DEMONSTRATIONS 

01

Dawkins: 

“I’m fascinated by the contrast between the amount of offence that’s taken by religion and the amount of offence that people take against nearly anything else. Like artistic taste. Your taste in music, your taste in art, your politics. You can be, not exactly as rude as you like, but you can be far, far more rude about such things. And I’d quite like to try to quantify that, to actually do research about it.” 

Book: page 44
URL: 00:03:40 timer

Hitchens’ response:

“Well, it’s interesting you say that, because I regularly debate with a terrible man called Bill Donohue of the Catholic League, and he actually is righteously upset by certain trends in modern art, which tend to draw attention to themselves by blasphemy.”

Book: page 44
URL: 00:04:22 timer

Analytic commentary 

Dawkins’ directed focus is “the amount of offence that’s taken by religion”, which he wants “to quantify” and “do research” on.  His thinking statement is precise and exact.  He approaches problems in a rational way, according to principles. 

Hitchens’ intuitive response goes beyond these bounds, to another focal point.  He focusses on and reflects a certain debate-related experience with Bill Donohue, who is “righteously upset by certain trends in modern art, which tend to draw attention to themselves by blasphemy.”  By so doing he leads the discussion in another direction and on to a different subject.  He augments by saying: “We share [with religious people] an admiration for at least some of the aesthetic achievements of religion.” (page. 45)  This goes beyond the matter in question posed by Dawkins.  Hitchens’ intuitive response to Dawkins’ conceptual statement shows no direct relation to Dawkins’ rational approach to the question and his viewpoint on the matter.  It follows that Hitchens comes to his intuitive perception through an “irrational” process.  With Hitchens, there is never any intent to establish universal principles.

02

Dawkins:

“Dan Barker’s making a collection of clergymen who’ve lost their faith but don’t dare say so, because it’s their only living. It’s the only thing they know how to do.”

Book: page 46
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Hitchens’ response:

“I used to run into this … in arguments with members of the Communist Party … Their mainspring was broken, but they couldn’t give it up because it would involve a similar concession. But certainly, if someone had said to me, ‘How could you say that to them about the Soviet Union? Didn’t you know that you were going to really make them cry and hurt their feelings?’ I would have said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t be absurd.’ But I find it in many cases almost an exactly analogous argument.”

Book: page 46-7
URL: 00:06:36 timer

Analytic commentary

Dawkins presents an isolated fact with rational precision and exactitude, namely: “a collection of clergymen who’ve lost their faith” and confines the discussion to: “It’s the only thing they know how to do.”

Hitchens again responds by going beyond the matter in question, narrating another experience: “I used to run into this … in arguments with,” and redirects the focus away from clergymen to “members of the Communist Party”. Hitchens goes beyond the isolated fact to a possibility: “if someone had said to me, ‘How could you say that to them?’ … I would have said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t be absurd.’” He thus directs the discussion away from the confining restriction of the isolated rationalised fact to that of an irrational intuitive narrative.

03

Harris:

“I think there is a range of experience that’s rare and is only talked about – without obvious qualms – in religious discourse … People can have self-transcending experiences, and religion seems to be the only game in town when talking about those experiences and dignifying them. So this is one reason it’s taboo to criticise it, because we’re talking about the most important moments in people’s lives and we appear to be trashing them, at least from their point of view.” 

Book: pages 48-9
URL: 00:09:24 timer

Hitchens’ response:

“If we could make one change, and only one, mine would be to distinguish the numinous from the supernatural. You, Sam, had a marvellous question in your blog from Francis Collins, the genome pioneer, who said whilst mountaineering one day he was just overcome by the landscape and then went down on his knees and accepted Jesus Christ. A complete non-sequitur.”

Book: page 49
URL: 00:11:03 timer

Analytic commentary 

Harris’ rational view focuses on the fact that “People can have self-transcending experiences” and qualifies these as: “the most important moments in people’s lives”. Harris simultaneously directs and confines the discussion, restricting it to precisely formulated isolated facts.  He is oriented to understand and find the rational principles as to why religious people accuse them as being rude for criticising their religious viewpoints.  According to Harris, one reason why it is taboo for them to criticise religious viewpoints is “because we’re talking about the most important moments in people’s lives and we appear to be trashing them, at least from their point of view.” 

In contrast, Hitchens’ irrational intuitive response again breaks these factual bounds by moving away from the isolated rationalised facts to presenting, firstly, a possibility: “If we could make one change … mine would be to distinguish the numinous from the supernatural.”  Hitchens follows through with introducing a different issue: “a marvellous question in your blog from Francis Collins, the genome pioneer” and a narrative about the related experience: “… who said whilst mountaineering one day he was just overcome by the landscape and then went down on his knees and accepted Jesus Christ.”

ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY

Each of the rational statements by Dawkins and Harris portray a directed exactitude, and present a rigorous precise formulation restricted to the fact at hand.  In contrast, Hitchens’ responses break these bounds and go beyond the matter in question.  He shifts to different objects and subjects and diverts the focus of the discussion by introducing possible scenarios.  His responses are not derived by rational argument; rather, they depict views evoked through making links, and contain narratives of lived experiences.  Hitchens’ irrational intuition extends beyond and enhances the restrictive rationality of his three friends and thus enlivens the discussion.  We can say that Hitchens’ intuition complements the thinking mindsets of Dawkins, Dennett and Harris.

From the responses by Hitchens, we can clearly see the typical pattern of his irrational intuition function.  Hitchens is not restricted to the limits of the rational standpoint. He views the problem from a different perspective and approaches it from the angle of his intuitive perception. 

Carl Jung views intuition to be “an irrational function.” (CW 6, par. 770)  He explains the term irrational as follows: “I use this term not as something contrary to reason, but something beyond reason, something, therefore, not grounded on reason.” (ibid. par. 774)  We can say that intuition is a non-reasoning function.  Jung discovered empirically that intuition is an irrational function that orientates the way in which the individual with differentiated intuition approaches problems and make decisions.