[lbo-talk] The deterioation of Antony Flew

Jim Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Mon Nov 5 16:19:21 PST 2007


On Mon, 5 Nov 2007 09:21:51 -0500 "Yoshie Furuhashi" <critical.montages at gmail.com> writes:
> On 11/4/07, Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:
> > www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04Flew-t.html?ref=magazine
> >
> > The Turning of an Atheist
> >
> > By MARK OPPENHEIMER
> > Published: November 4, 2007
>
> "[H]e [Antony Flew] seemed generally uninterested in the content of
> his book [There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist
> Changed His Mind] — he spent far more time talking about the dangers
> of unchecked Muslim immigration and his embrace of the anti-E.U.
> United Kingdom Independence Party" (Mark Oppenheimer, "The Turning
> of
> an Atheist," 4 November 2007,
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/magazine/04Flew-t.html>)
>
> That's a type of deterioration very common these days.

In the case of Flew, his reactionary political opinions, as opposed to his recent about face on the God issue, cannot be blamed on the apparent decline in his mental capacity. Although he was a commie in his youth, Flew has long held to the kinds of extreme right wing opinions as the ones expressed in the NY Times article. He held the same opinions back when he was at the height if his intellectual powers as he does now in his dotage. To the extent that his holding of such opinions can be blamed on any sort of a decline, it would be one that is general to large portion of intelligentsia in imperialist countries like the US and UK.


>



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list