Happy Hanukkah, You Backwards Fundamentalist

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You know that saying "the medium is the message"? It implies that the way in which you express something can be even more important--or at least impacting--than the information you're actually attempting to share. I found myself meditating on that concept yesterday when I stumbled upon an article in Slate by Christopher Hitchens. Titled "Bah, Hanukkah", and subtitled, "The Holiday Celebrates the Triumph of Tribal Jewish Backwardness," the article is a scathing indictment of the Jewish holiday that began last night. I was shocked to find it on Slate, not because of its content, which is quite interesting and historically relevant, but because of its means of conveying said content--its tone or medium, so to speak.

Hitchens introduces Hanukkah as a holiday that celebrates "not the ignition of a light but the imposition of theocratic darkness," and goes on to insist that the Jewish people chose Jerusalem and "the grim old routines of the Torah" over Athens and "the schools of philosophy." In language that can only be described as aggressively hostile, Hitchens accuses the ancient Jews of "preferring fundamentalist thuggery to secularism." He declares that when the Jews repudiated Athens for Jerusalem "the development of the whole of humanity was terribly retarded." Quite a liability to burden one small people with, no? The whole of humanity? Terribly retarded? Please, give me a break.

Hitchens seems to miss his own point, even as he goes on to say that "to celebrate Hanukkah is to celebrate not just the triumph of tribal Jewish backwardness but also the accidental birth of Judaism's bastard child in the shape of Christianity."

His final blow is his most dangerous and appalling: The display of the menorah at this season, however, has a precise meaning and is an explicit celebration of the original victory of bloody-minded faith over enlightenment and reason. As such it is a direct negation of the First Amendment and it is time for the secularists and the civil libertarians to find the courage to say so. To call Hanukkah, as it is commemorated and celebrated today, "a direct negation of the First Amendment" is anachronistic, irresponsible, and dangerous. Especially in a medium like this, where qualifications and explanations cannot be made in real time, and where the tone of the article speaks, in many ways, more loudly than the content, Hitchens is creating an opportunity for misunderstanding and hatred.

I understand his annoyance with the contrivances of the "holiday season." I can relate to his gripes about the problems of all of the monotheistic, Judeo-Christian religions. But it's one thing to present historical information sans emotion. It's one thing to offer people a chance to become enlightened, and it's another altogether to present irrational, anachronistic, emotionally fueled fumings that accomplish nothing other than angering, hurting, alienating, and misinforming readers.

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