Al Sharpton v. Chris Hitchens = Bong Hits 4 Jesus

[alcibiades_mystery]

The Hardball debate between Al Sharpton and Christopher Hitchens is an embarrassment. It has about the level of stoned college freshman debating the existence of God between bong hits on a lazy Wednesday late night.

Highlights:

1. Sharpton suggests that Hitchens' argument is that we woke up one day and invented gravity.
2. An emailer suggests that Hitchens can't reconcile criminal prosecution without transcendent "truth."
3. Hitchens argues that a "moral sense" is an innate quality of the human (a notion disproved by every toddler on the planet).

This is the level of our social discourse. Indeed, Hardball this week has been a study on just how low we've sunk in our capacity to examine subjects in any depth. Just stupidity after stupidity after stupidity. The funny part is that Matthews takes himself for some kind of public intellectual on the basis of his concocted junior high school debate format. It's cringe-inducing in the extreme.

[BeyondGeography]

1. Not watching, but they were interesting at the NY Public Library last month

Hitchens was actually quite moving...You can watch it here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bWt8a1aMkZ4

I blame Tweety.

[jgraz]

2. Regarding point #3

You should review some of the recent developments in evolutionary biology. It turns out that humans and many other species actually do have an innate moral sense.

Using toddlers as your example is like using an infant to argue that we don't have innate abilities to speak or walk upright. Work with some older children and you'll see a lot of innate moral programming. Just try giving two five-year-olds differently sized pieces of cake and watch the moral arguments fly.

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Oh, I read widely in evolutionary biology

And I don't believe that the arguments about an innate moral sense are any stronger than Chomskyian (et. al) notions of innate language faculty. But you're right that using toddlers to argue it is a bit silly. You got me there. Just making a humorous joke there.

Cheers.

[jgraz]

5. well, it's certainly not a widely accepted theory

But very interesting nonetheless. The arguments make quite a bit of sense to me, but I'm still eager to see how the field develops.

[MonkeyFunk]

4. I'm enjoying it...

I love when Hitchens dismissed a long-winded question with "Your question is gibberish. Next."

[badgerpup]

6. I'm sorry...but this whole thing was STUPID.

"Bong hits for Jesus"...can somebody not tell when their chain is being yanked?
:banghead:

...and here's the Supreme Court putting on their serious legal faces and jumping through all the hoops to make it look like they're taking it seriously...when you know damn well what they REALLY want to do is throw the kid in jail for even MENTIONING bong hits, let alone in the same sentence with their hands-off Holy Boy...

I know, free speech, First Amendment and all that...but jeez, people!
When did we lose any last vestige of common sense...or the ability to THINK about something before flying off the handle?
:argh:

[Blue_In_AK]

7. The really ironic part

is that bong hits aren't even illegal in Alaska. (Well, maybe for teenagers, but still....)

[H2O Man]

8. "cringe-inducing"

You are polite.

[Lilith Velkor]

9. Jesus smokes the kindest buds

Thank you, Jesus, for dank and heady nugs!

:hippie:

[and-justice-for-all]

10. "moral sense" is an innate quality of the human"

Thats a correct statement. If it was not true, then we would not be where we are now; but we would have killed ourselves off thousands/millions of years ago. Not everyone shares the same 'moral sense' as the majority, thats why we have criminals that we punish for their 'lack of moral sense' as dictated by the majority with its LAWS.

We do not fall out of the womb knowing what 'moral sense' is, we dont even know of our own existence until we reach a certain age. But we do have ingrained into us a 'basic sense of morals', sometimes this fails and we end up with a criminal. The majority moral code is taught and learned, but if you take a child who has not been taught what societies rules are, he/she will still maintain its 'basic moral sense'. Moral sense is part of our most premitive survial skills, without it we would not be where we are today.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. Nonsense

"Morality" as we understand it, has a distinct history that is the subject of numerous fascinating studies. None of it has anything to do with "innateness;" rather, it is about complex processes of socialization that operate much differently from society to society, and enter into variations. That is, unless your bar for moral action is "not killing everyone around one 24/7," in which case nearly every living being on earth is "moral," and morality could be chalked up to variable activity, but we're left with a somewhat laughably low bar. "Morals" arise in social processes. This doesn't necessarily make them easily changeable (social processes harden into strata just like rock formations), but it doesn't make them innate, much less universal.