People are mourning the loss of Christopher Hitchens. I’d say they’re a bit late in the game for that. I mourned the loss of Hitchens way back in 2003 when he decided to throw whatever principles he had in the trash and promote the war of agression against Iraq. He was pretty much dead to me after that.
Susan Stark
17 Comments.
Agreed. Hitchens post-9/11 was a disgrace. I liked his promotion of atheism, although his book (published almost a year after “The God Delusion”) seemed like an opportunistic “me-too” attempt after the runaway success of Richard Dawkins.
At any rate, I think people were too easily seduced by his deep-toned British accent, booze-swilling, cigar-chomping, and overall elite journalist schtick. If you cut through all the slick prose you had a boilerplate, run-of-the-mill neocon war cheerleader, nothing more. He also enjoyed name-calling of anyone who disagreed with him, which is a mark of the arrogant Brit.
Frankly, I won’t miss him. He was a bloviator.
Well, the title of his book is called “God is Not Great”, which sounds more like Muslim-bashing than promotion of atheism to me. In any case, I couldn’t in principle actually buy the book, due to my “he is dead to me” boycott of his works after 2003.
@Susan,
Thank you for posting that. I would have if you hadn’t. Punditry is a high-wire act, I get that, I know it, I live it. Humans make bad calls. But some bad calls are unforgivable, c.f. Iraq. Not just because it was immoral and illegal, but because it was so stupid and so easy to see in advance, and millions did. This was a fuck-up you could drive a Humvee through.
Meh, I like the guy and his work, you can argue he was wrong on Iraq by virtue of supporting a war, but if you admit that some wars are justifiable, then you have no real right to be upset with him for supporting Iraq. Besides he was in plenty of good company who have been forgiven.
@Patron: The only wars that are justifiable are those that are fought in self-defense. Iraq clearly did not qualify.
It just occurred to me that a better hashtag to “honor his memory” would be #bombsiniraqaregreat.
Susan, Ted,
Barbara Tuchman wrote a book back in 1984 (!) called “The March of Folly.” The Iraq War satisfied all the criteria she set out for “woodenheadedness.” Really, if you haven’t read it, get a copy from the library or buy one.
@patron
Many public personalities came out in favor of the Iraq war, but Hitchens was a true dyed-in-the-wool leftist, unlike the rest of them. Which made his turnaround a 180 degrees and therefore less forgivable.
I can’t say what happened to him to make him do this, but I would hazard that he fell victim to the irrational fear of the Orientalist boogeyman. Even the best of minds can fall prey to their fears.
@Alex
I’ve heard of that title. I’ll see if I can acquire it.
Susan its morning and I have to be off to work, but several leftist, at least initially accepted the war, unless your definition of a true leftist is one that opposes all war in which case I would say you would obviously be correct. In fact with the exception of Obama’s cute sound bite very few people were publicly against the war from the beginning. I am not arguing that it wasn’t a bizarre decision for someone with Hitchen’s past political views to make, but I still believe he was far from alone even on the left.
Christopher Hitchens was a great man and he will be dearly missed.
Christopher didn’t make ‘God is Not Great’ to bash Muslims he made it to bash all religions. You’re missing out on a great book.
@cowsteroids: Hitchens, a great man? Get over yourself. LOL! A great man? At best, Hitchens was a great self-promoter and a mouthpiece – nothing more. Great men actually DO things, not just hit the lecture and talk show circuit to pontificate the same tired warmongering he did in Vanity Fair.
Again, I appreciate that Hitchens spoke up against organized religion but that’s it. He was a bloviator. He never admitted his abject failures with the Iraq war, such as never admitting his WMD excuse was a washout. Nope, the arrogant Brit couldn’t admit it. He just joined in the Bushie shuffle, whereby whatever that week’s cause-de-jour was good enough for him. WMD? Nope. Ok, Democracy? Nope. Ok? Rape rooms? YEAH – there you go!! And any lefty loser who’s for rape-rooms can go to hell, the little termites!
I repeat: People were too easily seduced by his deep-toned British accent, booze-swilling, cigar-chomping, and overall elite journalist schtick. If you cut through all the slick prose you had a boilerplate, run-of-the-mill neocon war cheerleader, nothing more.
Coincidentally, I recently acquired Ted’s Attitude and Attitude 2 in my local discount bookstore, and found this strip by Kevin Moore from 2002: http://www.zcommunications.org/letter-to-an-old-contrarian-by-kevin-moore
HItchens biggest contribution?
I was recently reading Summa Theologica, one of the major pieces of the Western canon. Basically, St. Aquinas’ argument goes like this: God did it all. Divine law is passed down to the human who grasps it imperfectly, but what little the human grasps is entirely thanks to God. God. God. God. God. If you don’t believe in God, you are wrong.
It exceeds the length of the text box to go into all the ways religion destroys society. Look at the current election cycle. At least one of these pinheads talks about protecting prayer in the classroom. IT IS PROTECTED ALREADY! What is NOT protected is a teacher telling students to pray. Think about the difference. These religious goons know the difference, but standing there saying, “The other side wants us to allow people to decide for themselves, free of coercion, whether to pray. Is that what America stands for? Freedom of religion? Freedom of thought?”
We are actually going to elect a leader who accepts that notions such as virgin birth, Final Judgment, and so forth “deserve respect.” No. They do not. Period. They must be allowed tolerance (meaning, if someone wants to pray, they must be allowed to; if someone wants to go into a church, you cannot bar them from entry, etc.), but the notions do not deserve respect.
And that’s what Hitchens did. Dawkins did a lot of anti-God stuff, but it was always(?) tied to science in some way. Hitchens simply stated it flat out without trying to link it back to science in the same way. He simply called shenanigans.
He was wrong about Iraq. My God, he was wrong about a lot, but on religion, he was absolutely right: it is the most evil thing ever created, and it must be opposed.
Well, God may not be great in Hitchens’ mind, but He certainly had a sense of irony by calling him out at the same time Uncle Sam pulls out, grudgingly, from Iraq. Also, the same weekend that saw the passing of the Vaclav Havel, sees the sudden death of the dear leader Kim Jong-il (two weeks of official mourning for all you fans of the Cuban dictatorship out there).
@Susan, it shouldn’t surprise you (or anyone) to see leftist intellectuals on the side of war when it behooves their ideological leanings. Wasn’t your namesake Ms Sonntag enthusiastic about the “humanitarian” bombing campaign in Serbia?
@ exkiodexian – I think you’re detracting too much from Hitchens. I’d argue that he wasn’t a bloviator he was a free thinker. He was named one of the “Top 100 Public Intellectuals” by “Foreign Policy” and Britain’s “Prospect” magazine. Did anyone here see the tribute Charlie Rose did for Hitchens?
@susan: Awesome.
I respected Hitchens pretty much until he lost his mind / integrity shortly after the mysterious events of September 11th, 2001. That’s right. I’m not going to cave-in to the newspeak peer pressure to call the day by a name synonymous with the telephone number Americans dial for emergency response.
As far as his (dis)belief in God goes, I never bothered reading anything he had to say about it.
Fortunately, it was published, so if someday I (and others) care to read it, I / we can.
Unfortunately, it was published, so if after reading it I (and others) burst out laughing, I / we may offend others who take his work more seriously.
This may cause a schism between those who think Hitchens is Great and those who think he is merely ridiculous, and lead to catastrophe for mankind.
Christopher Hitchens is NOT Great.
Thank you, Ted, for publishing this post. The cycle now repeats.