Selected self-representations

Dawkins puts forward the following question:
“One of the things we’ve all met is the accusation that we are strident or arrogant or vitriolic or shrill [rude].  What do we think about that?”

Book: p. 41

Hour 1 of 2
URL: 00:00:00 timer

Dennett:
“The religions have contrived to make it impossible to disagree with them critically without being rude.”
[Religious people view those who rationally criticise their religion, as being rude.]

Book: p. 41

Hour 1 of 2

URL: 00:00:46 timer

Dawkins:
[Dawkins affirms Dennett’s observation.]
Book: p. 42

Hour 1 of 2
URL: 00:01:10 timer

Harris:
“I think we’re all encountering the fact that religion is held off the table of rational criticism in some kind of formal way …”
[Harris augments Dennett’s remark by adding perspective.]

Book: p. 42

Hour 1 of 2
URL: 00:01:19 timer

Analytic commentary

In the above excerpt, Dawkins, Dennett and Harris are displaying their natural tendency to posit a problem and elicit any related facts already known.  There is something notable in the way Dawkins formulates the problem.  There is an exactitude to it. He is rigorous and precise in his formulation.  Religious people accuse the four “horsemen” of rudeness because they rationally criticise aspects of their faith.  Jung would have said that Dawkins has isolated the fact or object in space and time (CW 6, par. 257) His question shows the same exactitude as his formulation of the said fact.  Dawkins’ question is: “What do we think about that?” What do the four of them think about that?  Dawkins connects the question to the previously stated fact. With this he confines the discussion.  We can say that Dawkins has rationalised the said issue by restricting his question to the isolated or rationalised fact.  The said excerpt also demonstrates that they each orientate themselves directly to the question at hand, keep to the scope of the question and express a rationality that is bounded.

The aim of thinking is to consider the object that is posited and to understand it in a conceptual way, that is, in terms of principles based on facts that conform to law.  Real thinking is not a simple linear logical process but is expressed as a chain of interrelated concepts or principles.  For Jung the term “understanding” relates specifically and exclusively to the thinking function.  Thinking is not always successful in finding principled solutions to posited problems.  Not all problems are thinking problems and not all material is thinking material.    

From the above it begins to become evident that each of these three gentlemen principally make use of a “similar” thinking approach to objects or events.  All three are equipped with a well-developed psychological thinking function.  Jung inferred the existence of a psychological thinking function based on his observations that many individuals approach problems and make decisions according to the principle that he defined as thinking.  When we use the term thinking function, we refer to the psychological function that is in process when thinkers think. 

This demonstration provides a necessary point of reference for investigating Christopher Hitchens’ response to the opening question.  Individuals with a thinking function need an anchor point for comparison and rational critique.  We attempt to provide such thinkers with a conceptual reference point akin to them, namely, their own way of decision-making, from which to view and investigate Hitchens.  The real thinkers are those who will recognise this particular approach to problems and way of decision-making in themselves.  

We have provided a definite point of reference from which to observe, analyse and conceptualise Christopher Hitchens’ decision-making mind-set, which follows.