--- Delirium <delirium(a)rufus.d2g.com> wrote:
Given that she was awarded India's highest
civilian
honor, it must be
the case that this view is far from universal, given
also that the
Indian government has essentially no Christian
representatives.
It may be that Hitchen's view is correct (I have yet
to read other, less polemic critiques ) but it may
also be that he is misreading the situation. The
local perception could be that being given food
scraps, shoddy medicine, a paper napkin to wear,
shelter, a little conversation about God, are at least
a little bit more than what they would have had
otherwise. Nobody there really cares too much about
the dogmatic political aspect. There has been plenty
a secular humanist who cried "save the poor" but
themselves did little to do so. When in the context
of "utterly shitty," "pretty crappy" is actually not
that bad.
So I dont buy Hitchen's anti-dogma argument -except in
the international context, where MT was used
politically. So, untimately I dislike the desparaging
of MT, the woman for simply going with the flow of
opportunity, when Western would found in her a nice
ugly, propagandizable woman to soothe its aching moral
concience. On that point Hitchens is correct -- the
problem is, that his criticism is attached to *her,
rather than to Western culture's *use of her. Pin the
tail on the Donkey, not the nun, in other words. But
he was just doing some actual *reporting --the kind
that other people (like journalists) neglected to do
in the first place.
That she used her funds to advance dogmatic
Catholicism is rather expected. She could never have
imagined how the Westernized world would come to
percieve her, let alone have anticipated being
appointed (used) in the way she was.
Could she have started an upstart church, to challenge
the ways and doctines to which she had devoted most of
her life? One might have an easier time trying to
convince Kip Thorne that Einstein and Feinman were
Satans little helpers --or convince The Queen of
England to abolish the Monarchy as a useless little
relic of antiquated feudalism.
~S~
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com