People talk about negligence and 'collateral' damage like those deaths count differently somehow. It doubt the dead ultimately care that they died in a certain way that was a bit more acceptable than the bad way of dying.
I don't use the term 'collateral damage' (except to use it ironically), because you're right - dead is dead. But I'm not interested in equivocating all deaths & military actions, because intent matters to me (and I imagine it matters to you, too, outside of the context of this discussion).
I'm not going to defend the American military actions because I think they made the wrong decisions and the results were horrific, so I'll concede that point.
A perfectly executed war still kills a bunch of Iraqis. Hitch didn't care because they were religious and he had a hard time separating the religion from the religious unless they were close personal friends who grew up with the same kind of background as he did (Andrew Sullivan comes to mind). Hitchens was an elitist prick who had no patience for vast swathes of humanity and ignored the consequences of his beliefs frequently, particularly when it came to these wars. He was also the worst kind of militant atheist, who had a horrible tendency to dehumanize the faithful. Of all religions, so at least there's that.
I don't agree with the bolded parts.
I think Hitchens wanted Saddam removed from power because he saw the conditions the country was in, and then refused to back down because he had difficulty ever conceding any argument. I've never watched or heard him dehumanize the religious; he speaks about religion in the same terms I've come to use (that it's a fraud, that those with religious convictions are - in essence - victims of being defrauded, and show most of the same symptoms).
Hitchens thought saddam should be removed and that, all other concerns were secondary. He thought that since we hadn't gone the whole nine yards in 1991, it was the U.S.' responsibility to do so in 2003. His writing about the war centers around saddam's human rights violations and warmongering and so on; he never really gets into any realist sort of cost/benefit analysis. To the extent that he wrote about what iraqi society and government should look like post invasion, he's very general and seems to only write about it because he kind of thinks he has to.
Hitchens was a moralist (though he had decidedly different morals than most people we think of as 'moralists'), and he bought the neo-conservative argument that the U.S. had a moral obligation to 'export democracy.' He would not have put it that way but he was essentially making the paul wolfowitz argument.
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Recognizing this affinity, many Christian readers felt that in Hitchens’s case there had somehow been a terrible mix-up, and that a writer who loved the King James Bible and “Brideshead Revisited” surely belonged with them, rather than with the bloodless prophets of a world lit only by Science.
Recognizing this affinity, many Christian readers felt that in Hitchens’s case there had somehow been a terrible mix-up, and that a writer who loved the King James Bible and “Brideshead Revisited” surely belonged with them, rather than with the bloodless prophets of a world lit only by Science.
Yeah, no, they're full of shit. This is the kind of christian thinking that goes "well, you're not actively raping babies and murdering grandmothers, therefore you're obviously religious. Or you're informed by religion. Or something. You enjoy beauty, therefore Jesus"
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
His drinking was not something to admire, and it was not a charming foible. Maybe sometimes it made him warm and expansive, but I never saw that side of it. What I saw was that drinking made him angry and combative and bullying... Drinking didn't make him a better writer either--that's another myth. Christopher was such a practiced hand, with a style that was so patented, so integrally an expression of his personality, he was so sure he was right about whatever the subject, he could meet his deadlines even when he was totally sozzled. But those passages of pointless linguistic pirouetting? The arguments that don't track if you look beneath the bravura phrasing? Forgive the cliche: That was the booze talking.... It makes me sad to see young writers cherishing their drinking bouts with him, and even his alcohol-fuelled displays of contempt for them... as if drink is what makes a great writer, and what makes a great writer a real man.
You don't expect power-mongers to be particularly reflective. But you do expect it of intellectuals. Increasingly I think that perhaps we should not.
The Iraq War still burns for a lot of the Left because, in the run-up to the War, those who questioned it were loudly denounced by conservatives and many of the country's most powerful Democrats. They were dismissed as soft-headed crazies unmoored from reality and serious foreign policy thinking. Except the crazies were right and the serious people were wrong. There wasno WMD. There was not an imminent mushroom cloud. The country did go to war on bad intelligence. It did show an ugly disinterest in managing the effects of that war.
Some of these serious people have attempted to come terms with these disagreeable facts. Others have sought out every reason not to. Hitchens died among the latter.
One final note from Dan Fox which, I think, captures some of the frustration with Hitchens among those of us on the Left:
I can tell you that a lot of my anger (and to be clear, I have reverence for his writing and am not driven crazy by him) is that when it comes to the Iraq War, his thoughts were almost directly contradictory to his thoughts on Kissinger. I found it a good thing to have someone who was anti-Vietnam War that isn't defined by Buffalo Springfield, and had done good reporting to arrive at a conclusion. So many of his defenses of Iraq almost seemed the opposite of thinking on Kissinger.
In general, I think why he drew a lot of anger is that everyone expected him to know better. He should know better than to write a half-assed column about why women aren't funny. I think somewhere deep down he probably did know when he was wrong about many issues, but was so committed to winning a debate that it didn't matter. I was always surprised he couldn't go the Sullivan route on Iraq, or at times even accept that there were a lot of poorly handled things in that war.
And this is serious business, you know? You can't just go around smearing an entire gender or defending a haphazard war based on a philosophy that isn't even popular in the GOP anymore because you're drunk and you want to challenge yourself intellectually. People will rightly get offended.
Kana on
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Why is that important? The point is that people will rightly get offended if you're a tosser with poor opinions who thinks he's right about everything. Whether said tosser cares about peoples offense is beside the point.
The Atlantic article...the irony...he repeatedly stated he couldn't care less about offending people. ^^
Would you accept that reasoning from Glenn Beck?
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
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SenshiBALLING OUT OF CONTROLWavefrontRegistered Userregular
The Atlantic article...the irony...he repeatedly stated he couldn't care less about offending people. ^^
Would you accept that reasoning from Glenn Beck?
I would if Glenn Beck actually made sound arguments to support his claims.
How do we differentiate that from "I accept assholes who agree with me, and condemn assholes who don't"
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
I think it's more a case of this: Not only did he not care that he was an asshole, but nobody should care. Fight the argument, not the delivery. He's basically making a case that it is all too easy to fall into an ad hominem situation with Hitchens, which is not his fault nor his responsibility to deal with.
Some of his opinions are purely trolling. Like his craptastic opinions on women (especially black ones!). Best example, that Coates points out in that post that's linked is how he blames Michelle Obama for Barack Obama's connection to Jeremiah Wright when Obama was baptized by Wright a year before he met Michelle. Good times.
He was frequently a lazy hack. Most frequently when the subject was women.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
I think it's more a case of this: Not only did he not care that he was an asshole, but nobody should care. Fight the argument, not the delivery. He's basically making a case that it is all too easy to fall into an ad hominem situation with Hitchens, which is not his fault nor his responsibility to deal with.
The irony here is that Hitchens would constantly write off counterarguments to his blatherings with nothing but pure ad hominem bile while ignoring their arguments completely. His rhetoric in response to critics of the Iraq War was especially egregious. And yeah, Hitchens treating everyone who disagreed with him (especially women) as if they were scum was very much his fault.
I'm glad to see that the Hitchens lovefest in the media is ending. All the attempts to puff him up into a modern Orwell or Proust just highlights how crappy our era's "public intellectuals" appear in contrast to those of our forbearers.
To paraphrase the observation on Newt Gingrich, Hitchens was the stupid person's idea of a great writer.
I'm glad to see that the Hitchens lovefest in the media is ending. All the attempts to puff him up into a modern Orwell or Proust just highlights how crappy our era's "public intellectuals" appear in contrast to those of our forbearers.
To paraphrase the observation on Newt Gingrich, Hitchens was the stupid person's idea of a great writer.
Hahaha. I absolutely cannot tell if this is serious. Proust?
I'm glad to see that the Hitchens lovefest in the media is ending. All the attempts to puff him up into a modern Orwell or Proust just highlights how crappy our era's "public intellectuals" appear in contrast to those of our forbearers.
To paraphrase the observation on Newt Gingrich, Hitchens was the stupid person's idea of a great writer.
Hahaha. I absolutely cannot tell if this is serious. Proust?
Y'know, Orwell is actually a quite good comparison, since he was mostly an essayist. If it wasn't for 1984 and Animal Farm, nobody would really remember Orwell now, but in his time he was most known for his magazine writing. And he was not particularly admired. The reason we think of Orwell as such a legend is because his very best stuff has survived and his mediocre efforts have mostly been forgotten.
And Hitchens was a great writer. He had flaws, just like any writer, but you're being a goose if you think he's a stupid person's idea of a great writer. As the great respect he was held by other writers ought to testify. I'm so sick of hearing this pseudo-intellectual lamentation that intellectuals just aren't as great as earlier generations. Not only is it not unique to our field - music, theater, television, film, child rearing - there's a critic in every field who wants to complain that things just aren't as good anymore. It's not even unique to our generation, you can find similar complaints throughout the historical record; the greeks complained that the next generation were spoiled and had no creative works; the Romans complained that none of their writers could measure up to the classic Greeks; on and on throughout history, nobody ever thinks things measure up to the last couple of generations. It's stupid and lazy and ignorant.
Look, I would never consider Hitchens to be an aspirational figure, and we shouldn't turn regret over his death into hagiography. The man had flaws. But that's part of what made him interesting (and infuriating). Not only do you dismiss Hitchens' works unfairly, you demean Proust and Orwell by treating them as infallible icons of Great Writing.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
The Atlantic article...the irony...he repeatedly stated he couldn't care less about offending people. ^^
this is a really dumb defense of hitchens, or anybody else for that matter.
"he was an asshole... but he didn't care that he was an asshole!" doesn't mollify the original claim. If anything, it makes it worse.
Offending people doesn't necessarily make you an asshole.
The reaction to the Danish cartoon is the best example of how anyone's sensitivity on a given subject should not be taken under serious consideration during discourse because everyone can claim to be offended by just about anything. If someone throws out the "I'm offended" card its a half assed attempt to end discourse because said person is unable or unwilling to make a case against it. Not to mention it's something that is completely out of one's control to prevent.
I'll state that this quality of Hitchens was an admirable one because all he really cared about was getting at the truth, even if it was ugly.
The Atlantic article...the irony...he repeatedly stated he couldn't care less about offending people. ^^
this is a really dumb defense of hitchens, or anybody else for that matter.
"he was an asshole... but he didn't care that he was an asshole!" doesn't mollify the original claim. If anything, it makes it worse.
Offending people doesn't necessarily make you an asshole.
The reaction to the Danish cartoon is the best example of how anyone's sensitivity on a given subject should not be taken under serious consideration during discourse because everyone can claim to be offended by just about anything. If someone throws out the "I'm offended" card its a half assed attempt to end discourse because said person is unable or unwilling to make a case against it. Not to mention it's something that is completely out of one's control to prevent.
I'll state that this quality of Hitchens was an admirable one because all he really cared about was getting at the truth, even if it was ugly.
Except he wasn't at all concerned about the truth, as in that example I related above wherein he bought the black nationalist frame for Michelle Obama, or any of his many, many fuckups related to Iraq. Hitchens wasn't a great thinker. He was, when trying, an alright writer. But he was also a misogynistic, elitist prick of a drunk.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Some people can be wrong about things, but they'll figure it out if they think about it.
Other people can be wrong (so very wrong) and you can show them how wrong they are, you can try to explain it, and you can rub their stupid ugly faces in the shit that just came out of their retarded asshole-mouths, and they'll just refuse to accept that the shit is fecal. Those are the people I want nothing to do with.
I'm glad to see that the Hitchens lovefest in the media is ending. All the attempts to puff him up into a modern Orwell or Proust just highlights how crappy our era's "public intellectuals" appear in contrast to those of our forbearers.
To paraphrase the observation on Newt Gingrich, Hitchens was the stupid person's idea of a great writer.
Hahaha. I absolutely cannot tell if this is serious. Proust?
Y'know, Orwell is actually a quite good comparison, since he was mostly an essayist. If it wasn't for 1984 and Animal Farm, nobody would really remember Orwell now, but in his time he was most known for his magazine writing. And he was not particularly admired. The reason we think of Orwell as such a legend is because his very best stuff has survived and his mediocre efforts have mostly been forgotten.
And Hitchens was a great writer. He had flaws, just like any writer, but you're being a goose if you think he's a stupid person's idea of a great writer. As the great respect he was held by other writers ought to testify. I'm so sick of hearing this pseudo-intellectual lamentation that intellectuals just aren't as great as earlier generations. Not only is it not unique to our field - music, theater, television, film, child rearing - there's a critic in every field who wants to complain that things just aren't as good anymore. It's not even unique to our generation, you can find similar complaints throughout the historical record; the greeks complained that the next generation were spoiled and had no creative works; the Romans complained that none of their writers could measure up to the classic Greeks; on and on throughout history, nobody ever thinks things measure up to the last couple of generations. It's stupid and lazy and ignorant.
Look, I would never consider Hitchens to be an aspirational figure, and we shouldn't turn regret over his death into hagiography. The man had flaws. But that's part of what made him interesting (and infuriating). Not only do you dismiss Hitchens' works unfairly, you demean Proust and Orwell by treating them as infallible icons of Great Writing.
Thanks for saying it much more politely than I would have. I'm pretty sure Phill was just trolling though...
Orwell was not a great writer. He was, however, a great thinker. Which Hitchens was not.
I think Hitchens was on some things. And he was a self-satisfied, arrogant, lazy thinker on other things. And some things he sort of managed to be both at once.
I mean if you ever watch any of his religion debates he's pretty fantastic.
But that's how it goes for a lot of greats: they're brilliant on a couple of things, they're not brilliant in general.
...Except for Stephen Fry, of course.
A trap is for fish: when you've got the fish, you can forget the trap. A snare is for rabbits: when you've got the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words are for meaning: when you've got the meaning, you can forget the words.
Orwell was not a great writer. He was, however, a great thinker. Which Hitchens was not.
I think Hitchens was on some things. And he was a self-satisfied, arrogant, lazy thinker on other things. And some things he sort of managed to be both at once.
I mean if you ever watch any of his religion debates he's pretty fantastic.
But that's how it goes for a lot of greats: they're brilliant on a couple of things, they're not brilliant in general.
...Except for Stephen Fry, of course.
Speaking of that I watched the intelligence^2 debate with Fry and Hitchens recently.
Hitchens truly pales in comparison, Stephen Fry is amazing.
Posts
I don't use the term 'collateral damage' (except to use it ironically), because you're right - dead is dead. But I'm not interested in equivocating all deaths & military actions, because intent matters to me (and I imagine it matters to you, too, outside of the context of this discussion).
I'm not going to defend the American military actions because I think they made the wrong decisions and the results were horrific, so I'll concede that point.
I don't agree with the bolded parts.
I think Hitchens wanted Saddam removed from power because he saw the conditions the country was in, and then refused to back down because he had difficulty ever conceding any argument. I've never watched or heard him dehumanize the religious; he speaks about religion in the same terms I've come to use (that it's a fraud, that those with religious convictions are - in essence - victims of being defrauded, and show most of the same symptoms).
Hitchens was a moralist (though he had decidedly different morals than most people we think of as 'moralists'), and he bought the neo-conservative argument that the U.S. had a moral obligation to 'export democracy.' He would not have put it that way but he was essentially making the paul wolfowitz argument.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
It begins
In its defence, this column does not say Hitchens converted on his deathbed. It just contends that he was secretly sort of a Christian all along.
Yeah, no, they're full of shit. This is the kind of christian thinking that goes "well, you're not actively raping babies and murdering grandmothers, therefore you're obviously religious. Or you're informed by religion. Or something. You enjoy beauty, therefore Jesus"
The Atlantic, talking about his support for the Iraq war
Would you accept that reasoning from Glenn Beck?
and let's face it, women aren't really that funny
I would if Glenn Beck actually made sound arguments to support his claims.
How do we differentiate that from "I accept assholes who agree with me, and condemn assholes who don't"
this is a really dumb defense of hitchens, or anybody else for that matter.
"he was an asshole... but he didn't care that he was an asshole!" doesn't mollify the original claim. If anything, it makes it worse.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
He was frequently a lazy hack. Most frequently when the subject was women.
The irony here is that Hitchens would constantly write off counterarguments to his blatherings with nothing but pure ad hominem bile while ignoring their arguments completely. His rhetoric in response to critics of the Iraq War was especially egregious. And yeah, Hitchens treating everyone who disagreed with him (especially women) as if they were scum was very much his fault.
To paraphrase the observation on Newt Gingrich, Hitchens was the stupid person's idea of a great writer.
Hahaha. I absolutely cannot tell if this is serious. Proust?
Y'know, Orwell is actually a quite good comparison, since he was mostly an essayist. If it wasn't for 1984 and Animal Farm, nobody would really remember Orwell now, but in his time he was most known for his magazine writing. And he was not particularly admired. The reason we think of Orwell as such a legend is because his very best stuff has survived and his mediocre efforts have mostly been forgotten.
And Hitchens was a great writer. He had flaws, just like any writer, but you're being a goose if you think he's a stupid person's idea of a great writer. As the great respect he was held by other writers ought to testify. I'm so sick of hearing this pseudo-intellectual lamentation that intellectuals just aren't as great as earlier generations. Not only is it not unique to our field - music, theater, television, film, child rearing - there's a critic in every field who wants to complain that things just aren't as good anymore. It's not even unique to our generation, you can find similar complaints throughout the historical record; the greeks complained that the next generation were spoiled and had no creative works; the Romans complained that none of their writers could measure up to the classic Greeks; on and on throughout history, nobody ever thinks things measure up to the last couple of generations. It's stupid and lazy and ignorant.
Look, I would never consider Hitchens to be an aspirational figure, and we shouldn't turn regret over his death into hagiography. The man had flaws. But that's part of what made him interesting (and infuriating). Not only do you dismiss Hitchens' works unfairly, you demean Proust and Orwell by treating them as infallible icons of Great Writing.
Offending people doesn't necessarily make you an asshole.
The reaction to the Danish cartoon is the best example of how anyone's sensitivity on a given subject should not be taken under serious consideration during discourse because everyone can claim to be offended by just about anything. If someone throws out the "I'm offended" card its a half assed attempt to end discourse because said person is unable or unwilling to make a case against it. Not to mention it's something that is completely out of one's control to prevent.
I'll state that this quality of Hitchens was an admirable one because all he really cared about was getting at the truth, even if it was ugly.
Except he wasn't at all concerned about the truth, as in that example I related above wherein he bought the black nationalist frame for Michelle Obama, or any of his many, many fuckups related to Iraq. Hitchens wasn't a great thinker. He was, when trying, an alright writer. But he was also a misogynistic, elitist prick of a drunk.
Other people can be wrong (so very wrong) and you can show them how wrong they are, you can try to explain it, and you can rub their stupid ugly faces in the shit that just came out of their retarded asshole-mouths, and they'll just refuse to accept that the shit is fecal. Those are the people I want nothing to do with.
Thanks for saying it much more politely than I would have. I'm pretty sure Phill was just trolling though...
I think Hitchens was on some things. And he was a self-satisfied, arrogant, lazy thinker on other things. And some things he sort of managed to be both at once.
I mean if you ever watch any of his religion debates he's pretty fantastic.
But that's how it goes for a lot of greats: they're brilliant on a couple of things, they're not brilliant in general.
...Except for Stephen Fry, of course.
Speaking of that I watched the intelligence^2 debate with Fry and Hitchens recently.
Hitchens truly pales in comparison, Stephen Fry is amazing.
Stephen Fry starts talking at about 2:40 in part 3, Hitchens sometime in the 1st