How could I have forgotten to note this morning that Christopher Hitchens died on this day four years ago? Fortunately, reader Barry reminded me, and pointed me to this short but poignant memorial by James Looseley in today’s Montreal Gazette. Looseley concentrates solely on Hitchens’s critiques of religion, which is what most affected the writer, but just look through Hitchens’s array of books, or his essay collections, to see the breadth of his knowledge, the elegance of his writing, the sharpness of his extemporaneous wit, and his ability to say something interesting and novel about just about everything.
Although I met the man only once, and briefly, I spend a lot of time rereading his pieces and watching his videos. We have no unbeliever today that can muster up such erudition and rhetorical artillery, so it’s true that in at least one way he’s irreplaceable. He was the Orwell of our time—but he spoke better.
Here’s one bit I offer up in memoriam; it shows, in just one minute, many facets of the man:
Nostalgia strikes deep. One of his most eloquence statements:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUSxMCtWLII
Excellent call for the day.
Reblogged this on The Logical Place.
🍷
Johnny Walker Black is on the menu tonight.
Perfect. I’ll drink one tonight as well.
What an impressive writer The Hitch was. When it comes to deciding on his best skill, I’m often torn between his beautiful writings and his elegant, erudite, and wry speeches. I’m reading his memoir for the second time, but I’ve read the following paragraph many times over as it makes me sweetly envious of Hitchens’ command of the English language. In narrating a brush he had with the British police during the era of IRA shenanigans, he evinces his experience thus:
“I hadn’t reckoned with the speed of nightfall and found myself alone in the gathering dark: a crepuscular gloom augmented by the local habit of shooting out all the streetlights. A ver sudden bang convinced me that a nail bomb had been thrown at a British patrol, and I swiftly decided that the better part of valor was to drop into the gutter and make myself inconspicuous. Judging by the whistling and cracking of nearby volleys, this decision was shrewd enough as far as it went, and I remember how awful it would be to end my career as the random victim of a ricochet. Instead, I nearly ended it as a bloody fool who tested the patience of the British army. Rising too soon from my semi-recumbent posture, I found myself slammed against the wall by a squad of soldiers with blackened faces, and asked various urgent questions that were larded with terse remarks about the many shortcomings of the Irish. Getting my breath back and managing a brief statement in my cut-glass Oxford tones, I was abruptly recognized as nonthreatening. brusquely advised to fuck off, and off I duly and promptly fucked. Graham Greene writes somewhere about John Buchan that his thrillers – The Thirty-Nine Steps being a salient example- achieve some of their effect by the imminence of death in otherwise normal situations, such as right beside the railings of Hyde Park. I wasn’t exactly in Hyde Park, but I was still in my own country, and the telephone boxes we red, and the police uniforms were blue, and the awareness that the distinction between “over here” and “over there”, or between “home” and “abroad” is often a false one has never left me.”
Hitch 22 p.148
+1
Damn, but he could write.
I have not read Hitch 22. Thanks for reminding me to.
Well, since we did Huck Finn yesterday 🙂 :
You don’t know about Hitch without you have read a book by the name of Hitch-22; but that ain’t no matter. That book was
made by Mr. Christopher Hitchens, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another[.]
Mainly true is good enough for me.
He heh heh. Memories of “interesting” times. Absolutely shit scared, but entertaining in retrospect.
Like the sun rising in the east, I never tire of the intellectual empire of veracity, tenacity, inspiration, and hope that Hitchens was.
Being rather a fan of the Hitchens “take no prisoners” style, I find myself much admiring his eulogy of Jerry Falwell on the Hannity show.
After a parade of lying, flattering praise, Hitchen’s summary of Falwell’s better-never-born life was a yes-yes-yes moment.
I miss his matchless wit so much.
Yes – among the things that makes Hitchins so wonderfully unique was his extraordinarily brilliant use of humour to make his points of argument. And nothing works better than that. I remember sitting in the audience of one of those “religion vs. atheism” debates and Hitchins had the WHOLE audience – religious as well as non religious -roaring with laughter at the absurdity of religious claims.
I miss him greatly.
I’m glad that Jerry admitted to vicariously clinging to Hitch via his essays and speeches because I’m afflicted with the same nostalgia. How I love that man’s mind and voice. I never met him but did see him speak in his final year and while I’ve never been one for hero worship, he’s the closest example that I can find.
If ever I could meet a person, past or present, with whom to sit down and have dinner it would certainly be Hitch.
1+
As usual, I’ve had to try to catch myself up to understand the atheist discourse. I’ll be watching the film Jerry posted back in April by Kristoffer Hellesmark on Hitchens and adding God is Not Great to my near-overwhelming list of atheist books to read.
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/the-hitch-a-wonderful-new-film-about-hitchens-and-its-free/
I also miss Hitchens. I have always been impressed with his sense of respectfulness. How to be respectful, when to be, when not to be and most especially how not to be respectful. He didn’t always get that correct in my opinion, but he usually did, also in my opinion of course.
I will raise a glass of fine whiskey in his honor this evening. Given the tale that Isaac quoted Hitchens recounting, I think I will make it an Irish whiskey.
How I wish he were here to share his mordant take on this year’s presidential primary season!
Come the quadrennial presidential run, I miss Molly Ivins and Hunter Thompson and Mike Royko and Izzy Stone, too. ‘Twas a time not long ago, my friends, when giants stood astride journalism!
A time when there actually was some journalism.
I watched the clip and, in the ‘spirit’ of the late, great Christopher Hitchens, will offer up my honest response to it:
What an incredibly stupid answer.
An ‘atheist’ offers up his version of the Little People Argument — “why take away what makes 95% of people happy and offer up something which only makes 5% of people happy — and Hitchens not only fails to address the numerous fallacies inherent in the question, he actually ducks into the punch.
Jesus-christ-on-a-pogo-stick. First, he implicitly buys into the idea that atheism is inherently bleak … and then he blandly accepts the bold assertion that the religious can only be happy if they believe in God. No argument. Yes, he happily agrees, “they” are so afraid of death that there’s no point trying to change anyone’s mind — excuse me, “take away their toy.” And then he bleats out the usual accomodationist pablum about how he’s FINE with what people believe as long as they play by themselves and leave him alone. Great applause from all sides. I bet the questioner himself jumped with joy and agreement — assuming he wasn’t too busy scratching his head.
Not a word about truth, not a whisper concerning integrity and not a single attempt to honestly admit that why yes indeed, his books are trying to persuade the religious to drop religion. He IS attempting to get people to think hard about what they think they know and whether God exists or not, whether the claims merit the intensity with which they are held. Instead, it’s all “don’t worry, I’m harmless and happy to allow you to believe whatever you want” — just stay on your side and I stay on mine. Golly, I wonder where the faitheist ever got the impression that Hitchens wanted people to give up their faith?
I dunno. Maybe he read something Christopher Hitchens actually wrote.
Bottom line, it was a stupid question. Excellent call. But I think it went downhill after that part.
Terribly missed…
Is indeed The Hitch
By referring to religion as a “toy,” I think that Hitch has pretty well addressed all of your concerns, in a very shorthand, but effective way. Additionally, I don’t see contradiction in his answer, which contains none of the appeals to reason found in his writings — but rather it’s a case of him simply writing off as hopeless, all of those folk who will, till the end, insist on clinging to their toys.
I think you’re being too harsh on Hitch, Sastra. What I hear in his answer is his usual cri de coeur for religious freedom. He is making plain that he wishes not to foreclose anyone the right to worship as she or he sees fit. (Keep in mind that, at the time of this answer, the New Atheists were being falsely accused of, and widely derided for, seeking to do just that.) He’s making plain as well that an equal right of conscience must be extended to non-believers such as himself.
He is also acknowledging, in the nod to Freud, that so long as humankind faces death with trepidation — so long as we have the need of its palliative effects, as Marx might put it — religion will be with us. In so doing, he’s merely acknowledging historical fact, not making a normative case that religion is good for the masses. (His tacit corollary to this is, I think, that converts to humanistic atheism must be hard won one at a time.)
It would have been great, I agree, if Hitchens had gone on to make the case for Humanism as a replacement for religion (something with which he inarguably agreed, I believe). But bear in mind that his was an off-the-cuff answer to a question spontaneously fielded from the audience. Under the circumstances, perhaps we can find our way to forgive him this omission.
Oh, I know I was being a bit too harsh here — on purpose, in acknowledgment and tribute to Hitchens’ own ferocious style. He loved a good fight. I hoped to honor that.
And yes, it’s hard to hit that position between “I’m trying to challenge you” and “You’re challenging my rights” when surrounded by people who are willfully intent on misunderstanding. The dismissive reference to “toys” is, as Bob said above, an oblique call to arms, similar to PZ Myers and his comparison of religion to “knitting.” But I’m still going to guess that, in this particular audience — which looks like a rather academic one — there was nobody there who didn’t already agree that religion is a problem when it tries to force itself on others. That includes the man who “challenged” him. So he starts out with a hard ball (“stupid question”) and ends with a soft ball.
I don’t know. Maybe the problem I had with this clip is that I’m right in the middle of reading Dave Silverman’s Fighting God and he doesn’t pull punches. Watching Hitchens look like he was playing on the “I don’t care what others believe” fiddle probably bothered me more than it should have.
I’m pretty sure Hitchens would have taken you criticism in the spirit intended, Sastra; it’s evident the man drew sustenance from vigorous polemic.
I agree. Sure, secularism is the least problematic policy to invoke when given an implied accusation of “taking away” somebody’s religion. Too often, though, it comes close to legitimizing a bizarre relativism. It suggests that, so long as religion isn’t outright up to no good, it’s OK, even if it is still mind-sapping baloney.
I prefer the Dawkins approach of stating up front that it makes no difference whatsoever how you feel about a truth: it is as you find it. If you don’t like it, tough luck. Anyone invoking comforted believers as a counterpoint is merely suggesting a policy rather than a counterargument, and a notably unevidenced, insultingly elitist, and wildly-missing-the-point policy at that.
And that dearth of intellectual honesty is where the problems of religion come from, ranging from harmless people with compromised critical thinking skills to not-so-harmless people clamouring for the apocalypse. Every level ceases to make sense once religion’s nonsense is exposed for what it is.
To be honest, the questioner was doing little more than emotional blackmail; “if you don’t stop arguing against religion, millions of people will be depressed, you heartless monster!” This is a move that packs so much wrong with religious argument that it needs eviscerating from top to bottom. Turning around and saying “Keep it to yourselves, then, you Freudian little babies” is barely a flesh wound.
I disagree that secularism is a bizarre relativism. It’s not about saying religion is ok, it’s about preserving individual liberty. Let’s argue for uncorrupted truth, yes, but you can’t force anyone not to believe what they want to believe, particularly from a legislative perspective. Secularism establishes the conditions under which you can have your belief without it bothering others. To paraphrase the rail-splitter: “as I would not have my thought policed, so I would not be the thought police”.
I don’t think reasonshark meant that secularism was or even leads to relativism, but that it can be too easily mishandled into doing so. Arguing against a religious position is suddenly seen as violating the secular agreement to respect people’s “right to believe what they want.”
I think the underlying problem here is that in religion fact claims are being equated with identity — and that’s because of the way we treat matters of “faith.” Go after someone’s specific political views and you’re seldom accused of shutting down the democratic process by restricting their ability to vote how they want. You’re not demanding that “Republicans” be prohibited. Someone can change their mind about an issue and not lose their core identity as an American or whatever.
But go after specific religious beliefs and that’s just what you’re doing. You’re not letting people be religious. You’re attacking who they ARE. That’s oppression. Faith is sacred.
A secular society doesn’t put religion up for political debate. Excellent. It’s no wonder to me though that the religious generously want to extend this agreement to all disagreement. If I believed what they believe for the reasons they believe it, I’d be desperately looking for a way to avoid debate, too.
I am inclined to agree that it’s not one of Hitch’s better replies. I prefer Voltaire’s (possibly apocryphal) riposte to a similar question: “What, I rid you of a ferocious beast, and you want me to replace it with something?!” The argument was made more effectively by Epicurus, who denied the premise of the question: It is not true that religion is a source of consolation and hope, but rather of fear, anxiety and despair – fear of sinning, fear of death, fear of the afterlife, anxiety about the fate of one’s soul and over things you are not allowed to eat or people you are not allowed have to have sex with etc. Personal accounts by fervent believers are full of anguish and misery. Religion may have some effect in promoting psychological well-being, but this has been shown to be an effect of the social connections with other believers. Taken on its own, the net effect of religion on happiness etc is negative.
Perhaps a better answer would’ve included something about how religions aren’t true whether theists like it or not, but I think he effectively turned the questioner’s opposition back on the questioner: atheists aren’t necessarily requiring theists to give up religion, but theists damn well better make room for atheists. He’s advocating secularism.
I agree here. Though it is tough to formulate a proper response right on the spot, so I’m doing some 20/20 hindsight quarterbacking…
I would’ve answered something to 2 effects: one is the concept of the protection of the minority against a vast majority — completely swept under the rug by the insinuation of the questioner; the other is as you describe — that everyone benefits by scrapping the superstitious garbage, the 5% and the 95%.
Other points: no one is “taking” anything away from anybody. Unlike religion, which is invariably thrust upon people when they are young or otherwise vulnerable, atheism is only very rarely thrust upon people. (I can think of the Cambodian regime of Pol Pot being a singular exception… even the former priest-in-training Stalin didn’t really give much of a shit, as long as the clergy in question weren’t perceived as enemies). Rather, it is the self, through the process of self-improvement, that “takes” religion away. So the questioner pre-supposes wrongly in that way, too.
As it was, I don’t think Hitch really answered the question, in his zeal for delivering a smack-down. His answer was, unfortunately, a non sequitur. (even if I happen to agree with it)
On the anniversary of Hitch’s death I’ve developed a little ritual of going to the local independent book store, buying a copy of one of his books and then donating it to the library of one of the local public high schools. This year it ‘And Yet…’, his latest compilation of essays. I sure miss the guy.
Donating to a high school library is a good idea. When I was in high school I only knew of Bertrand Russell. It would have been great if there were a wide selection of voices.
What a nice idea!
I gave my copy of Hitch 22 to a young man at the library in line for checkout last year. They were out of copies. I told him I would give him mine if he would wait about ten or fifteen minutes. He waited and got the copy.
Now that’s a true random act of kindness! 🙂
In any battle of wits, Hitch was fully armed.
I initially came to Hitchens not through his political journalism or his atheist writing but through the book reviews he used to write for the Atlantic Monthly. The range of that man’s knowledge was astonishing, as was his ability to produce voluminous quantities of high-quality writing. Sadly missed.
I realise that I will probably be severely criticised for saying this, but I simply cannot agree with the praise, both within this article itself and the comments that appear beneath it, for Christopher Hitchens.
I have seen many of his debates with theists online, have read his book ‘God Is Not Great’, and I have to say that although I am not as familiar with his work as perhaps I should be (and thus will no doubt be accused of not being in a position to judge), I found both his arguments for the non-existence of God (or ‘god’) and his writing quality to be mediocre at best. He simply did not have what it took to present a truly convincing argument for atheism, often repeating the misconceptions of others who thought they had decisive arguments with which to skewer all of those nasty theists. In this respect he often reminded me of David Bentley Hart: pompous, arrogant, out of touch, and prone to waffle on without actually saying anything substantive.
Sorry, but that’s the truth. He wasn’t so great.
That’s not the truth; it’s your opinion.
Okay, I take that ‘truth’ comment back. I don’t want to start an argument, but I am, however, mystified by all the adoration and worship of Mr. Hitchens. I just don’t understand it, that’s all.
I think everyone is affected differently by Hitch (or any writer). That’s fair. He was certainly a style unto himself and a big personality as well as an orator.
BTW, who would you say is a better proponent of new atheism?
When it came to presenting a better argument for rejecting both religion and faith, my own personal view is that Sam Harris (The End of Faith) was far better at it than Hitchens was. I’ve read ‘The End of Faith’ at least four times, and every word of it rings true, and not a single mistake or lazy assumption is made within it that I can find. It is a call to arms that nothing else even comes close to replicating. ‘God is Not Great’ wasn’t a bad book (I’ve read far worse), but it isn’t one that I would hang on to.
I agree that Harris’ book is a real page-turner. I like them both – very different styles.
I will agree that Harris’ rhetoric is superb. The way he puts together argments, or even just phrases things, usually seems to make precisely the point he wants to make. I don’t agree with all those points, but in debates, spoken or written, I almost never feel like he could’ve addressed a point better.
“Worship”? Not at all. I parted company from him on his take on Iraq – I think he allowed himself to be deluded because of his (justified) disgust with Saddam Hussein’s regime. But that doesn’t stop me from enjoying his writing. I’ve gone back to read “God is not Great” far more often than I have “The God Delusion” or “The End of Faith”.
So, Peter, who would you hold up as examplars of (a) good writing and, or, (b) good arguments against “God”?
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@Peter, I’m interested that you experience Hitchens’s writing as mediocre. To each their own opinion, but from just the sample paragraph provided by Isaac above, I found Hitchens’s ability to make me visualize himself in the gutter superb. I was right there with him on the gloomy street, almost as if it were happening to me. The imagery was so vivid that I could imagine confusing it for a false memory were I to be asked about it 40 years from now. That, to me, is a marker of superb writing. I’m excited to read him now–and I’m very selective about what gets my attention.
By ‘mediocre’ I mean not out of the ordinary, not in any way superlative. Diana (below) compares him to Cicero, and others have called him the greatest of our time. I’m sorry, but no, he wasn’t that good. Knowing what I do about him, he might even agree with my assessment of his style, for he may have been combative when challenging the claims of theists in his debates, but he generally never came across as being vain (at least not to that extent).
Um, usually when someone opines that they find an author’s writing
, they mean it as an insult. Or as iconoclastic posture. In any event, not as something they would expect their target to agree with.
Mediocre means neither bad nor good. It means that it could have been better, and also could have been worse. It wasn’t meant as an insult, but as an impartial judgement of the general quality of the arguments against god that I myself came across from C. Hitchens. It’s entirely possible I somehow missed all the really good stuff.
@PetterA
When you call someone’s writing “mediocre”, specially the writing of someone who is acknowledged even by his opponents to be one of the best writers of English prose, you either unpack that intuition, or admit that you’re deliberately trying to stir controversy and bring attention to yourself.
When I praised his writing a few comments above, I introduced a brief excerpt of Hitchens’ memoir as an example of what I was talking about. It be appreciable if you would elaborate on your, shall we call it apathy, about his writing, by citing an example of his ‘mediocre’ writing style.
@Peter:
As a birthday present to myself, it seemed befitting to start diving into Hitchens. On my way home from work, I started listening to God is not Great, which happens to be read by Hitchens. I stopped my bike when I got to a phrase that struck me as an example of good writing:
“My little ankle-strap sandals curled with embarrassment for her.”
How great! I could see the ankle straps curling. I stopped to park myself at a restaurant, get a glass of wine, and get the Kindle version so that I could find that sentence. Before I dislodged myself from the bike, I was taken by another sentence:
“In the very recent past, we have seen the Church of Rome befouled by its complicity with the unpardonable sin of child rape, or, as it might be phrased in Latin form, “no child’s behind left.”) The no child’s behind left nearly made me fall off my bike. It was unexpected, creative, and again, superbly imaged.
If he keeps writing this well, it’ll take me ages to finish the book! (I’m afflicted similarly, though more severely, by Steven Pinker’s writing, which I savor.)
Careful. I’m beginning to form a picture of you stopping for wine at series of restaurants, as the prose passages continue to inspire, and with the bike beginning to weave and wobble. 😉
Steven Pinker is indeed another matchless paragon of excellent writing. It’s interesting how if one pits one against the other, the quality of their writing is comparable, yet their styles couldn’t be any more contrasting.
Isaac, just because others (even a majority) regard a writer as being ‘one of the best’, that does not mean that he/she really is, or was. Using what criteria did these mysterious others (you don’t name any) judge his skill?
I was not trying to ‘stir controversy’, simply expressing my surprise and inability to relate to, and understand, the various comparisons that were made between C. Hitchens and other famous writers, and the praise of him that I saw here. What is wrong with that?
If for no other reason, Hitch’s contributions are welcome in that he’s the most-known of the major figures to come to the subject of atheism from the liberal arts angle–history, literature, politics, etc. Jerry, Sam, Richard, and even Dennett approach the issues from a scientific background.
I think Hitch is actually the Cicero of our times. What’s more, he always has an accurate reference at the ready. I’ve always admired people who can do this as I always have to look up my quotes or paraphrase them. The man seemed to almost have an eidentic memory.
Here is the transcript of his talk at Google. He was anti-totalitarian and being anti-religion was just an important special case.
http://hitchensdebates.blogspot.com/2011/06/hitchens-authors-google.html
This year, there were a number of news events that remind me we really needed his commentary.
Man, that was a thing of beauty. I wish I had half the eloquence he had in life. How fortunate to live in an age where his quality can be preserved for those who come after?
Is the questioner Bruce Sheiman? If so, his book, “An Atheist Defends Religion” is not doing too well. It’s at about 630,000 on Amazon’s list [vs. “God is Not Great” at about 5,000.]
I saw Hitchens during his God is Not Great book tour, in a debate that twice had to be switched to a larger venue because of the size of the anticipated crowds. He debated four opponents that evening — one each from the three major monotheisms, and a “Buddhist nun” — like a chess grandmaster come to town to play simultaneous boards against four local club champions.
I’ve never seen anyone before or since so quick of mind and tongue. He had a knack for swatting an opponent’s argument right back at him — with the pace, spin, and angle of a Roger Federer passing shot, leaving his opponent flatfooted and shaking his head at the net, then skulking back to the baseline while Hitchens was already on to the next point. It seemed like Hitch was operating in real time, the rest of the participants on the seven-second delay used for talk-radio dump buttons.
At one point, Hitchens was making a point about science and religion, discussing the advent of the big-bang theory, when he drew a rare blank as to the name of its founder, pausing and saying “the Belgian priest …” then looking to the crowd like Gielgud calling for a line from a script assistant. From the wings, I said “Lemaitre.” Hitchens gave a nod in that direction (the lighting was such that he couldn’t have seen a face), mouthed a silent a “thank you,” then carried on — brilliantly, I thought.
I’m not much for the star-fucker mentality, didn’t even stick around for the book-signing. But were I vendor, and “Lemaitre” a dollar bill I’d taken in trade, I’d have been tempted to have Hitch sign it so I could frame it and hang it on the wall next to my cash register.
Heck of an anecdote, Ken!
That’s memorable.
It is surprising…no astonishing, that of all the recorded debates, Hitch almost never seemed at a loss for a word like that. I think his memory and skill at debate is endearing because we would all love to have that skill and we doubtlessly project ourselves onto his performances. I wish I could talk like that.
Hmmm, ProfCC(E) seems late to rise today. Eye bright, fur glossy? Or maybe not so good.
Brilliant Brilliant Man, I bet it was a long time before that Guy got over that response to his Question, poor guy.