Skip to main content

Has Hitchens Gone Too Far?

It’s one thing to deny the existence of God and incur the relatively harmless wrath of theists. It’s been a long time since thumbscrews were applied to atheists. It’s quite another thing, much more dangerous, to assert that women as a species don’t need to be funny largely because beauty is magically attractive to men whose senses of humor are equally attractive to women. Hitchen's theory is that beautiful women simply don’t need humor; men need it to attract women. This mode of reasoning is full of logical pitfalls. If Hitchens is right, how does one account for non-beautiful women in his Darwinian universe, not to mention humorless men? But notice how the agile Hitchens overleaps these obstacles in this following – dare we say it? –fetchingly humorous clip:

Comments

Anonymous said…
I wonder if this article has impaired his standing with his wife? I don't know. There may be something to men having more incentive to be funny because it attracts women, but I don't think that that makes women unfunny. If it did, and women were humorless, why would they then be attracted to funny men?
Don Pesci said…
You're thinking again Michael -- very dangerous.
Don Pesci said…
As to any possible rupture with his wife, these things are common in marriages. According to his theory, she'll abide with him because of his wit and humor, which do not age. Beauty is a different thing "Gather ye'rosebuds while ye may" and all that. My own theory is that sound marriages are based on honor and fidelity, and not so fragile a thing as beauty and wit, though both help.
Anonymous said…
She has also probably come to expect a good range of surprising and passionately espoused opinions to come tumbling out of her husband.
Anonymous said…
BTW I'm not sure that Hitch actually maintains HitchensWeb himself. I think someone else does. Either way, it goes several months without being updated.

Popular posts from this blog

Donna

I am writing this for members of my family, and for others who may be interested.   My twin sister Donna died a few hours ago of stage three lung cancer. The end came quickly and somewhat unexpectedly.   She was preceded in death by Lisa Pesci, my brother’s daughter, a woman of great courage who died still full of years, and my sister’s husband Craig Tobey Senior, who left her at a young age with a great gift: her accomplished son, Craig Tobey Jr.   My sister was a woman of great strength, persistence and humor. To the end, she loved life and those who loved her.   Her son Craig, a mere sapling when his father died, has grown up strong and straight. There is no crookedness in him. Thanks to Donna’s persistence and his own native talents, he graduated from Yale, taught school in Japan, there married Miyuki, a blessing from God. They moved to California – when that state, I may add, was yet full of opportunity – and both began to carve a living for them...

The Blumenthal Burisma Connection

Steve Hilton , a Fox News commentator who over the weekend had connected some Burisma corruption dots, had this to say about Connecticut U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal’s association with the tangled knot of corruption in Ukraine: “We cross-referenced the Senate co-sponsors of Ed Markey's Ukraine gas bill with the list of Democrats whom Burisma lobbyist, David Leiter, routinely gave money to and found another one -- one of the most sanctimonious of them all, actually -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal."

The Murphy Thingy

It’s the New York Post , and so there are pictures. One shows Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy canoodling with “Courier Newsroom publisher Tara McGowan, 39, last Monday by the bar at the Red Hen, located just one mile north of Capitol Hill.”   The canoodle occurred one day or night prior to Murphy’s well-advertised absence from President Donald Trump’s recent Joint Address to Congress.   Murphy has said attendance at what was essentially a “campaign rally” involving the whole U.S. Congress – though Democrat congresspersons signaled their displeasure at the event by stonily sitting on their hands during the applause lines – was inconsistent with his dignity as a significant part of the permanent opposition to Trump.   Reaching for his moral Glock Murphy recently told the Hartford Courant that Democrat Party opposition to President Donald Trump should be unrelenting and unforgiving: “I think people won’t trust you if you run a campaign saying that if Donald Trump is ...