Clarification on something that Hitchens often argues
Posted on: October 8, 2008 - 3:21am
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Clarification on something that Hitchens often argues
...This one always confuses me:
...When Hitchens says, '...and worst case scenario would be if this dictatorship were benign. Were kind,' what does he mean? In what way would such a controlling entity be worse if it were benign than if it were diabolical?
(This is meant as a question for the benefit of my curiousity, rather than a challenge)
Quote:
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
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The most oppressive regimes are the ones that believe they exist for the benefit of their members?
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
yes, i think the point is that you do the most damage when you genuinely think you're doing good. numerous analogies spring to mind
Um. Could you give a few? The worst atrocities that spring to my mind were perpetrated by people who most certainly knew that they were doing terrible things (Stalin, Hitler, Mao...)
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
I think Hitchens is getting at the root of the Abrahamic concept of God. He is omnipotent and cannot be thwarted. More importantly, He is also the sole real moral standard and cannot be evil. Given these qualities, He is a dictator and cannot help but be benevolent. If you're a believer in Him, you can never mistake his meddling in your affairs as oppressive or even cynical, as you might with an earthly dictator. Your bone cancer must absolutely be for your own good, as must the starving of children in faraway places be for the edification of their moral consciences. There is never an opportunity to rebel. Even if you resist the truth of His word and go to Hell, He meant for that to happen, and a world with an eternally suffering you is an ultimately perfect world. I forget chapter and verse, but the Bible states that the Devil himself will be shouting "Jesus is Lord!" when he is finally thrown in the Lake of Fire, and implies that those human souls who join him will be stating the same thing. So if you don't worship in Life, you will in Hell, effectively. You'll feel no malice toward the Deity that shaped reality in such a way that you would end up there. Your "rebellion" on earth was absolutely fruitless (so was every Christian life, too, come to think of it).
I read Mere Christianity and that's the portrait of God I got. My advice is to not think of the term "Benevolent Dictator" in the sense of Solon or Frederick of Prussia or Catherine the Great, though he's definitely referencing that type of person. You're right, in that dictators in the terrestrial sense can't really be benevolent because they don't get to define the concepts of Justice or Right for other people, but a fictional God can be imagined as doing just that.
"The whole conception of God is a conception derived from ancient Oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men."
--Bertrand Russell
...My perspective just widened.
No, seriously. Thanks, DA!