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:
“Man is naturally a political animal.”
—Aristotle (384–322 B.C.)
“The tradition I cherish is the ideal this country was built upon, the concept of religious pluralism, of a plethora of opinions, of tolerance and not the jihad. Religious war, pooh. The war is between those who trust us to think and those who believe we must merely be led.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“The absolute things, the last things, the overlapping things, are the truly philosophic concerns; all superior minds feel seriously about them, and the mind with the shortest views is simply the mind of the more shallow man.”
—William James (1842–1910)