You know who’s gonna win, but oh, the delight of the combat. Last week the Prince of Wales gave a silly speech in which he blamed science (and Galileo!) on the “mechanistic viewpoint” that is sucking the very soul form humanity. His remedy? Religion, of course—and mentions Islam very favorably. Prince Charles has of course been a sucker for many forms of woo, including homeopathy, but this talk was about as dumb as anything he’s ever said (in public, that is).
I didn’t want to post on HRH’s talk, but Hitchens did on Slate:
None of this might matter very much, until you notice the venue at which Charles delivered his farrago of nonsense. It was unleashed upon an audience at the Center for Islamic Studies at Oxford University, an institution of which he is the patron. Nor is this his only foray into Islamophilia. Together with the Saudi royal family, he supported the mosque in North London that acted as host and incubator to Richard “Shoe Bomber” Reid, the hook-handed Abu Hamza al-Masri, and several other unsavory customers. The prince’s official job description as king will be “defender of the faith,” which currently means the state-financed absurdity of the Anglican Church, but he has more than once said publicly that he wants to be anointed as defender of all faiths—another indication of the amazing conceit he has developed in six decades of performing the only job allowed him by the hereditary principle: that of waiting for his mother to expire. . .
So this is where all the vapid talk about the “soul” of the universe is actually headed. Once the hard-won principles of reason and science have been discredited, the world will not pass into the hands of credulous herbivores who keep crystals by their sides and swoon over the poems of Khalil Gibran. The “vacuum” will be invaded instead by determined fundamentalists of every stripe who already know the truth by means of revelation and who actually seek real and serious power in the here and now. One thinks of the painstaking, cloud-dispelling labor of British scientists from Isaac Newton to Joseph Priestley to Charles Darwin to Ernest Rutherford to Alan Turing and Francis Crick, much of it built upon the shoulders of Galileo and Copernicus, only to see it casually slandered by a moral and intellectual weakling from the usurping House of Hanover. An awful embarrassment awaits the British if they do not declare for a republic based on verifiable laws and principles, both political and scientific.
I’m usually not one to argue tone, but in this case Hitchens makes me almost feel pity for Chuckboy.
His ideas are stupid enough that it should be enough to attack them instead of making fun of his looks and his taste in women.
If it keeps the heir apparent where he belongs, to wit, at supermarket openings, and away from attempts to shape public opinion, bring on the tone.
I laughed out loud several times reading Hitchens article.
Yep, blame Galileo for the oil spill. Who knew.
Hitchens is great. Most of the time.
He’s a wee bit off with the “usurping House of Hanover” though. For the last century and a half it has been the house of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha – or at least it was until a tactical name change was made a war or two ago. Yes, George I (the first English king of the House of Hanover) was a pretty absurd choice of king – he couldn’t even speak English. But it was hardly his fault that the English had decided to ban non-Protestants from the throne and that he was Queen Anne’s nearest protestant relative. So while his case is a stark illustration of the absurdity of hereditary heads of state, a usurper he was not.
Yep, and Empress Victoria, the first-and-only would indeed have been Queen of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha if not for the Germanic rule against female succession.
Hitch-21-and-a-half’s choice of ‘scientists’ is a tad weird too. No mention of, for instance, PAM Dirac, but he includes Joseph Priestly – who was indeed very ‘priestly’ and whose staunch refusal to accept the evidence on phlogiston put him squarely into the Prince Chuck brotherhood.
Ernest Rutherford wasn’t even British – he was a New Zealander. And he might have considered mentioning the Braggs – Bragg pere was British, but Bragg fils, who presided over the ground-breaking work of Rosalind Franklin (who is far more to be credited with discovering the helix that Crick) was an Australian.
So, was Hitch engaging in saome satirical msidirection just to fire up our renthusiam, do you think, or is he really as ignorant as he appears ?
Ooops,
“some satirical misdirection” and “enthusiasm” are what was intended intended.
Back in his day, Rutherford was British: a New Zealand citizen and a British subject or some such formulation. All that got kicked over a few decades ago.
I don’t think that history is shored up the facts. IIRC Franklin sat on the very photos that could test Crick’s model, but didn’t consider the ramifications.
That is likely why she let Crick partake, and thus ‘the snatch’.
My favorite bit: “Once the hard-won principles of reason and science have been discredited, the world will not pass into the hands of credulous herbivores who keep crystals by their sides and swoon over the poems of Khalil Gibran. The “vacuum” will be invaded instead by determined fundamentalists of every stripe who already know the truth by means of revelation and who actually seek real and serious power in the here and now.”
Hey, where’s the “morose bat-eared” bit?
Charles Windsor is a gift from Ceiling Cat to any staunch anti-royalist like meh.
Nothing will hasten the downfall of monarchy that that idiot at the head of the UK (and Oz, Canada…?) to hasten the demise of that feudal system. Here’s hoping a domino effect will hit the monarchies of scandinavia afterwards.
Please, don’t put the Swedish royals in the same class.
Swedish royals do not have any privileges except titles (no money from government, no tax exemptions etc) and place in tabloids. I would wish the same fate should hit royals in UK.
Some changes to constitution would be good too. The structure of UK parliament is in essence at worst unjust and ineffective at best where unelected bishops and lords still can amend or veto bills.
British people should do something about that, hopefully soon.
My apologies. I should not have tarred the Scandinavian royals with the same brush.
For a brief period, the Romans solved the problem of hereditary monarchy (which is that the heir to the throne might be a lackwit): the reigning emperor would adopt as son and heir some outstanding man who had distinguished himself in administrative and military affairs. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth could still do the same.
But once you permit that, the whole farce falls apart. Why value the singular opinion of the previous ruler over the opinions of all the people?
Ernest Rutherford was a New Zealander, not British as Hitchens states.
I detest hereditary monarchy as much the next person, but in all honesty I fully expect that similar rubbish is uttered by democratically elected leaders. Bonnie Prince Charlie may be a dim bulb, but he knows what audience he has to please.
Yes, but democratically elected leaders generally don’t stick around uttering it for several decades.
That is true. We get rotating fools instead.
It keeps them from getting stale.
But status of Monarchy gives Charlie free platform to throw such rubbish into public view. Elected idiots must at least work their way and find sufficient number of similarly talented folks to be elected in the first place.
Here is an example of one of our own elected, powerful, and respected leaders making pretty idiotic remarks.
http://tinyurl.com/32mdn9s
I don’t seem to be able to get beyond page one on the comments page. Does that sound like a browser problem?
I’ve been having the same problem with this for a couple of days. I thought it was my cack-handedness.