There were many things to admire about Christopher Hitchens, his sharp mind and even sharper writing skills were as good as anything i have ever seen in journalism, but it was his mile wide maverick streak that i found most compelling.To go from a hard left Trotskyist to a right wing George W Bush admirer is not an easy trip to make but if you could overlook the betrayal, he was always a great read and one of the most provocative, arrogant and entertaining intellectuals of his generation.
Whether you disliked his brash and smug personality, disagreed with his beliefs or found his fondness for attempting to obliterate his opponents vulgar, the loss of such a cerebral speaker is a loss for us all in today's dumbed down society.
I agreed with his views on religion and the Palestinians, cringed at the way he pandered to the Bush administration and bristled at his support for America's wars but never did i turn off a show that he was appearing on.
The right wing were right not to embrace him too firmly because he was always liable to turn on his own, his strong criticism of the rights darling Ronald Reagan and the onslaught against religion proved that.
Stephen Fry probably summed it up when he said 'Goodbye, Christopher Hitchens. You were envied, feared, adored, reviled and loved. Never ignored. Never bested. A great and marvellous man'.
A magnificent bastard indeed.
7 comments:
There can't be too many people in the world who always agreed with everything he said, but he always made you think, and he was a superb writer. My favourites of his are the short, punchy diatribes about Kissinger and Mother Teresa: 'The Trial of Henry Kissinger' and 'The Missionary Position'. A sad loss.
A sad loss indeed.
P.S. A bit like when Cheezy's blog closed! The world has never been the same.
P.S. Cheezy, would you consider opening your blog again?
I mean why deprive the world of your profound wisdom and maturity, your sparkling wit, your unbelievable grasp of world affairs, your infinite literary skills (which make Shakespeare look like a copy boy).
Please, I beg you, let the riches of your being shower down upon us mere mortals!
P.S. But please don't call it Cheezy's Blog. That's so pedestrian, so terribly mediocre.
What about Cheezy's Bog?
It's grown-up time, David. Run along now.
While it might be slightly strange to reprimand any Hitchens-haters for ‘speaking ill of the dead’ – mainly due to the fact that the man himself was hardly averse to doing the same thing (do a YouTube search on ‘christopher hitchens jerry falwell’ if you don’t know what I mean) – amongst the obituaries there’s been a definite segment who seem almost personally offended that Hitchens didn’t agree with them on each and every issue, and a tendency to dismiss his greatness for this very reason. This is weird and egotistical thinking, in my opinion. Surely the whole point of Hitch was to challenge deeply-held beliefs and get us to think about things afresh – and he almost always managed that, I believe. However it’s his ‘wrongness’ or ‘rightness’ (as we judged it, from our own subjective viewpoints) on certain issues that seems to have generated the most discussion since his death. Even to the extent that some opponents of the Iraq fiasco have taken to labelling him a ‘neo-con’. If so, he’s the strangest neo-con I’ve ever encountered. Check out his stuff about two of the neo-con ‘sacred cows’ (Ronald Reagan and Ayn Rand) for proof of this. As Hitchens explained to Richard Dawkins in what I think was his last interview, the one consistent strain of his writing, spanning from way back, was that he was anti-totalitarianism. For everyone. Surely this should garner him some credit, even among people (like me) who didn't agree with all of his conclusions about things.
It seemed that people were forever trying to claim him 'for their side' and he would confound them by not playing along but once you realised that and knew that he couldn't be constrained, it was fun to see people try and to witness the shock when he slapped the very people who were championing him by attacking their views.
There isn't many people like him who considered saying what they thought more important to not upsetting his supporters. He was an arrogant git and i hated the way he had to grind his opponent into the dust rather than just being happy to win a debate but he was compulsive listening whatever the subject.
Good points... He reminds me of that classic post-punk single 'Shot By Both Sides' by Magazine. It's all about someone who, morally, politically and aesthetically, simply can't bring themselves to give up their individualism and indulge in the same uncritical thinking that causes so many people to run with the herd... In these polarised times, with both left & right heading for the extremes, such people are to be cherished as rare gems :)
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