Political and Religious Views
Gellhorn remained a committed leftist throughout her life and was contemptuous of those who, like Rebecca West, became more conservative. She considered the ideal of journalistic objectivity "nonsense", and used journalism to reflect her politics. Gellhorn was a prominent supporter of Israel and the Spanish Republic. For Gellhorn, Dachau had "changed everything", and she became a lifelong champion of Israel. She was a frequent visitor to Israel after 1949, and in the 1960s considered moving to Israel. An uncompromising opponent of fascism, Gellhorn had a more ambivalent attitude toward communism. While she is not known to have praised communism and Stalinism, she equally refused to criticize it. She believed in the innocence of Alger Hiss until her death. A self-described "hater", she attacked fascism, anti-communism, racism, Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.
Gellhorn was an atheist. Her part-Jewish parents had embraced secular humanism, and raised Gellhorn as such. Her only quasi-religious instruction consisted of Sunday visits to the Society for Ethical Culture.
Read more about this topic: Martha Gellhorn
Famous quotes containing the words political, religious and/or views:
“In a land which is fully settled, most men must accept their local environment or try to change it by political means; only the exceptionally gifted or adventurous can leave to seek his fortune elsewhere. In America, on the other hand, to move on and make a fresh start somewhere else is still the normal reaction to dissatisfaction and failure.”
—W.H. (Wystan Hugh)
“Better risk loss of truth than chance of error—that is your faith-vetoer’s exact position. He is actively playing his stake as much as the believer is; he is backing the field against the religious hypothesis, just as the believer is backing the religious hypothesis against the field.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Parents must begin to discover their children as individuals of developing tastes and views and so help them be, and see, themselves as thinking, feeling people. It is far too easy for a middle-years child to absorb an over-simplified picture of himself as a sloppy, unreliable, careless, irresponsible, lazy creature and not much more—an attitude toward himself he will carry far beyond these years.”
—Dorothy H. Cohen (20th century)