In The Tradition Of P.T. Barnum
Hitchens on Mother Theresa and other exploiters in the name of religion in Free Inquiry:
Even though I have sometimes described her as a fraud (for her collusion with rich oppressors of the poor like the Duvalier family in Haiti and for her other corrupt dealings), I would now hesitate to put Mother Teresa in the same category as a Falwell, a Haggard, a Sharpton, or a Robertson. These men have never done a day’s real work in their lives and are or were simple parasites who pinch themselves every morning at their good fortune at living the easy life of exploiting the gullible. For them, religion is nothing more than a trade, or a racket.The same, I think, can be said of the numberless clerics convicted of child-rape (why on earth do we allow ourselves the silly euphemism of “abuse”?). Their foul crime is not one of hypocrisy. No priest who sincerely believed even for ten seconds in divine judgment could conceivably endanger his immortal soul in this way, and those in the hierarchy who helped protect such men from punishment in this world are equally and obviously guilty of a hardened and ob scene cynicism.
To any humanist, for example, it’s perfectly obvious that the city of Calcutta would benefit from an influx of volunteer nurses, doctors, inoculators, sewage experts, and others, just as it would not benefit from the attentions of people who regard poverty and death as a secondhand share in the "mystery" of the Crucifixion. There are actually quite a good number of activists of the first type (I spent some time there once, watch ing the great Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado do his work for UNICEF documenting the massive campaign for vaccination against polio), but for some weird reason the only person anyone can name is a woman who spent her entire life campaigning against birth control—a stupid campaign that Bengal most definitely did not and does not need.
Is it not possible that the missionaries of "faith" regard the objects of their charity as mere raw material—human subjects for a tortured experiment in their own psyches? It seems that, the more Mother Teresa lost conviction in the teachings of her religion, the more energetically she silenced her doubts by ostentatious crusades against divorce, abortion, and contraception using "the poorest of the poor" as her backdrop and her excuse. And does this not degrade such work as she actually did? For her, the helpless beggar was just that—helpless, to be sure, yet for that reason easily available for her own exhausting propaganda. The case for assisting starving Bengalis is complete on its own terms, but most of the money raised for the "Missionaries of Charity" went—as Mother Teresa herself happily admitted—to the building of convents that were consecrated, in effect, to her own ambition and her own very extreme teaching of Catholic dogma. These preach ings went dead against the only certain cure for poverty—the emancipation of women from the status and condition of breeding machines—that the human race has ever discovered.
Read the whole thing, as Reynolds would say. Up there at the link.
There's lot's I could say but I think I'll just sum it up with.
Yup.
Simon Proctor at February 1, 2008 6:31 AM
Two great blog posts in one short morning
Crid at February 1, 2008 6:38 AM
"it’s perfectly obvious that the city of Calcutta would benefit from an influx of volunteer nurses, doctors, inoculators, sewage experts, and others"
What is not so obvious is by what means all these helpful people could be brought into a troubled area. The nuns were allowed in because they posed no threat to the political establishment. Their agenda, flawed as it was, was a known quantity. Even the idealistic, starry eyed volunteers of the Peace Corp have been suspected of being spies and had their efforts, and results, diminished by having to contend with a cloud of suspicion and fear.
In a perfect world, there would be no idealists.
martin at February 1, 2008 6:43 AM
Well yeah but, I'd like to point out that she was in fact preaching the ULTIMATE birth control. Last I checked nuns are celibate. That becoming a nun would lead to freeing women from the status and conditions of breeding machines.
The rest he's dead on. The deeper the faith the more fanatical the faithful the easier to manipulate.
vlad at February 1, 2008 6:43 AM
"Well yeah but, I'd like to point out that she was in fact preaching the ULTIMATE birth control."
I think the ULTIMATE birth control sounds like "aaaargh, you got me! [splat!!]" doesn't it, vlad?
But, as you say, otherwise dead on!
Jody Tresidder at February 1, 2008 6:49 AM
> Their agenda, flawed as it
> was, was a known quantity
Don't lowball. There's essentially nothing to admire about the efforts these people made on behalf of the dying; they celebrated the suffering. If I am to die that way --which even in the elegant United States is no small probability for me, or for you-- please God, spare me from the nuns and believers and any other cloying company: Let me coil in quiet wretchedness in a lonely corner and wait for the lights to go out.
I see what you're getting at: They weren't political. But they didn't help, so who cares?
> becoming a nun would lead
> to freeing women from the
> status and conditions of
> breeding machines.
Hitchens may have great fears about overpopulation, but I've never heard him suggest that anyone shouldn't have children... That's not his interest. (I think he has three kids.) I think it's silly to worry about women as "breeding machines." It's a fear that blends the shallowness of cheap science fiction and Alan Alda politics. But if you're the kind who gets cranked about that stuff, you can't admire the foolishness that the Church puts into women's heads.
Crid at February 1, 2008 7:13 AM
Two great blog posts in one short morning
Thanks...makes me feel better about yesterday being a little sparse. Was exhausted and slept for 12 hours after I got to SF (where I'm whoring my work at an alternative newspaper conference).
Amy Alkon at February 1, 2008 7:46 AM
"There's essentially nothing to admire about the efforts these people made on behalf of the dying..."
I am almost intrigued by "essentially" but, meh, nobody said admire. It's easy to point out what's wrong with anybody's effort at anything but harder to describe how it should be.
So many seemingly smart and decent people give two minutes thought to a place like Calcutta and decide that the heart of the problem is that there are just too darn many of those people. It is not "humanist" to treat people like an infestation to be abated.
martin at February 1, 2008 7:49 AM
becoming a nun would lead to freeing women from the status and conditions of breeding machines.
Um, a little bit of education would accomplish this in a much less restrictive way, no? o_O
Flynne at February 1, 2008 7:49 AM
"please God, spare me from the nuns and believers" Huh, interesting choice of words.
vlad at February 1, 2008 8:05 AM
"Um, a little bit of education would accomplish this in a much less restrictive way, no?" Yeah absolutely wasn't questioning this.
vlad at February 1, 2008 8:12 AM
> I am almost intrigued
> by "essentially"
A sister (a real sister) of mine spent her life caring for the mentally retarded. (I gave it a few afternoons as a teenager and moved on.) We see that some people are simply unable to handle human incapacity in any meaningful degree, and will run screaming from the room whenever they encounter it. Maybe we should credit Teresa and her acolytes for resisting this apparently natural urge, but to do so belittles humanity more than it flatters Agnes Bojaxhiu.
> It's easy to point out what's
> wrong with anybody's effort at
> anything but harder to describe
> how it should be.
Let's give it a shot: In a better world, mortally stricken illiterates in backwards cultures who could be strengthened or soothed by modern medicine aren't herded into theatrical suffering collectives for the aggrandizement of a faithless, bitter virgin who funds her fame by exploiting the brainless vipers of the capitalist west.
That wasn't so tough after all!
> decide that the heart of the
> problem is that there are just
> too darn many of those people.
Who decided that? Who's making that case? Not Amy, not Hitch, not any commenter on this stack. You're the one who brought it up.
Hi, Vladster!
Crid at February 1, 2008 8:41 AM
"...their good fortune at living the easy life of exploiting the gullible..."
I must admit I am tempted to exploit the gullible. It seems so easy, and I can almost convince myself they deserve to be exploited.
Oh ... did I say that out loud?
Norman at February 1, 2008 8:45 AM
Wow, what I say that got Crid foaming at the mouth? He invoked god and is pissed at me for pointing it out. Trying to pass it off as sarcasm nice try.
vlad at February 1, 2008 9:13 AM
"but to do so belittles humanity more than it flatters Agnes Bojaxhiu."
That might be a really good point. We won't know until someone figures out if we do more good by using vacation time to bathe wretched pustules or working hard at what we love so as to expand the economy. It takes a very specific cant of mind to calculate just where MT belongs among the vilest people who have ever lived.
"That wasn't so tough after all!"
Well I hope not because it's just a negation of someone else's concept. How about food trucks and medical vans protected by infantry supported by tanks and aircraft based on a fortified complex flying a colored piece of cloth on a pole? (Quick, what color cloth?)
"You're the one who brought it up."
I don't know where I could've gotten the idea.
martin at February 1, 2008 9:20 AM
" becoming a nun would lead to freeing women from the status and conditions of breeding machines."
Yeah, and a complete waste of a life from a darwinian standpoint. Hmm, status of a breeding machine, or status of an underpaid slave to a church....
Smarty at February 1, 2008 9:28 AM
Ahem:
---
Web Images Maps News Shopping Gmail more ? Video Groups Books Scholar Finance Blogs YouTube Calendar Photos Documents Reader even more »
Sign in Google Advanced Search Preferences Web
No definitions were found for subtext.
Suggestions:
- Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
- Search the Web for documents that contain "subtext"
©2008 Google - Google Home - Advertising Programs - Business Solutions - About Google
---
You can't hold people accountable for "subtext". (Ask Tressider.) Hitch and Amy are libertarian types who see other human beings as solutions more than problems. And even for someone who's a problem, gratuitous suffering is not tolerable.
Crid at February 1, 2008 9:40 AM
And--
If you want to send "food trucks and medical vans protected by infantry supported by tanks and aircraft based on a fortified complex", no one's stopping you... Just put up the dough.
In real life, the infantry would presumably fly the pale blue UN flag. But if the effort was expected to be successful, the solider would all be from the States.
Crid at February 1, 2008 9:43 AM
"Quick, what color cloth?" On the tanks, the officers or tattooed on the infantry man (I mean person). The answer would be Light Blue, Light Blue, and Red White and Blue respectively.
"Yeah, and a complete waste of a life from a darwinian standpoint." No this keeps the easily lead people out of the gene pool. That's exactly how darwin works.
vlad at February 1, 2008 9:44 AM
PS- I was bluffing about the illiterate and backwards part. People who've been there see you see fewer beggars in Calcutta than in Los Angeles
Crid at February 1, 2008 10:03 AM
Hmmm, the "irony" one isn't working anymore either, I'm thinking of cancelling my subscription to Google until they get their act together.
martin at February 1, 2008 10:07 AM
Per Lao Tzu: Give a man a fish; feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; feed him for a lifetime--shove a condom in his hands and he might get the idea you think he shouldn’t have kids.
Real charity means meeting people where they are, how they are, who they are. Trying to change them (or the world) is no longer charity and the law of unintended consequences kicks in. Aiding a small, poor village seems harmless from the wealthy, Euro-American perspective. The next village over sees a generation of healthy young warriors being prepared to destroy them in ten years and so they chase off the missionaries and poison the wells.
The nuns of MT’s order run the equivalent of a hospice for a broken culture. They don’t expect to fix the problem, only to attend to suffering. I don’t find that effort especially noble or even worthwhile but the time Hitchens devotes to ascribing evil or pathological intent to MT’s work seems petty and defensive.
martin at February 1, 2008 10:31 AM
Hmmm, the "irony" one isn't working anymore either, I'm thinking of cancelling my subscription to Google until they get their act together
Wait until Microsoft buys out Yahoo. Everyting be all betta mon.
Flynne at February 1, 2008 11:02 AM
There's plenty of controversy about Mother Teresa (in fact bashing her kind of seems to be the "in" thing in the secular circle) but only now, and I find it kind of odd it all popped up only after her death. Before her death, the world and even the secular crowd regarded her as the epitome of selfless saintliness. There's really nothing to be gained by bashing her now except shocking people into paying attention, IE "OMG you're harping on Mother Teresa".
Yeah, she was against abortion, divorce, and contraception. So is the entire Catholic Church, which she was a part of. It's not surprising that's what she believed, nor is it something that she should be blamed for alone. And these kinds of articles won't change any of her ways or philosophies - she's dead, after all.
Frankly, she lived a life few people could or would. I also really can't see how spending sixty years of her life building houses for the poor for free, washing their open sores, taking in those the hospitals rejected, treating the deathly ill, and asking nothing in return is "exploiting" them. The vast majority of her time was devoted to helping the poor, not using them to preach. Just let the woman rest in peace.
I also have an issue with the phrase that "celibacy is the ULTIMATE birth control". It's not, because it relies on willpower and a low sex drive. I don't know about you, but a vow of celibacy would drive me batshit insane.
Bad Kitty at February 1, 2008 11:04 AM
"Let me coil in quiet wretchedness in a lonely corner and wait for the lights to go out."
Well, okay, but you have to promise to be quiet. One peep about "oooh my sores" and I'm letting the sisters in.
martin at February 1, 2008 11:34 AM
How much more seriously would I take Hitchens if at the end of his skreed, the last paragraph said something like: "This is how I intend to right this wrong, and change everything for the better: ..." and even better "and I will be heading to Calcutta tomorrow to begin that effort."
Otherwise? As has been pointed out, it's just carping over what cannot be changed about the past. Interestingly there don't SEEM to be that many secular humanist charities, or perhaps they don't advertize well. With the exception of the Red Cross... and I know many who have problems with them as well.
SwissArmyD at February 1, 2008 1:41 PM
> One peep about "oooh my sores"
> and I'm letting the sisters in.
Deal! Mum's th
> There's really nothing to be
> gained by bashing her now
> except shocking people
- and -
> it's just carping over what
> cannot be changed about the
> past
No, people should look back and see how wrong they were to believe this woman was so virtuous.
Crid at February 1, 2008 9:14 PM
So Mother Theresa had more than one agenda?
Big deal. She still fed more poor people than I ever did.
And yes, as an ex-Catholic I'm well aware of the stupid, dogmatic, harmful system that Rome uses against its own believers in the One True Church.
But to a starving man, a sandwich is a sandwich, and whoever is handing it to him is the saint of the moment.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 2, 2008 9:38 AM
It's an interesting notion that the women in these countries actually have a choice when it comes time to having sex. They either get married off at the age of 8 and then have to have sex with their 60 year old husbands, or they just get gang-raped by the soldiers-du-jour. I don't think them saying, "no, I believe in chastity" will make much difference.
Chrissy at February 2, 2008 5:03 PM
> to starving man, a sandwich
> is a sandwich
... And to a sickly one, medicine is a Godsend. But Teresa never offered any!
Why is this so hard for people to understand? No, she didn't "care" for the ill. She just collected them into photogenic arrays of pitiable wretchedness.
Crid at February 2, 2008 5:54 PM
"Why is this so hard for people to understand?"
It isn't at all hard to understand. You'd like to see Godwin's Law recalibrated to point to Aggie instead of the H-man. You live in a world where some dull-eyed pinhead who couldn't find India let alone Calcutta on a map will know that "Mother Theresa couldn't handle this neighborhood" means that the neighborhood is a slum. You think that she does not deserve such a reputation and I agree with you (hee hee.)
But it just doesn't bother me that much when people are held in higher public esteem than they deserve. Who does deserve that saintly reputation? Lest you answer, I submit that I'd probably be impressed with your list. But, brace yourself, splice-boy, everybody has their own list and it takes more than a spite-filled magazine article to make a dent.
You have to offer an affirmative. I mentioned the tanks and infantry above as an allusion to the massacre in Mogadishu. Everyone meant well and children were killed by mini-guns.
I'll use the word "hospice" again to see if it gains any traction. The sisters are running a hospice for a fucked-up situation. They know they can't fix it. Maybe they are vultures, using hardship to advance their organization (okay, strike the "maybe" it's what they are doing.) But until you can point to the better alternative (ignoring the problem doesn't count) you have to dial down your sense of self-righteous indignation and comment about music or cool electronics.
martin at February 3, 2008 8:16 AM
Crid -
Thank you for putting it so succinctly.
BK -
There's plenty of controversy about Mother Teresa (in fact bashing her kind of seems to be the "in" thing in the secular circle) but only now, and I find it kind of odd it all popped up only after her death.
Maybe, just maybe, it's because many of us, were completely unaware that she wasn't the paragon of virtue she seemed to be.
Just let the woman rest in peace.
Certainly, when those who want to continue to extol her "saintliness" do too. Though I completely fail to understand what exactly the point of doing so is. Would you rather she was demonized while she was still alive? She's dead. Meanwhile the vile institution she was a part of, is still very much alive and still perpetuating it's insane message of extreme propagation. Live in poverty, so what? Make more and more babies. Have a husband who works in the city and probably fucks hookers, so what? It's your duty to sex him anyways and gods forbid if you want him to wear a rubber.
She has always been a symbol of what little is positive about the Catholic church. I had no problem with that, believing that the symbol was the reality. But seeing as the reality is, and always was, the symbol, not the good, that she was nothing more than a PR ploy, I have nothing but disdain. So no, I will most assuredly not let the women rest in peace. Especially as nothing I, or anyone else has to say, can effect her in the least.
DuWayne at February 3, 2008 8:19 AM
If only MT was a proper athiest, then we could extol her virtues: social justice - help the poor (no matter how you try to deflect that basic truth; lifestyle with minimal carbon footprint - check; reject capitalist model of wealth accumulation at the expense of the third world- check; life of chastity does not pollute earth with additonal icecap-melting offspring - check. MH can dress up kicking a dead nun in a high-falutin' intellectual discourse but it is still dead nun kicking. Plenty to criticize about religions of the world, but if you look at MT's life of charitable work and find anger in your soul, the problem ain't MT.
Mike S at February 3, 2008 3:03 PM
Read Hitchens on MT and you'll discover the kind of person she actually was as opposed to the popular notion of her as some sainted savior.
Amy Alkon at February 3, 2008 3:36 PM
Mike S -
Bullshit. Pure and simple bullshit. MT was nothing more than a PR campaign and not a very kind and loving one at that.
BTW, I'm not a proper atheist myself. Not that I have a problem with atheists, just don't buy it myself. One needn't be anything in particular religion wise, to be a great person. MT just doesn't fit the bill by a long shot.
DuWayne at February 3, 2008 4:57 PM
Sometimes I think the best explanation for why people like Hitchens are so clueless is that they live in a different universe. In Hitchens' bizarro-world, socialism is actually compatible with human nature, and a socialist's expression of concern for the poor is actually credible.
Hank at February 4, 2008 7:51 AM
So what exactly is the complaint, Crid? That someone helped in a less-than-effective fashion, ran an irrational agenda based on Large Man In Sky Watches You Pee And Keeps Score, and had a great PR team to boot?
At this point it's time for the critics to move to Calcutta, open shop, and do a better job than Mom Terry. Otherwise it's just more sideline carping that accomplishes nothing.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 4, 2008 8:42 AM
Leave a comment