Saturday, March 22, 2008

How Hitchens Sees Himself ... And Us



Via Harry (the sensible one), Hitchens on Spitzer's Lust.

"You wouldn't be doing any of this if one of the objectives was not to increase the amount of pussy that was available to you. That is what you do," Hitch says. "You don't do it to be, ah, the most approval-rated governor of New York, for fuck's sake."


Actually you do, pretty much. Approval of others is enormously important for mammals and primates in particular. We're very big on stroking and attention. We'd have a very hard time making it on our own. Having group approval, having just friends, means you can share a meal with someone when you'd otherwise go without, and that alone means making it to next week, which in itself raises the chances of getting some more pussy. But Hitchen's amateur evolutionary psychology doesn't explain gay politicians or gay anyone or female ditto. Franklin D Roosevelt served more terms than any other President of the US. How much legover do you think he got from that? There was an article in today's Torygraph on Chelsea Clinton - apparently at 28 she earns $100,000 per annum. Assuming a working life of 40 years, she'd earn $4M or £2M. Paul McCartney offered Heather Mills more than 10 times that for four years of marriage. Mrs Merton's famous question to Debbie McGee "What first attracted you to millionaire Paul Daniels" seems inconsequential to Lady Mucca. How much pussy was available to Macca? I believe he enjoyed the 1960s and men can stay fertile until their 80s. Is amount the only calculation? Or is Paul McCartney (and John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr) some kind of cloistered freak? According to 'the Dude', Macca should still spend his spare time impregnating groupies and have hundreds of kids. He hasn't; either the theory is wrong or the facts are.

I'm a really passionate supporter of Richard Dawkins, but as Einstein (may have) said "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler." Hitchens oversimplifies.

See also sexual dimorphism.

8 Comments:

Blogger Gregor said...

As Dennis Perrin said:


'In private, Hitchens fancies himself an able joke-teller, though usually his material is lowbrow, juvenile and sexually rancid in nature. In my presence he got a rise out of cock/pussy/cunt jokes, and judging from this article's tone, that still looks to be the case. Which is not to say that there aren't funny or clever cock/pussy/cunt jokes. It's just that I've never heard Hitchens tell one. '


http://redstateson.blogspot.com/2006/12/you-cant-spell-funny-without-penis.html

I think you missed the forest for the trees. He wasn't being profound. Hitch was being hilarious.

3/23/2008 01:49:00 PM  
Blogger cian said...

A basic familiarity with the findings of social anthropology will debunk the majority of evolutionary psychologist's theories. They're quite similar to economists I think - not only are they allergic to basic research, but they can be really fucking ignorant about human behaviour.

3/23/2008 03:42:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

While I agree that Hitch is being silly, FDR certainly had at least the one mistress.

Also, Chelsea Clinton undoubtedly expects her earnings to go up over the course of her career.

3/23/2008 09:52:00 PM  
Blogger Matthew said...

Less of this and more, surely, of Nick Cohen's remarkable column in the Observer this week on Hassan Butt and Shiv Malik?

3/24/2008 04:24:00 PM  
Blogger ejh said...

My Private Eye just arrived. That Ratbiter was a bit "will this do?" wasn't it?

3/24/2008 05:39:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Barely even that. More like "Here it is, do what you like with it, I'm off to the pub."

3/25/2008 01:59:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Alert! some nutjob from 'Drink-Soaked Trotskists for War' is trying to isnert a comically biased account of the Johann Hari-Nick Cohen row into wikipedia. (Hari "made it up", Nick a hero, etc).

I could really do with some back-up in editing this out...

It's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari

Help!

3/25/2008 12:25:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nick alert! He's backing Brian Paddick, on the grounds that (a) he'll get elected if lots of people vote for him and (b) Ken Livingstone is evil.

3/26/2008 07:36:00 PM  

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