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The torch in the darkness, Christopher Hitchens - R.I.P.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/16/us-christopherhitchens-idUSTRE7BF0FI20111216
I just heard about this, and as I didn't see a thread about it yet, thought he deserved one. The esophageal cancer got him faster than I thought it would; though the odds are 5% survival for it in the first place. Since he wrote on just about everything, it's impossible to say I agreed with him on everything, but he was always a good read/listen. There's something I love about the fiery, Hemmingway-style drinking, gusto-for-living intellectual. He'll be missed. It's a shame; he had many good years left in him.
I just heard about this, and as I didn't see a thread about it yet, thought he deserved one. The esophageal cancer got him faster than I thought it would; though the odds are 5% survival for it in the first place. Since he wrote on just about everything, it's impossible to say I agreed with him on everything, but he was always a good read/listen. There's something I love about the fiery, Hemmingway-style drinking, gusto-for-living intellectual. He'll be missed. It's a shame; he had many good years left in him.
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You didn't even live to see Kissinger to his grave.
All the best for Alexander, Sophia, Antonia and Carol.
I hope his work with Dr. Collins helps future patients coping with esophageal cancer.
I say we shall.
Guy had a fascinating story to tell and while I didn't agree with some of what he wrote or said, by the time I had finished an essay or chapter, I could certainly see why he wrote or said it. It's tragic and unfortunate that journalism and the world lost him at the age of 62 when I would really have preferred to hear his views on what's going on in the world today.
The man was incredibly offensive at times, but still managed to be a gentleman. In todays media where the ideas of someone like Anne Coulter are given equal weight to people like Carl Sagan and treated as science he will be a missed spotter of bullshit.
One of my favorite interviews: (at around 3:00) the rest seems to be some pretty nice samplings.
Tear inducing:
EDIT: But on most other issues, he was wonderful to listen to
Did you hear the story of his single visit, prior to the invasion, to Baghdad, in the company of U.S. Marines?
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Is this the whole thing?
Half a decade would be my guess.
Of course, with our fallen comrade, we have some of the most conclusive evidence against this being the case that's possible to expect.
As if evidence is any kind of barrier here...
Do you have a link for the story? I'd always heard of it and never actually read it. I know he's made a reference or two to it in interviews.
For those of you who do not want to watch that (and there will probably be quite a few): He insisted, as any good skeptic would, of seeing for himself a mass grave that was being opened. At the time, he was thickly coated in sunscreen (which you pretty much have to be in that kind of climate, at that time of the day). When the grave was opened, there was a gust of air, and a stirred-up cloud of decayed human refuse covered him. The sunscreen served as an adhesive, making it cling to his body.
That completely changed his outlook on whether or not Saddam should be deposed by force, and - though he doesn't say it - I don't think he much cared about what reasons were or were not offered for doing it. If I were in his shoes, it's hard for me to honestly try to claim that I'd be above that sort of thing (my experience in Africa certainly did change my outlook for a while on whether or not violent thuggery should be met with violent thuggery).
I disagree with the invasion mostly because of the methods employed, the end results and the terrible cost in life. But I cannot fault Hitchens for wanting Saddam gone, even at great cost.
I've always been kind of conflicted about hitchens. I like a lot of his writing and I appreciate that he wrote about of a lot of things that seemingly nobody else was even thinking about, and I think it's too bad that his antireligious stuff will inform so much of our memory of him.
On the other hand I can't stand that he was such an incorrigible asshole; not so much because he actually was an asshole becuase who cares (and ultimately who knows what kind of person he was, really), but because he constantly let it seep into his public advocacy and it just became frustrating to listen to after a while.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
And I think that will be one of his greatest legacies to this wretched world. His relentless, unapologetic attempts to make people realize that they were being made fools of so easily, on so large a scale.
That was not what Hitchens ever said - he said that it was ultimately a greater harm than good, and more than that, it by itself could not promote any good cause that a secular movement or organization could not also promote. The motivation for doing things like large-scale charity in a humanist imperative, not a religious one, and the fact that some religious group choose to partake does not excuse the religion itself.
See how this applies to every other person & organization you can name.
what's not so great is that he was openly contemptuous of everyone who made value judgments differently than he did (particularly on issues of religion.) I mean I'm an atheist and I agree in general with pretty much everything he said on the subject, but the way he expressed himself was so abrasive that I often found myself wishing he'd just stop talking.
ed: I mean, in the 'only conversation worth having' clip, he makes an artful, wonderful point about separating moral reasoning from religious justification, but he's unable or unwilling to do it without taking a shot at anybody who is a believer. Which is a nice warm fuzzy for anybody who already agrees with him but if your goal is to communicate with people who don't, it's not doing you any favors
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I didn't get this impression from him at all. Only certain particular opponents was he ever clearly contemptuous with (George Galloway would be one); the rest he provided more or less the same (or better) courtesy than he himself received.
Moreover, though, I think the soreness of some people to the 'tone' of Hitchens has much more to do with their inability to rebut what he's saying, along with that human tendency to want to rub the smart guy's nose into the dirt here or there and becoming frustrated when an opening to do so is never presented.
I agree with almost everything he says, but when he states it with pompous self satisfaction like he sometimes did (usually not) especially when an opponent is sitting with him, it's stupid.
and when he did it was almost always in an oppositional context or an interview that was directly trying to highlight his more controversial views
so whenever he did appearances on TV shows or whatever it tended to bring out the worst and he expressed himself in ways that struck people as needlessly antagonistic and smug
the whole of his written work was not like this, but much like Dawkins the only time people would deign to talk to the man most of the time was to argue with him, and unlike Dawkins he didn't seem to do that with diplomatic aplomb.
He isn't 'taking a shot' when he talks about people lying to children about sin & Hell, and how unhealthy that is. He's being honest about it.
The fact that you can't have an honest discussion about religion without stepping on it's toes is the dogma's problem, not the speaker's.
yes almost as if something integral to a person's self-identity and worldview is an important part of who they are and if you just blithely insult and belittle it casually over the course of making a valid point is going to turn people against you who might otherwise agree with you
fancy that
Christopher Hitchens was a great writer. A particularly diplomatic or skillful debater he was not.
I would put forward the view that he was a very skilled debater, diplomatic . . . well.
"being right" doesn't make you a skillful debater
actually getting your point across to the people you are arguing with and potentially altering their views or changing the thoughts of people observing
is skillful
i posit that Hitchen's television appearances rarely, if ever, changed the mind of anyone who participated in or observed them
Argument and evidence (as opposed to personal expirence) rarely changes peoples mind with regard to religion. In terms of being a skilled debater, being adept at taking apart your opponents argument Hitchens was good, very good. As to changing peoples minds, or altering their views i agree he was very acerbic often offensive.
There's the old adage about leading a horse to water.
Ultimately, at the core of any argument is one or more parties' unwillingness to accept what the other is saying is true.
There's reasons why they are unwilling, and how valid those reasons are is a matter of argument in and of itself.
But the basic reality is that with something as intrinsic to someone's worldview as their religious beliefs, in many cases you are going to hit a wall that is their basic emotional refusal to acknowledge your viewpoint because the implications if they accepted it are that they would have to rethink everything about how they think and act and judge the entirety of their life up to this point.
And rare is a person in a circumstance conductive to that without having some kind of other influencing factor (like being, you know, fucking miserable with their life and not being comforted at all by their religion)
I believe that is the position Hitch eventually reached. He was a strong supporter of ousting Hussein and his party by military force if necessary, because they absolutely were monsters of the worst order, but thought that we seriously fucked up the end-game. This is not an inconsistent position.
I'd say seeing a mass grave and wanting the man who's regime commited the massacre deposed is the only rational response.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
What? Why?
How is it rational to say "well, I know of the mass graves, but until I physically was nearby I could not argue for this action. Now that I have come closer to this particular well-known atrocity, I may argue for it." That seems very irrational. The atrocity was there before, it was there after, and nothing about the situation being discussed changed except his being extremely disturbed.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/longform/2011/12/christopher_hitchens_1949_2011_the_greatest_magazine_stories_he_ever_wrote_.html
And this is I think my favorite Hitchen's slate piece, regarding the hanging of Saddam.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2007/01/lynching_the_dictator.html
These are the words of a person who has never had a life-changing experience. We're not robots, nor should we strive to be. I think Hitchens would agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly.
While I often disagreed with him, I have great respect for his work, and for him... the world is poorer for his death. Rest in peace.
I don't believe that's what Hitchens said or meant. I've watched the speech in question. His recount of being present at the mass grave was clearly meant to serve as a personal, educational example to the audience of the wretched state of Iraq under Hussein's rule, in the same way that his experiences of "two minute hates" in North Korea were meant to inform people of what life is actually like there. At no time did he imply that a visit to a mass grave was a requisite for supporting the overthrow of Hussein.
That's not what I said. Any person who has knowledge of a mass grave and isn't a monster, a psycho, or a Yorkshire Terrier should demand the perpetrator be brought to justice. Shaddam was a vicious tyrant I wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire.
Shitty Tumblr:lighthouse1138.tumblr.com
Yeah, the way he ordered his Sardaukar to mistreat the Fremen was deplorable!
Sorry, couldn't resist.