cabdriver, December 1 at 10:25 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

ardee, your counterpoints are superfluous.
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Of course you think so dear boy. Restating an absurdity is not a way to make it less absurd.

Dear Chris,

What do you know about the nonrational, as you call it?  What do you know about feelings?  Your books and essays are all rational.  Everything you say is rational.  You pride yourself on your rationality.  Anyone who doesn’t is a child.  We have to be rational, according to you.  We also have to have our moments of non-rationality.  That’s what makes us truly human, you say.  You don’t say anything, though.  You don’t care about feelings.  You just care about your ideas.  Nothing you write affects people.  Ask the average person on the street who Chris Hedges is, and they’ll give you a blank look.  “Who?”  No one’s ever heard of you, except for a few intellectuals.  Why is that? 

No one’s ever heard of me, either.  Actually, a lot more people have heard of you than me.  But I suppose I shouldn’t even have said that about no one knowing who you are.  It doesn’t matter.  It’s just that you keep writing every week.  Every week, another column.  And what does it accomplish?  Does anyone in power listen to you?  Are your anti-war articles being studied by policymakers?  No.  You’re just ignored.  You therefore have to come up with a whole theory about how rotten American society is.  We must all be idiotic, television obsesssed, ignorant “infants” who vote against our own interests.  We worship false gods, celebrities, fake politicians, our own selves.  Have you ever thought maybe the problem is with you and others on the Left?  You’re not reaching people.  Haven’t you ever thought about why you’re not reaching anyone?  Why are so many people completely hostile and therefore indifferent to the ideas you express?  I’ll tell you why.  It’s too rational!  You say we need to be nonrational, get in touch with the sacred, revere the spiritual side of life found in relationships with others and in art.  Yet you don’t write about this.  Actually, I’m wrong.  You do write about it.  But it just doesn’t affect me.  You never talk about anything spiritual except morality, which is what religion means to you.  But that’s not religion.  I admit that people who claim to be religious can be immoral.  So the question then is: what is religion?   

You don’t care!  No one cares, it seems.  Everyone is seemingly just out for themselves, trying to get their ideas out there, their voices out in the public sphere.  I don’t want that.  I’m not trying to be famous.  I’m not trying to get on television or be a celebrity.  I don’t need to give interviews or go on book tours.  That doesn’t help anyone.  That’s all just egotism.  Talk about morality all day if you want.  Give a lecture using historical, philosophical and literary illusions.  Write another book.  Write a hundred more articles.  Are you really going to help anyone this way?  And are you even helping yourself, your own soul, this way?  Maybe, I don’t know.  I’m not you.  I’m not anyone.  I’m a nobody.

But I have feelings like everybody.  God has given me the ability to have feelings.  I didn’t use to have feelings.  I used to be empty.  I used to be nothing.  I used to not believe in God.  Now I know what religion is.  And religion is the only way we can be saved.  I know you disagree, Chris.  You wrote, “Relgion cannot save us,” in your book on atheism.  What kind of critique of atheism is it when you say atheism is to be respected because secular people are capable of making good moral choices.  They’re not.  Only God is, and you don’t believe in God if you’re secular.  You don’t believe, so you don’t know.

Move aside, Chris.  No one’s listening to you.  You could become a real prophet, but you don’t want to.  You’d have to change from a rational adult to a real religious person, a real voice for change in this world.  You’d have to be a child—a child of God.

ardee, December 1 at 9:41 am #
I am always puzzled by the severe crticisms one finds
accompanying any Hedges article.

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Likewise…

ardee, I suspect it’s “the Christian thing

No , I in turn suspect it is the human thing. There are certainly those, left or right, who descend into rant and invective. I myself have done so when “inspired” or sickened by some of the incredibly bigoted and stupid stuff posted here.

It’s been obvious to me for some years now that there’s a sizable and quite vocal contingent of “liberals” and “progressives” who are only comfortable with Christians if they can consign them to the ranks of right-wing know-nothings.

There is also a brand of Christianity that is far right in nature and politics, that uses its own distorted versions of the teachings of Christ to form awful visions for this nation and this world.

As related to that phenomenon: perhaps you’ve noticed the propensity of Internet commentators from the “American left-progressive” part of the spectrum to resort to outbursts reminiscent of Tourette’s Syndrome, including the most vile misogyny, at anyone whom they deem a political adversary- or at anyone who doesn’t mirror their own personal views as closely as they like.

I guess you have never listened to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly or Michael Savage or ........Perhaps you might cite any personality, TV or radio who espouses left wing opinion with the savagery of those cited above?

For all of the manifold failures of logic and integrity among American conservatives, most of them appear capable of refraining from the sort of Linda Blair/ “Exorcist”-type ranting that so often typifies on-line “critical commentary” by Internet posters who identify themselves as being part of the American Left.

Really?

I am always puzzled by the severe crticisms one finds accompanying any Hedges article. Rather than commenting upon his opinions one seems to find only character assassinations. Puzzling.

One may not agree with Chris (I do), but there is no
denying he’s been there and done it for real; this is a
guy I’d like to have a beer with.