Unit 03 foregrounds and contrasts Christopher Hitchens’ decision-making mind-set against that of Dennett, Dawkins and Harris, who each have a thinking mind-set.  

It becomes apparent that Hitchens has a very different approach to problems and way of decision-making than that of his three friends.  He is clearly not a thinker.  We therefore must ask, what principle comes into play when Hitchens makes decisions?

Christopher Hitchens was an English-American journalist, political historian, essayist, author, debater and public intellectual.  Here he is in discussion with three friends on a topic of mutual interest in which the four participants maintain a high level of conscious attention most of the time.  The said discussion is one between four individuals with well-developed decision-making functions. 

BACKGROUND

Religious people accuse the four “horsemen” of rudeness because they rationally criticise aspects of faith.  This accusation is a fact that all four have met in reality.  Dawkins formulates the main problem for their discussion as follows: “One of the things we’ve all met is the accusation that we are strident or arrogant or vitriolic or shrill.  What do we think about that?”  From the demonstration that follows it becomes evident that Dawkins, Dennett and Harris each have a thinking mind-set.  The thinking mind-set thus provides a definite point of reference for comparison and enables an objective investigation of Christopher Hitchens’ decision-making mind-set.

DEMONSTRATION OF THE INTUITION MIND-SET

Please study the short selection of relevant case material with specific focus on Christopher Hitchens’ response to Dawkins’ opening question.

Henceforth we will refer to such selected case material as self-representations.

Extract

The Four Horsemen

Book: p. 41 [From … up to Hitchens’ response, ending with the words: “It’s just too bad”.]

Hour 1 of 2
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Selected self-representations

Hitchens:

“But if the charge of offensiveness in general is to be allowed in public discourse, then without self-pity I think we should say that we too can be offended and insulted.”  

Book: p. 42

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Analytic commentary 

Note that Hitchens’ response, contrary to those of his friends, goes completely beyond the framework of the matter in question.  His response shows no direct relation to the thinking approach of his friends to the question and their standpoint on the said matter.  He moves directly from the actual fact to a possibility.  He states: “… if the charge of offensiveness in general is to be allowed in public discourse, then without self-pity I think we should say that we too can be offended and insulted.”  Note that “the charge of offensiveness in general” has not yet “been allowed in public discourse”.  He augments later by saying: “No, I say only, Sam, that if the offensiveness charge is to be allowed in general, and arbitrated by the media, then …” 

Hitchens is not concerned with the same subject or object as Dawkins.  In Dawkins’ formulation of the issue at hand, the four friends are subjects causing offence.  The group of religious people that Dawkins’ question points to is on the receiving end.  They are the objects of offence.  Hitchens’ intuition on the other hand, states the possibility that the four friends could also be on the receiving end of offence, thus being objects of offence.

The above example illustrates how Hitchens moves from reality to non-reality, from actuality to possibility.  Hitchens’ intuitive response breaks the bounds that Dawkins has set with his rationalised formulation of fact and question.  Hitchens goes beyond the matter in question in the form wherein Dawkins has cast it.  He perceives a possibility that lies beyond the bounds of reason.  This is what Jung calls intuition.                  

When an intuitive attitude dominates, writes Jung, “You [intuitives] try always to take in the whole of a situation, and then suddenly something [the intuition or possibility] crops up out of this wholeness” (CW. 18, par. 30).  He explains by saying that when they [intuitives] glance at things, “they take in their fullness, and among the many things they perceive they get one point on the periphery of their field of vision and that is the hunch [intuition].”  

Hitchens states his hunch or intuitive perception in the following words: “But if the charge of offensiveness in general is to be allowed in public discourse, then without self-pity I think we should say that we too can be offended and insulted.”  In contrast, neither Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, or any other of the individuals we have listed as thinkers would do this. The bounded rationality of the thinking mind-set simply does not allow for such a response. This rationality is evident in the previous demonstration where we examined the statement presented in Dawkins’ question and the affirmative responses by Dennett and Harris.  These gentlemen display a thinking mind-set. Hitchens’ response demonstrates no indication of a direct relation between Hitchens’ viewpoint and those of his friends.  He has not derived his intuitive perception from the content in the discussion through a thinking process. 

Christopher Hitchens’ mental response in the context of the discussion highlights his use of a non-thinking psychological function.  His approach to problems and way of decision-making is intuitive.  He uses mainly the psychological function of intuition to make decisions.  Christopher Hitchens is an intuitive.

In our demonstrations of Christopher Hitchens’ self-representation we focus on the principle of intuition. As with thinking, there are two more nuances or principles of intuition that we do not elaborate on at this point in time in order to keep the conceptual differentiation as simple as possible.