Today is that day

December 16, 2011 • 12:46 pm

An excerpt from “Godless in Tumoursville,” from the Telegraph:

Discussing mortality, Hitchens and a friend used to muse that there would come a day when the newspapers would come out and they wouldn’t be there to read them. ‘And on that day, I’ve realised recently, I’ll probably be in the newspapers, or quite a lot of them. And etiquette being what it is, generally speaking, rather nice things being said about me.’ He shrugs. ‘Just typical that will be the edition I miss. But it’s not so much that; it’s more that you’re at the party and you’re tapped on the shoulder and told you have to leave. The party is still going on, but it’s going on without you. And even people who swear to remember you are not really going to do so.

And yes, nice things are being said about him, and no, we won’t forget him.

36 thoughts on “Today is that day”

  1. I had never grieved the death of a stranger before in my life. Although Hitchens was hardly a stranger even for those would didn’t know him personally.

    1. I did, once, as a young child: It seemed the whole world was mourning the death of the President. Kennedy had been shot.

      In constrast, I am now an adult — of some years, in fact — and Christopher Hitchens was so real, and so recent in my life, I went to Houston just to meet him, last October, an opportunity I dared not miss. He will never have known me, though I got to share a word ever so briefly, but in stark contrast to Kennedy, his videos and personal appearance leave me to feel I did, in some small way, get to know him, and I am all the more honored by such a gift.

      Hitch is well worth crying over. *many tears*

      1. I chocked up yesterday upon hearing his death. I have listened to so many of his debates on Youtube that he seemed so real to me. I lit a cigarette immediately to mourn him as I knew he himself liked smoking (I smoke occasionally.) He will be greatly missed, especially his perfect combination of wisdom and humor!

  3. Let us not forget that he was a staunch advocate of science and science education.
    His last essay Hitchens shows the likelihood that the post-ocular blindness of underground salamanders is another aspect of evolution by natural selection.Science and intellectualism has lost a great ambassador

    http://www.flascience.org/wp/

  4. The best and most enduring legacy is helping people change for the better.

    Hitch did that.

    The greatest gift is being told you have helped people live better lives.

    Hitch received that gift.

  5. It’s true, today is officially the first day he doesn’t read the news.

    You know what Hitch was? Though it pains me so to talk in the past tense. Christopher Hitchens was the corpus callosum of our culture. That’s what he was. There is no one else that can fill that cultural divide with as much aplomb as he did.

  6. Just been reading Hitchens’s final interview, with Dawkins in the New Statesman edition edited by Dawkins (well worth reading by the way).

    Hitchens says: “Cardinal Newman said that he would rather the whole world and everyone in it be painfully destroyed and condemned forever to eternal torture than one sinner go unrebuked for the stealing of sixpence. It’s right there in the centre of the Apologia”.

    Now this seems bizarrely extreme, idiotic and immoral, even by the standards of theologians. Is this really what Newman said? Can anyone fathom any grain of rationale in it?

    (The context here was that Hitchens asked Blair to comment on this passage in their debate, and that Blair avoided replying.)

  9. Hitch on the difference between dogs and cats:

    Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are god.

    The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer
    Da Capo Press
    2007

    1. So very true. Perhaps we cat owners (and yes, I am prejudiced about this) enjoy knowing we are not god, neither are our cats, and only cats can be appreciated for such, while humans doing similarly are — pardon, please! — lower than dogs.

    1. That was one of my thoughts too. He shared so much of himself with us through both his intellect and wit. It was a rare combination, and thankfully his contributions shall echo through his written, audio and videoed works.

    1. Peter Hitchens is a staunch defender of Christianity and conservatism in general, but carries his own intellectual heft (and he was as opposed to Blair and the Iraq war as much as his brother was for it). One cannot help but be touched by the Daily Mail pictures of the brothers as children in the 50s.

  12. it does seem somehow feeble and silly to shed tears over a person i’ve never met, but i do just the same. I cannot add anything to this electronic memorial that has not been said many times over. All I can say is that I didn’t always agree with him, but damn it, he made you think! A better gift I cannot fathom. He created no echo chamber, always challenging and stimulating. I love him as much as any one stranger can, for that gift. I’ve raised my glass to him, twice, (can only afford the red label, I’m sure he’d understand) and also to Verle Muhrer, former professor of Philosophy at Penn Valley Community College, who turned me on to Hitch so many years ago. cheers!

    1. I was glad of those precious few disagreements. They proved I wasn’t blindly following and that my mind should and could be sharpened to argue even against a giant. After all, Hitch showed no fear. To learn from him the courage to disagree is a great and mighty thing.

    1. Life marches forward as it always has. I’m sure Hitchens wouldn’t want us all moping about. There are many battles yet to fight.

    2. We have his accumulated wisdom in biblio, audio and video form to continue to enhance our minds. There will never be another Hitch, however we have a growing stable of able speakers, who can use the microphone with increasing flair. So this is our mourning period, where we reflect on how wonderful it was to share the planet with him, and how his legacy will continue as we uphold reason whether our platform is small or large.

      1. Although his physical body finally failed, the strapping, vigorous presence of his life’s work — the muscle, sinew and blood of his unvanquished arguments and undying ideals — still stand before us as big as life. He is, in this most important sense, no less fit to raise and carry forward the standard he so singularly, unhesitatingly defended in life, as long as our memories provide him renewed power. His written and spoken record of unflinching, unapologetic humanism is a living corpus immune to the cancers of dogmatism, hypocrisy, and fear. No need to feel maudlin or defeated. The best part of him remains.

        Let’s raise this toast to our fallen champion: “L’chaim! To life! The Hitch is dead. Long live the Hitch!”

    1. I was thinking about how sad I felt when I heard the news about Christopher last night, even though I never had the chance to meet him in person and how his good friends like Stephen Fry, Martin Amis, et al must really be depressed. But they all probably had the opportunity to spend some time with the Hitch over the last months and express their feelings to him. I’m sure Richard Dawkins was glad he got the time to say goodbye to his friend in person. Hitch is loved and respected by so many.

      That is to say, if people who only knew him through his works are saddened, his friends and family must be devastated.

Comments are closed.