Who are we to judge the recently deceased?
The main criticism levelled against me for my post on the death of Christopher Hitchens was: “Who are we to judge?”
Fair enough I thought, perhaps I was wrong to judge, especially in light of all of the “RIP” sentiments, prayers for his soul and tentative hopes for a deathbed conversion, emanating from the Christian world.
Today we heard of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and the Christian world has been rather silent; no outpouring of the prayers, sentiments and hopes, that came in response to Christopher Hitchens.
Well of course there wasn’t, I hear you say. One was a brutal murderous dictator and the other wasn’t; in fact, Hitchens stood against totalitarianism.
Well let me say right now that I’m in no way setting up a moral equivalence between the two men. That would be simply impossible and ridiculous.
But what I will ask of those those who told me we cannot judge in regard to Hitchens; where’s your outpouring for Kim Jong-il? If we really are to avoid judging, then surely we should treat everyone equally and to do otherwise would be hypocrisy.
It seems to me that those of the “we cannot judge” camp have bound themselves up in a ludicrous trap. The truth is that we all judge; in fact, we have to in order to make sense of things.
It’s right and fitting that there has been no Christian outpouring of sympathy for Kim Jong-il, but I maintain that this is based on our judgement of the man.
Interestingly Archdruid Eileen has posted on the three recent notable deaths and says:
That of the three famous deaths of recent days, Christopher Hitchens provoked much mourning and opining; Vaclav Havel died and nobody (on Twitter) really mentioned it, and Kim Jong Il provoked mostly jokes.
This goes to show how we employ our faculty of judgement in reacting to the news of death.
On an aside, I came across a blog post examining Ezekiel 33:11 in respect of rejoicing over the death of the wicked. I’m not saying I agree with it, but thought it an interesting read.
December 19th, 2011 at 11:02 pm
I was too busy writing my own criticism of Hitch.
December 20th, 2011 at 9:07 am
In my experience, people who say “who are you to judge…” some blatant case of evil, mean only “we want you to shut up because we approve of that evil.” Discuss something they really do disapprove of, and you find a total lack of any concern about “judging”.
December 20th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Judgement of the man.
In these examples it is the post-mortem historical record that is being judged not the man. In life there has to be space between the act of a man and the charge of absolute evil otherwise there is no room for compassion, redemption or diliberated justice.
Interesting how secular society is more prone to the absolute evil charge and thought hate crimes that are the stuff of summary and arbitrary executions.
December 20th, 2011 at 3:29 pm
Many found Hitchen’s honesty and integrity admirable even if he said things with which they profoundly disagreed. One probably could not say the same for others you mention Webmaster. But I’m the first to admit it’s all rather illogical really. I am not troubled quite as much by this ‘who are we to judge’ idea, not being religious myself, and I think it’s normal human behaviour to judge people. We have to make assessments of people all the time to survive.
Ironically one could argue that having people like Hitchens around can even serve to strengthen the sense of mission amongst the religious. I’m thinking back to your recent post about the ‘post-secular’ outlook in Ukraine. This kind of opposition is surely more beneficial than indifference and oblivion?
December 20th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
There is one very obvious difference between the North Korean leader and Hitchens, and that is that he did not operate in our sphere and we know practically nothing about him. As far as the act of judging is concerned, as some people have said, it’s natural enough; it’s just that an outpouring of invective after someone dies is in very poor taste – the poor guy or gal isn’t there to defend themselves. For the religious, it smacks of self-indulgence – the deceased will be judged by a higher authority, to which the should defer.
December 20th, 2011 at 5:58 pm
….an outpouring of invective after someone dies is in very poor taste
As you probably know Hitchens was famous for this also. But I suppose two wrongs don’t make a right.
December 20th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
Webmaster:
This picture does not fit very well with the “honesty and integrity” referred to by Simian. Someone’s death is always a point of reckoning; if it is characterised by a flow of invective it is surely distasteful. That is not to say that the dead can never be criticised – it is a different thing.
December 20th, 2011 at 11:53 pm
“….an outpouring of invective after someone dies is in very poor taste
As you probably know Hitchens was famous for this also. But I suppose two wrongs don’t make a right.”
Where Hitchens did pour out invective about someone, I don’t think he could be accused of waiting for them to die before doing so.
December 21st, 2011 at 4:25 pm
This nonsence about not judging someone after they died is unbiblical. The Old Testament has this little line about many of the wicked kings of Israel and Judah: “He did evil in the sight of the Lord.” The same judgement can be fairly applied to Christopher Hitchens.
December 21st, 2011 at 6:56 pm
Stephen Dalton:
OK, I’ll bite. What evil are you claiming Hitchens perpetrated?
December 21st, 2011 at 7:01 pm
My impression is that most contributors here have attempted to present some reasoned argument to support their assertions . To dismiss these as “nonsense” is unhelpful, particularly when the only thing offered to back it up is a quote from the old testament. Christ is supposed to have said, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again”. Are we to believe there should have been a caveat as respects the likes of Hitchens?
December 22nd, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Marvin, one evil thing he did was to defame Mother Teresa. But the biggest evil he commited was to defame belief in God.
December 23rd, 2011 at 5:33 pm
It is probably worth mentioning that the Vatican thought well enough of Hitchens to listen to his testimony about Mother Theresa. Her reaction to the Bhopal tragedy was a major error. Lack of a proper response means that people are still being poisoned today.