Thank you, Michael for your in-depth reply to my question. I am aka as Jules, Q? what blog of yours did i answer on? I tweeted your ‘stoic-racelessness’ on Twitter and followed you.
Thanks for Jim Beam, indeed. He was most likely the reason Martin amis was subdued on the momentous night with Christopher Hitchens who was imbibing from a styrofoam cup the entire time on stage.
It is said, Man Cannot Live By Bread Alone; therefore, he had to invent gods. When the one great god died, (as Martin said) ideologies gushed into man’s thirsty mind. Nb: the Islam religion and jihad ideology are mental-conjoined twins that cannot be separated.
Michael Bowan, It so happened that I also was in attendance of at Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis’s event at UCLA Royce Hall in April (?) 2002. Do you remember what question you posed to Mr. Hitchens during the Q&A session? I also asked them to reminisce. Afterwards I went to the party at the W Hotel in their honor.. Hitch immediately went to the bar, telling him, “You’ll be seeing a lot of me.” And proceeded to get plastered. In fact, Hitch got into a heated altercation with two liberals on the patio regarding the US involvement in the Iraq War. Security was called and the liberals were escorted out; whereas, Hitch went to the bar for more Jim Beam
You might even be 'jules' who answered on my blog. Anyway I excerpt:
"I asked if in our pursuit of ridding the world of Jihadists whether or not we had punished Socialists quite enough. With a brief reference to my incurable sobbing over Koba the Dread, I further asked if we should be concerned with some resurgence of that particular kind of terror. The short answer was no, but that is not what one pays such literary folks to say, and thankfully so because their responses illuminated much.
Amis piped up to say that in his reading of history the death of God was indeed final and into that void filled the cults of ideology. Devotion to Maoism, Stalinism and several other isms I forget replaced devotion to God in the modern world, and the overproduction of these (misplaced is not what he said) loyalties produced catastrophes of historical magnitude. On the whole I found Amis to be rather subdued the entire evening but his was a fine answer. It indicates, as does his respect for the power of the myth of Christ (even via Gibson), that his respect for religion is somewhat similar to mine. But more on that later. Hitchens' angle on this was curiouser still, since he was indeed once a Socialist. It was through his response that we turned to the Kurdish rebel soldiers. There used to be a cool name for them that we have forgotten.
Hitchens had, in response to Brian Lamb some time ago answered three questions of himself with regard the current and future status of a secular, internationalist socialist program and came resolutely to the conclusion that there was no future in it. The best work of Socialism is behind us and it will not at any time in the future provide a mandate returning to power."
Amis was definitely right about ideological cults, which McWhorter knows, and basically that's what Federal elections have become. The Progressives are trying to be consistent, but there is no Democrat center to hold. It's so obvious to me that Trump proved this. Tomorrow's political question for US politics is if we can manage distributed coalition government. Hmm. Maybe I'll write about that.
Haven't watched your video yet, but as a kid in the 90s in LA, one of the groups on the playground was known as the KROQers. The KROQers, the Rappers, the Ballers. Good times.
Michael! It is refreshing to hear and read your reasoning and way of thinking, seeing, being. I so want to speak with you more about your conclusions. 🥰
Thank you, Michael for your in-depth reply to my question. I am aka as Jules, Q? what blog of yours did i answer on? I tweeted your ‘stoic-racelessness’ on Twitter and followed you.
Thanks for Jim Beam, indeed. He was most likely the reason Martin amis was subdued on the momentous night with Christopher Hitchens who was imbibing from a styrofoam cup the entire time on stage.
It is said, Man Cannot Live By Bread Alone; therefore, he had to invent gods. When the one great god died, (as Martin said) ideologies gushed into man’s thirsty mind. Nb: the Islam religion and jihad ideology are mental-conjoined twins that cannot be separated.
Michael Bowan, It so happened that I also was in attendance of at Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis’s event at UCLA Royce Hall in April (?) 2002. Do you remember what question you posed to Mr. Hitchens during the Q&A session? I also asked them to reminisce. Afterwards I went to the party at the W Hotel in their honor.. Hitch immediately went to the bar, telling him, “You’ll be seeing a lot of me.” And proceeded to get plastered. In fact, Hitch got into a heated altercation with two liberals on the patio regarding the US involvement in the Iraq War. Security was called and the liberals were escorted out; whereas, Hitch went to the bar for more Jim Beam
You might even be 'jules' who answered on my blog. Anyway I excerpt:
"I asked if in our pursuit of ridding the world of Jihadists whether or not we had punished Socialists quite enough. With a brief reference to my incurable sobbing over Koba the Dread, I further asked if we should be concerned with some resurgence of that particular kind of terror. The short answer was no, but that is not what one pays such literary folks to say, and thankfully so because their responses illuminated much.
Amis piped up to say that in his reading of history the death of God was indeed final and into that void filled the cults of ideology. Devotion to Maoism, Stalinism and several other isms I forget replaced devotion to God in the modern world, and the overproduction of these (misplaced is not what he said) loyalties produced catastrophes of historical magnitude. On the whole I found Amis to be rather subdued the entire evening but his was a fine answer. It indicates, as does his respect for the power of the myth of Christ (even via Gibson), that his respect for religion is somewhat similar to mine. But more on that later. Hitchens' angle on this was curiouser still, since he was indeed once a Socialist. It was through his response that we turned to the Kurdish rebel soldiers. There used to be a cool name for them that we have forgotten.
Hitchens had, in response to Brian Lamb some time ago answered three questions of himself with regard the current and future status of a secular, internationalist socialist program and came resolutely to the conclusion that there was no future in it. The best work of Socialism is behind us and it will not at any time in the future provide a mandate returning to power."
Amis was definitely right about ideological cults, which McWhorter knows, and basically that's what Federal elections have become. The Progressives are trying to be consistent, but there is no Democrat center to hold. It's so obvious to me that Trump proved this. Tomorrow's political question for US politics is if we can manage distributed coalition government. Hmm. Maybe I'll write about that.
Thank God for Jim Beam.
Correction: Christopher Hitchens and Martin Amis were at UCLA in spring of 2003.
Haven't watched your video yet, but as a kid in the 90s in LA, one of the groups on the playground was known as the KROQers. The KROQers, the Rappers, the Ballers. Good times.
Michael! It is refreshing to hear and read your reasoning and way of thinking, seeing, being. I so want to speak with you more about your conclusions. 🥰