Talk:Peter Hitchens

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No apologies for having pretty much the same list as WP for external links - it can't be helped that they had the definitive list of his works first, unfortunately :( File:User Fox.png Fox (talk|contribs) 09:42, 19 July 2007 (EDT)

Peter Hitchens here, logged in as 'Clockback'. A question - asked once in general and once in particular. Why is it considered illuminating to include the ethnic description of the subject as 'Jewish' in an article in 'Conservapedia' Are other subjects invariably so described, and if so how ? (Non-Jewish? Hispanic? Asiatic? Slav?). I should have thought such an obsession with the defining nature of ethnic origin beloged over on Leftopedia.

In particular, I wonder quite how (and why) one gets selected for such a description. Now, I know that my brother Christopher (see elsewhere) has made quite a song and dance about his Jewish origins. As it happens, I told him about them ( having been told by our maternal grandmother). I don't therefore, dispute his facts, since they are mine. But there is a dispute about interpretation, which has sometimes arisen in public places and has even been noted by one or two third parties.

First, there is a break in the matrilineal line several generations back. Now, who cares? What bothers me most is the kind of person who cares most. Can you guess what kind of person that is ? There used to be , and for all I know still is, a rather unsettling exhibit in the German History Museum in Berlin, which explained exactly how the National Socialists worked out who was a Jew. Now, if the Yellow Stars come out again I very much hope that, even if I hadn't a drop of Jewish blood in me, I should wear such a Star with pride and defiance. But the Nazis wouldn't agree. Under their classification, I should be a 'Mischling, Zweite Grade'(Half-breed, second class) destined for persecution and privation, but not for deliberate or systematic murder.

Much more important to me is this. The religion of my childhood, resumed after the usual prolonged atheist adolescence of the British baby boomer, is Anglican Christianity. The poetry, liturgy, ceremonies and seasons of religious Judaism, Orthodox, Reform or Conservative, have - alas - no resonance for me. Likewise, the cultures and traditions of secular Judaism, and the cultural and linguistic heritage of the massacred Jews of central and eastern Europe, are not mine. I am a British, specifically English Christian, as Jewish as a ham sandwich. It might be otherwise. My late discovery of my other ancestry might ( as it has for my brother and for others) have led me elsewhere. But it hasn't.

Now, I gained some minor notoriety over on Wikipedia for (openly and unashamedly) editing the entry on me which is published there. I still don't view this as wrong. My edits were factual, and nobody else knew as well as I where the entry was mistaken. But here I am in a new place, and the matter is one of interpretation, not only of fact, and so I seek to sort this out by the best possible method - reasoned debate.

Peter Hitchens logged in as Clockback 09:39, 24 July 2008 (EDT)

Interesting point to raise. I think that as this site has more interest in a person's religious leanings than say, Wikipedia, then it is perhaps more interested in that slice of your ancestry; I wouldn't for one moment believe that noting that detail of your ancestry had any ill-intent. In fact, I believe it was me who actually put it in there. I find the different threads - what little of it is in the public domain at least - which led to your being where you are now, all rather fascinating. And your commentary above - assuming (and in good faith I do) that you really are Peter Hitchens - provides a very nice soundbite. What about the rest of the article? Do you believe it is fair and accurate? 10px שועל (talk|contribs) 09:53, 24 July 2008 (EDT)