Are you giving both sides of the argument?’

CH: Well you have to show you know the other side’s point of view. That’s important.

MG: But even if you demonstrate you know the other point of view...

CH: You don’t have to say that everything is relative or even implied. The First Amendment doesn’t have to be restated every time. That would only be for those who didn’t believe in the First Amendment. You can take it for granted, as with gravity, as with the revolution of the planets and so forth. I will assume those things.

You’re suggesting that (by changing style/tone) I should make it easy on them. Why should I do that? Or break it to them one bit at a time…

MG: Even atheists say they're put off by your personal attacks.

CH: ‘He hasn’t shown that he cares enough about my feelings yet.’ I’m not going to make an investigation into someone who has been disrespecting me. My God, they should maybe grow up. They’ll have to do that whether I want them to or not. If I did tell them to grow up, what would they say? ‘Well, I’m not going to.’ I don’t think so; these are things that happen anyway.

This is the problem with celebrity culture. So what am I’m supposed to say, ‘By the way before we start, I know Jennifer Aniston has been having a really hard time and uh, uh, is in many ways a very good person. I just wish she would perform better in whatever her latest movie is.’ No, I’m not obliged to go through any of that. It was nice of me to notice that she even exists.

MG: It’s an issue of fake outrage then.

CH: Hmmm…

MG: People get offended on behalf of others.

CH: It’s a problem in itself. And my reaction to it is to act as if I had never heard that. Anyone who comes into the public square for an argument can’t say ‘well I didn’t know it was gonna get, you know, upsetting.’

William Lloyd Garrison said, for an opening statement on the topic of slavery, “The compact which exists between the North and the South is a covenant with death and an agreement with hell” and that the whole union and the Constitution should be destroyed because of a diabolic patch, in order to get rid of slavery. That’s a pretty strong opening bid, in a good cause by the way. The shocked response was, ‘you mean to tell me you’re not impressed with the prophet Isaiah?’ Well yes, I am telling you that sorry. Their attitude is something like, “since I’m morally in the right, how dare you interrupt me?

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MG: You mentioned your wife and your son. Many people I know are interested in Christopher Hitchens, family man. Do you try to protect your family from media attention?

CH: Oh no.

MG: Okay, well you don’t talk about them much.

CH: Unless it’s absolutely necessary or dead relevant to anything I write I always resist any temptation (to write about them) because I think it’s wrong to inject your family into your service. It’s one of the easiest forms of trying to get people on your side, to gain sympathy. So I don’t. I don’t like it when I read other people doing it.

MG: I didn’t mean to pry.

CH: No, no. You’re not prying at all. I have two families…and I’m very lucky in a way other people are not, in that there’s no area of unease between my first and second wives or between my children. So I consider myself to be very lucky. I also think I’m better with children the older they get.

MG: Do you foresee any of them being involved in public life?

CH: No, definitely not. My daughters are very literate, indeed, and very fluent and the first two speak perfect Greek because of their mother…They will probably make a living as painters or designers. They can both draw and paint extremely well. My son is doing classics. And they don’t read my stuff.

MG: Maybe they possess your trait of natural rebellion?

CH: No, not taken out on me, no. They’ve been rather alarmingly well behaved. The girls have both been terribly lucky with their mothers. In other words, for anyone younger than myself, for anyone reading this, from the male point of view, the thing about fatherhood is this: remember that it gets better as the kids get bigger. Very few men are good with infants. Not many are good with small children either. The miraculous thing about women is that they seem to know what to do. It’s extraordinary really. The big repayment men can make is that as they (the kids) get older there is much more you can do about it. There’s more help you can offer, more interest you can take.

So many people think parenthood will stop them from getting on with what they want to do. They try to wait for their first million or their first novel - then they have children. That’s the wrong way to think about it.

The other great conversation, I think, is observing the children of one’s friends. One of my favorite things is to meet children of friends of mine who I met when they were babies and whose parents I remember when they were teenagers and to see them getting on with life. It’s very stirring and confirming.

MG: I know you’re a happily married man but what do you think of civil unions, not only for gay couples, but for straight couples as well, as an alternative to marriage; An arrangement that is secular and perhaps less formal?

CH: It’s an interesting thing. Marriage became less and less of an issue in my evolution of life. Unlike our parents, most of us had at least one non-married menage before actually getting married. By the way, however much women say they don’t really care about it (marriage) - they do.

MG: They care about finding…

CH: I’ll tell you why too. There’s a point where they’ll ask ‘okay, you used to live with Susan or Samantha or whoever, but now you’re living with me. How will it be different? How will you say this one isn’t the same?' And they may themselves discern that they even know it’s a kind of formality. Girls don’t get over that.

…I’ve known gay married people all my life, it’s just that it’s never occurred to them to call it a “marriage”…but I’m neither for nor against (gay marriage). I wish I cared more actually.

MG: I saw you on Bill Maher’s show when you talked about this. These couples say they just want the same tax benefits and equal protection under the law but…

CH: It’s the desire to be the same. I don’t understand that.

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Mark Grueter is a writer living in New York City.  He may be contacted at grueter@methree.net.

© 2004 Me Three