Posted on 12/25/2021 7:38:31 PM PST by Rummyfan
’Tis the season to recall Christopher Hitchens. One decade ago this month, the Anglo-American journalist died of esophageal cancer at age 62. Commemorations and tributes have marked the sad occasion. Hitchens has been remembered, variously, as "a giant of letters and of social criticism," as an "artist" who "dwarfed his canvas," and as a writer who "delighted readers and listeners with the sense that one could be both educated and epicurean, both cosmopolitan and combative, both bookish and bombastic." But he also has been described as a public intellectual who "chose his crucial causes poorly, winning pyrrhic victories that mostly deepened decadence, and left that same civilization more unhappy, endangered, and internally divided than before."
This last assertion strikes me as overstated and incorrect. Men of letters do not determine the fate of civilization. And the major consequence of an encounter with Hitchens, either in person or in writing, was not unhappiness but pleasure: joy in the company and satisfaction in the prose, even (and perhaps especially) when one disagreed with him. Hitchens would not be so missed today if it were otherwise. His videos would not be so popular on YouTube. An unauthorized biography would not be in the works. Nor would the London Review of Books be releasing a posthumous collection of his essays.
That collection, A Hitch in Time, is a somewhat uneven reminder of Hitchens's sensibility: ironic, fearless, mordant, libertarian, and imposingly knowledgeable. Hitchens remains vivid in the memories of his contemporaries and in the minds of his readers precisely because he combined an irreplaceable set of traits. The distinctiveness of his persona and the novelty of his voice are why we continue to wonder what the author of Hitch-22 might have said about the year 2021.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
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btw, Hitchens is no longer an atheist.
He was the author of a very good short biography of Thomas Jefferson.
If they ever do a movie about him, Dan Ackroyd should play his part.
He was an expressive, deep thinker. His logic was keen, i.e., within his system of reason, he made sense. If his system of reason had been correct, he’d have made sense to me, too. Such was not the case, however. Atheism leaves a thinker decapitated.
I enjoyed listening to him talk, but hated his condescension and cynicism.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools (Romans 1:22)
Various quotes:
For a lot of people, their first love is what they'll always remember. For me it's always been the first hate, and I think that hatred, though it provides often rather junky energy, is a terrific way of getting you out of bed in the morning and keeping you going. If you don't let it get out of hand, it can be canalized into writing. In this country where people love to be nonjudgmental when they can be, which translates as, on the whole, lenient, there are an awful lot of bubble reputations floating around that one wouldn't be doing one's job if one didn't itch to prick. Interview with Brian Lamb about Hitchen's book, "For the Sake of Argument," http://www.booknotes.org/FullPage.aspx?SID=51559-11993; https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/First_love
And yet, I wake up every day to a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance. I probably ought to carry around some kind of thermometer or other instrument, to keep checking that I am not falling prey to premature curmudgeonhood. - Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays (2004); https://quotefancy.com/quote/959204/Christopher-Hitchens-And-yet-I-wake-up-every-day-to-a-sensation-of-pervading-disgust-and
My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilization, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either. It happens to be my view, but it doesn't challenge any of the findings of Darwin or Huxley or Einstein or Hawking. - * "A day in the intellectual glare of Hitchens: Contrarian opines on religion to his crowd of followers" by Joseph Brean, National Post (2006-11-18}
I sometimes wish I were suffering in a good cause, or risking my life for the good of others, instead of just being a gravely endangered patient. Share this Quote Christopher Hitchens
The term 'the American Left' is as near to being meaningless or nonsensical as any term could really be in politics. It isn't really a force in politics anymore. And it would do well to ask itself why that is.
I'm not a conservative of any kind.
The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.
I love it when Muslims go to war with each other, as I do when the Christians do, because it shows there's no such thing as the Christian world and the Islamic world.
George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism.
I get for some reason somewhat stronger when the sun starts to go down. Dusk is a good time for me. I'm crepuscular.
For most of my life I let women do the driving and was happy to let them.
I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I'm still quite robust.
When I go to the clinic next and sit with a tube in my arm and watch the poison go in, I'm in an attitude of abject passivity. It doesn't feel like fighting at all; it just feels like submitting.https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/christopher-hitchens-quotes_2
The writer of this article, Matthew Continetti, is the son in law of William Kristol.
Says it all....
Along with ‘many others’
Atheists have their own version of that time-honored Christian hymn:
“When I’ve been there 10,000 years, I only just began to burn.”
[btw, Hitchens is no longer an atheist.]
True dat
It must have been interesting for him to meet his creator finally.
I found Hitchens to be an insufferable asshole, wrong about everything. He was educated far beyond his common sense.
He took exception to my prayer at one of the FR events but he was a friendly guy.
When I go to the clinic next and sit with a tube in my arm and watch the poison go in, I’m in an attitude of abject passivity. It doesn’t feel like fighting at all; it just feels like submitting.
That sounds like getting the vaxx...
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God Hebrews 10:31
My favorite Hitch quote is the so-called Hitchens Razor,,,
“What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence” .
or as I learned a similar concept, many years ago..
“Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.”
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