September 02, 2013

Christopher Hitchens - Sectarians are morally and mentally unwell



Christopher Hitchens explains at 51 minutes here how he regards those who suffer anti-Semitism as the both mentally and morally un-well. He said:
"The evidence is that Billy Graham suffers from a very horrible disease, a version of paranoia that's known colloquially as anti-Semitism. It's impossible to be mentally or morally healthy if you suffer from this disorder. [He was] sick with this conspiratorial, infantile nonsense and that's not pardonable."
My immediate response would be to say how aptly this applies to those in Northern Ireland and the island as a whole who are fervent, set and committed sectarians, both in the name of religion and nationhood. Either way, both are as hideous and odious as the other.

Hitchens' analysis also echoes with an earlier blog I write here on Seán Ó Faoláin. He headed and wrote for the Bell Magazine for some many years and made comment on some in Ireland's demented obsession with British involvement in Ireland. I quoted him as writing:
'It is essential for the mental health of Ireland that we should as quickly as possible get to the stage where we do not give a damn about Britain.'
This all also reminds me of the Einstein quote:
"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind." 


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