Hitchens the Atheist Scourge of Believers and Unrepentant Contrarian only appears in the pages of Vanity Fair, or his books, occasionally here on Slate. The other Hitchens, Waugh manqué, Blimp-ish caricature of various Ford Maddox Ford characters, semi-official Stately Pundit for neo-conservatism & advocate of neo-liberal imperialism, appears in The Weekly Standard, takes up the rest of his Slate space and does mediocre, petty ad hominem "literary criticism" in Atlantic Monthly (no to wanton, sloppy, self-absorbed Jew sex (Roth); yes to squeamish, puerile, self-abnegating Brit sex (McEwan)) or The New York Times.

Does that mean Hitchens is two-faced, forked of tongue, a hypocritical or schizophrenic operator? Well, maybe; but not really necessarily, so to speak. No one more than a writer who likes to publish a lot, in a wide array of publishing outlets, to say nothing of a real media whore like our hero, knows and understands the degree to which one tends to tailor the message to the audience. Editors often demand it, in fact.

Now imagine you're trying to straddle two diametrically opposed worlds. One claims that only authentic cultural identity and divine sanction can convey authority; the other rejects the moral relevance of such categories out of hand, subtly but unmistakably seeks to impose a counter-anathema on anyone who broaches such ideas in polite, civilized debate. Each party condemns the other, wishes the other's utter demise by the most violent means if necessary.

So Tariq Ramadan is getting bashed again by a neocon-lib know-it-all. Hitchens is much less thorough than Paul Berman [ <link> ]­, but no less perfunctory and arbitrary. Ramadan has written books addressing huge themes. He says he would like to forge a new path into utterly virgin territory, toward an accommodation between the most hidebound radical fundamentalism and a modernism that eschews any link to the theological past of our culture. He declares himself a tribune of tolerant, democratic Islam, an Islam that can make a home for itself within a multicultural society without violence or the subjugation of women. But you wouldn't know it, from all the reductive quote-mangling and mongering, the paranoid context-mashing in which his frothing detractors indulge themselves.

It may be that he's trying to square a circle, to harmonize spheres which are irredeemably dissonant; but you would think those who rush to bash him with gotcha take-downs and the most illiberal sort of witch-hunt logic (guilt by lineage - how civilized!) would at least stop for an instant to express an iota of sympathy for his stated aims. No, you are not going to eliminate Islam and its more recalcitrant, atavistic hypostases by sheer bluster, by military invasion or moral denunciation. Someone, somewhere, is going to have to do for today's Islam what Herder did for the more nativist, mystical strands of German religiosity, to make them consonant with a modern, secular society without depriving them of their cultural authority -- to retro-"classicize" them. And without the benefit of a latter day Kant to fight with, to play off of, to set rigorous intellectual boundaries defining the parameters of enlightened political morality.

So no, it's not silly to stop and think about the "space" and "discourse" where the theological might intersect with the political. Even if you dislike some specific aspect of whatever Ramadan's proposing as an accommodation between Islam and the West you should begin by acknowledging that some such rapprochement is the best that could possibly be hoped for in the current situation, if not the best of all possible worlds. Ramadan may contradict the haditha in his definition of what constitutes truth for Muslims -- all the better, one would think! Rather than accusing him of insincerity, why doesn't Hitchens welcome the possibility of a challenge to a particular dogma from within that community? It's as if he can't think, can't breathe, except in the presence of a stick-figure anti-caricature of his own Atheist Absolutism, or as if he were almost physically addicted to the emotional rush of pure, unadulterated imprecation.

T’would appear that you are no stranger Sir to the slide of naming names taken down for pleasure when lambasting another for an opinion which is in only one word different from yours. Please familiarize yourself with a Hitchens sentence given early on which is not a sledge hammer, “I would say that the problem is not quite that” , describing Ramadan. There is an air of diplomacy in it that you’ve managed away because of your ability to want otherwise……..Congratulations little man !!( I am not a Republican but if you speak that sentence with an Arnold Schwarzenegger accent it’s kind ‘a fun )

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As for C. Hitchens , he is more courageous and important and fun to read or watch than you and I will ever be. He is simply stating what is true. Yes Mr. Ramadan may very well be well intentioned, and I wish him a future, but I wonder if ever he does in fact state that Mr. Hitchens is wrong. Ever. I leave you my case with a quote from a Mr. Darrow, another forager for a kind of truth who spoke of it so well..........................­.......................-------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­-------------------------As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever. Clarence Darrow 1857-1938

Yes, I see, he did say that thing you quoted. And was being quite disingenuous when he did so. For the rest of the column goes on to solicit the very indictment discussed above, ie, that Ramadan's "playing" us.

However, it should be noted that at this point in the argument the ground of Hitchens' anti-Ramadan invective changes, subtly but tellingly. Now we're to believe that Ramadan's crime is not so much that he "suspiciously" fails to achieve an outright denunciation of stoning women, but that he withholds his condemnation from the religion in its entirety, that he can't bring himself to denounce Islam qua Islam. Hitchens parries Ramadan's silence on the proof-passage haditha espousing conversion-via-coercion by trying to make of this reticence evidence dispositive of the Muslim scholar's insincerity, when he could just as easily have treated Ramadan's attitude as a sign of the latter's willingness to attempt a genuine Reformation of Muslim beliefs.

This is throwing the enlightened baby out with the holy water, for Ramadan's avowed goal -- making modernity speak to basic Islamic political and cultural concerns -- is one we should all share. It's the only way to a productive engagement with the demons of the Middle East and away from endless gotterdammerung-stoking. Unfortunately, Hitchens is too busy discrediting Ramadan to even listen to his idea.

That's gotta piss you off.

and what exactly is it about his turgid, incoherent prose that appeals to you?

The stupidity? the pomposity? the silly, spasmodic gestures?

Thanks for casting your x-ray vision on my dark, twisted soul.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder , as are your wee fits little man………..

The thing about chickenhawk trolls is that they know there is a term called "good writing,” and they know that it refers to something, but they really can't follow the thought much further. But wow: do they excel at seeking out individuals who express ideas that seem to vary from *Authorized Rightwing Talking Points*, then subsequently rallying around said individual for a good ol’ proverbial ad hominem water balloon fight. The more cohorts they can get to help lob soakers at some lone unsuspecting librull, the better. The relative anonymity of the internet is a big help in these matters, and there’s nothing like a comment thread following an article that people might want to talk about—if they can deluge the scene with inanity before the conversation gets very far, so that everyone sighs and goes somewhere else, well, that’s winning. At this they are just so very, very good.

How’s it feel to be good at something for once in your life, J.L.? How bout you, BaldTony? Feel like big men, ja, with ze Schwarzenegger accents, ja? Achtung. Ja.

Surely you don't think that Haags attack on Hitchens is an example of good writing . His is merely an opinion wrapped with venom thrown toward a man who has made many a valid point while taking Ramadan to task for his important errors . And surely making fun of an individual for being as relf righteous as Hagg or you for that matter all while accusing Hitchens of the same, is done in the spirit of fun which is meant to benefit Hagg as much as anyone else who is good at laughter......................­..............................­. p.s. just because Haag is an idiot who has worded and chosen his battles poorly does not allow for me to win , in spite of your recommendation that I indulge myself with childish idiotic or pleasurable thinking....Your form of vanity and narcissism clearly has you in Haags camp warming yourselvs by the fire.

The problem is that there's no real wit or humor in your post, just as there are no "valid points" in Hitchens' attack on Ramadan, which (like Berman's 50 page Ramadan-hating screed) consists of nothing but guilt by association. So if you really want to get this discussion on some firm intellectual ground, please tell us: just what proof exactly do you have that Ramadan is insincere? And if you honestly don't believe that any accommodation with political Islam is in any way thinkable, what's your solution? Endless war, perhaps?

Unfortunately, I'm not a right-winger. I was only commenting on the simple fact that while Hitchens may have some political views with which I disagree, he expresses them in a very entertaining manner. He's a real writer, which is why all those magazines Mark cites pay him and don't pay Mark.

Do you get that the fact that his ideas are expressed in merely an entertaining manner is the problem? Even if I agreed that Hitchens was entertaining (and I don't) the problem is that, in all the articles I've ever read, he's never convincing (!!!). His "arguments" are nothing but lose rhetoric and bland attempts to score points that someone should have told him a long time ago is no real substitute for sound evidence and sound and valid reasoning. He's either merely providing some kind of neocon commentary on an issue (which would put him in league with Bill O' Riley) or he's trying to make a point. If it's the latter than (prose aside) he's actually a completely awful writer, because nothing he says should ever convince you of anything. He gets away with this sloppiness because he is, quite obviously, preaching to the choir and the choir doesn't care if the preacher knows his stuff, they just want to be able to say "Testify!" at the end of the sermon.

If you like political commentary then read something by Noam Chomsky. Say what you like about his conclusions, at least he attempts to offer reasoned arguments, ones where the premises support his conclusions, for the positions he holds. Hitchens could learn A LOT from him.

I have never seen Hitchen write about the same topic in a different way: the war, Islamism, religion, you name it. He is a broken record on all of these issues. You describe how he discusses different topics in different arenas.That is not even really similar to discussing the same topic differently in different arenas.

Ramadan should be CHALLENGED to say what he believes. If he sympathizes with the direct enemies of liberal society-- terrorists and strict theocracies--then those of us who don't really forgive those alliances have a right to know, even if many academics will stick their heads in the sand for the sake of a false cosmopolitanism and allow Ramadan to go on intellectualizing oppressive and backwards ideologies.

to Haag and others the following ------------------------Valid Point Number 1 -- Sir- Hitchens speaking of Ramadan (in the article which you didn’t like but nevertheless apparently “read” not well )…“and in Mantua described the idea of stoning adulterous women as "unimplementable." This is something less than a full condemnation….” :::::::::::::::::::::::The point of this might be for anyone who is willing to consider it a point is the following - The stoning of women is no more acceptable to many people in the world as was the case and always will be to the burning of women by the Catholic Church. It is the evil of misogyny running through the veins of hate mongers of the world uniting. Just because I am or would have been against the burning of women does not mean I am against the Catholic Church .Any more than the fact that people are allowed to be disgusted by the stoning of innocent women and not be accused of being against Islam. For a man to publicly declare himself a figure who wants to change Islam without condemning outright the practice of stoning, is a litmus test for a an artist who manufactures bullshit .Your fallible logic at Hitchens is the weakness of your ill considered fortress. Hitchens demands for the world a sincere accounting for the horrific practices in Islam. While Ramadan looks the other way ,I shall never. Nor will the women who wait and wonder. ------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­-------------

Valid Point Number 2--Ramadans “gifts directed to Hamas' "humanitarian" and "relief" wing “ supposedly is the work of a man who represents change ? Giving to Hamas no more represents change than does the billions of dollars that this government gives to the state of Israel . The Israeli state bombs innocent cities to the ground , and assassinates anyone it chooses. It wants nothing to do with respecting the enemy. It makes and needs the enemy to feed it’s addiction to hate and war. If anyone said that supporting the state of Israel by giving them money is going to change the middle east , they would be delusional , as is our policy of ever accommodating their madness. And in spite of my position on Israel, I actually love the idea of it and I really think that it could be a paradise someday .Why should an intellectual such as Ramadan be allowed to align himself with an organization that refuses to accept the state of Israel? How in the hell is that progress? That donation is a declaration of war . No if ands or buts. Hitchens statement of Ramadan that “ His day-to-day politics have the same surreptitious air to them.” regarding his donation to Hamas, is really when you think about it , quite mild considering what he could have said. ------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­---------------------------- Valid Point Number 3--This might be for myself and all concerned the most important point that Hitchens makes in my opinion , and I am grateful for it. “ Ramadan often relies on the ignorance of his Western audiences. He maintained that there was no textual authority for the killing of those who abandon their fealty to Islam, whereas the Muslim hadith, which have canonical authority, prescribe death as the punishment for apostasy in so many words.“ If you are willing to have Ramadan who is a very sincere man pull the wool over your eyes so that you never have to comprehend the intractable religious insanity which insulates Islam and governs much of it , then there is nothing that Hitchens can do for you. But it is not for the lack of trying, I assure you. ------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------ It is one thing to leave the country’s that practice Islam alone because self determination is their right, it is another to roam the world in an attempt convince me that the burning of women needs a comeback , or the stoning of them is ever a possibility.------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­- I am not wanting to allow for a man who goes by the name of Ramadan ( not that there’s anything wrong with that )who supposedly desires change to escape the important life and death new questions and barbs of my point man Hitchens. The direction that Islam will take in the future if any, will have to be one day lead by men far more brave than Ramadan is , and Hitchens is merely pointing that out . And I am grateful once again for all his efforts. If Islam were to progress rapidly overnight and promote women’s rights and other beautiful things, I suspect that I might run into Hitchens at the party. I might even shake his hand and have a drink for the first time in 14 years. ------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­------------------------------­-------------- The whole world is watching. And as Dorothy Parker once said-“You can't teach an old dogma new tricks.” It is up to Islam to prove her wrong , and Ramadan ‘aint the one.

to death is just plain wrong even if some people don't like using words such as "wrong" to describe elements of cultures other than our own? I'm shocked.

So you expect someone to pop on to the scene some day soon and just transform Islam into an enlightened cultural institution, magically perhaps, with a wave of a wand. A culture as entrenched in its ways and mores as Islam will only ever react to a direct punitive challenge in the most paranoid, defensive and aggressive way possible.

No, that doesn't mean you give up and acquiesce. It's like trying to talk someone off the ledge. You have to maneuver them, getting them to reason one step or shuffle at a time; and to be able to do that, you have to be able to approach the subject from a position of profound familiarity, even intimacy. Ramadan's stated goal is to stand up for a modern and textually faithful Islam. It's double bind, an impossible situation. So seriously, what do you expect? Be plausible, be reasonable, be fair, please.

Ramadan has stated unequivocally that he is against violence and against violence toward women specifically. But he is not an atheist, and does not want to cede the ground of "authenticity" nor the textual tradition to the fundamentalists. He sees quite clearly, and any reasonable person would agree, that it's pointless to stand in front of a group of radical fundamentalists and try to convince them that their interpretation of the Koran's teaching on punishing adulterous women is wrong. So he tells them that the modern world just won't let them behave like that - it's impracticable, or whatever the Arabic equivalent would be. In its own way, that's an even more powerful argument against tradition: this particular act simply cannot be, whatever you think of its theological merits.

Similarly, when he says there's no textual authority for violence in Islam, what he clearly intends to convey to the fundamentalist audience is this: the texts that do speak of violence have lost their authority in the modern world and can't get it back.

Every believer of every traditional religion has to find a way, through hermeneutic legerdemain if necessary, through exasperated acknowledgment of the demands of modern ethics perhaps, to make the ancient creed tenable under current conditions. Maybe you just have to have had the experience that I had growing up in a very conservative church, to understand the complexity of coaxing an acknowledgment of civilized norms out of patriarchal habits. Jesus Christ himself was no enlightened moderate on moral questions; HE did produce rather bloody-minded "radical" statements in fact, in ways both leftish (screw the rich and the money-lenders; be a conscientious objector in all things pertaining to the state) and reactionary (if your left hand offends you, cut it off!). Needless to say, modern Christians do not go around with left arms that end at the wrist; even a famous gay British intellectual like Andrew Sullivan finds a way to rationalize fealty to a religion and an institution that has done nothing but abuse gays for 2000 years. So yes, I do think it is possible to be a modern Muslim and give money to Hamas, an organization which alongside fighting Israel (a knee-jerk policy that ought to be modified) has also done an enormous amount of charitable social work among a population that is facing mass unemployment and even starvation.

If Ramadan accomplishes nothing but to rally even a small portion of the Islamic community to accept, however grudgingly or tacitly or by the back door, that their faith must be fitted somehow, some way to modern norms, even if he has to talk in code in one context in order to get some segments of his community to listen -- no, I do not think that qualifies as "insincerity." If it leads to a lessening to the commitment to violence on the part of some otherwise "imperialist" Islamists, then it should be considered a moral exploit entirely worthy of our support.