Christopher Hitchens’ 62-year-old scotch and cigarette soaked body, which he wore as a badge of honor in the form of a physical protest against nanny states gone awry, gave way to esophageal cancer on Thursday evening. As Vanity Fair announced news of his passing, social media lit up with touching tributes to one of this generation’s most controversial and confrontational writers.
Typically I don’t grieve the death of people I’ve never been acquainted with, and similarly I find a certain sense of vulgarity in people who mourn celebrities in the same way as if they had lost the family dog. Having said that, I found myself spending a great deal of the past few days contemplating Hitchen’s life, his writings, and the influence they had on me. When I think of his genius, my immediate thought is I would never have had the testicular fortitude to seek a publisher for my first book, ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’ (Sept 2009), were it not for his international bestseller ‘God Is Not Great’. A book that not only led an entire generation of atheists out of the closet, but also enlightened countless many religious folk to abandon superstition for reason. As such I acknowledged the profound effect his work had on me by dedicating my second title, ‘Jesus Lied. He Was Only Human’ (Oct 2010), to the legendary writer.
As a writer, the sooner you accept you will never ever possess the faculties to write as well as Hitchens, the easier one’s life gets. Literally, there is no one who can imitate his extraordinary vernacular, nor his vast geo-political experiences. After all, it was iconic television personality David Frost who said of Hitchens, “He has met everybody who is anybody.” But outside of my jealousy for his use of words, and admiration for his verbally combative opposition to any person or entity that attempts to blur the line separating Church and State, there ends my man crush for Christopher Hitchens. Why? Well, he was a warmonger and an unabashed misogynist. He was a neo-Conservative masquerading as a Liberal. While he may have been drawn to liberal politics in the 60s as a result of his disgust for racism and the Vietnam War, he certainly abandoned that ideological position during the last decade of his life.
(Now, if you listen carefully, you will hear the sound of my atheist brethren setting my books on fire. But hear me out, you inglorious godless bastards. Firstly, the same folk, myself included, who praised Hitchens for his firebrand obituaries, namely those targeting Princess Diana, Jerry Falwell, and Mother Theresa – immediately following their respective deaths, will presumably hurl venom in my direction for speaking ill of Saint Christopher. Irony much?)
Now I won’t spend too much time on the misogynist charge as I did not know the man personally, but when you call the Dixie Chicks “fat fucking slags” and “sluts”, because they dared release a song denouncing George W. Bush’s march to war in Iraq, then there’s one clue. Another clue came in the form of a Vanity Fair article titled, ‘Why Women Still Aren’t Funny’, an article that opined numerous and vexing reasons as how women are not adequately skilled to make men laugh. Certainly, standing at the front of a long queue is Tina Fey, who among millions of others, is owed an apology she will now never get.
As far as his warmongering is concerned, it was always perplexing to hear Liberals champion him as a torch bearer for the progressive cause. As far as neo-Conservatism goes he was to the right of Paul Wolfowitz, Josh Bolton, Richard Pearle, and even Dick Cheney. Effectively, Hitchens was a Bush-ite! While he criticized Bush the Younger as an “inarticulate intellectual buffoon”, he was lock step with the policies of the Administration. Further, during the 2004 election said, “A John Kerry presidency would be a disaster for the United States.” Worst than eight years of Bush, really? Most genuine Liberals would’ve taken that chance!
Dennis Perrin, a friend and former protégée of Hitchens, described all the way back in 2003 how Hitchens’ virtues as a writer and thinker were fully swamped by his pulsating excitement over war and the Bush/Cheney imperial agenda:
“I can barely read him anymore. His pieces in the Brit tabloid The Mirror and in Slate are a mishmash of imperial justifications and plain bombast; the old elegant style is dead. His TV appearances show a smug, nasty scold with little tolerance for those who disagree with him. He looks more and more like a Ralph Steadman sketch. And in addition to all this, he’s now revising what he said during the buildup to the Iraq war.
In several pieces, including an incredibly condescending blast against Nelson Mandela, Hitch went on and on about WMD, chided readers with “Just you wait!” and other taunts, fully confident that once the U.S. took control of Iraq, tons of bio/chem weapons and labs would be all over the cable news nets–with him dancing a victory jig in the foreground. Now he says WMD were never a real concern, and that he’d always said so. It’s amazing that he’d dare state this while his earlier pieces can be read at his website. But then, when you side with massive state power and the cynical fucks who serve it, you can say pretty much anything and the People Who Matter won’t care.”
The irony is Hitchens, a Brit native, detested British colonialism, while adoring the imperialism of his adopted nation, the U.S. More accurately, he was besotted with the projection of American military might. His statements endorsing bombing Muslim nations would make even the Muslim hating Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorums of the world blush. Shortly after 9/11, Hitchens stated, “My first reaction to the 9/11 attack was exhilaration because I knew it would unleash an exciting, sustained war against Islamofacism…..I realized that if the battle went on until the last day of my life, I would never get bored in prosecuting it to the utmost.”
Like other neo-Cons, Hitchens rarely commented or examined the cause of the Islamic hatred of America i.e. U.S bases in the Holy Land; prejudiced treatment of the Palestinians; economic sanctions against Muslim countries; and support of tyrannical Arab dictators. Hitchens’ attitude towards the Middle East, however, was not too dissimilar to the maligned Ann Coulter, who once said, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity.” Except for the last strand in that sentence, their hawkish attitudes were shared. If you believe that’s a stretch, here’s what he had to say on the use of cluster bombs, a weapon 108 countries have ratified a comprehensive ban against using them:
“If you’re actually certain that you’re hitting only a concentration of enemy troops…then it’s pretty good because those steel pellets will go straight through somebody and out the other side and through somebody else. And if they’re bearing a Koran over their heart, it’ll go straight through that, too. So they won’t be able to say, “Ah, I was bearing a Koran over my heart and guess what, the missile stopped halfway through.” No way, ’cause it’ll go straight through that as well. They’ll be dead, in other words.”
Admittedly, it’s impossible to make a complete judgment of a man based on a few pieces of commentary. The point being, however, it would be wrong to remember him as a person who was flawlessly enlightened. He, like the rest of us, wasn’t! He was a fighter against wrong doing, but that didn’t make him immune to endorsing the wrong doings of others, and for atheists and anti-theists to make a false idol of him, insofar as overlooking the numerous instances he was fundamentally and morally wrong, is something I doubt he would have even hoped for.
Regardless I will remember him for the positive and profound influence he had on my life, and I will leave you with my one my favorite passages from ‘God Is Not Great’”:
“Faith is the surrender of the mind; it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It’s our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.”
CJ Werleman
Author ‘God Hates You. Hate Him Back’
After the initial deluge of strictly positive memorials I started seeing more writers, myself included, willing to acknowledge both the admirable and the less than noble aspects of Hitchens’ character. We atheists don’t have saints, we are willing to expose the positive and negative traits of those we admire. Our “heroes” are flawed humans, yet their flaws don’t prevent us from celebrating the positive influence they’ve had on us. Hitch was a complex man, as many thinking people are. It made him a hard man to admire, but admire him I did, despite the many topics on which we disagreed.
I salute you for your objectivity that most atheists nowadays lack.
There is objectivity and there is objectivity how can you say most atheists lask something when you dont know all atheists.
Hitchens change my life in a strange way. This pretty much resumes how. Thanks to what Hitch said about religion I started to question everything, including what he had to say.
Hey Krupa,
I’m sure he would have appreciated your comment!
I can’t comment as to the charge of misogyny though it seems in direct contrast to his oft repeated “empowerment of women” solution for combating poverty, breaking the “animal cycle of reproduction”.
His Iraq position, I feel, was slightly more nuanced and less the victim of absolutist warmongering as you suggest. He provided an excellent response to this very question via an interview with Jeremy Paxman of BBC television. Worth watching.
Excellent piece about the enigmatic Hitch. I always felt that he sought being disliked. Maybe he felt that that was what defined him.
I won’t ‘burn your books’. I have them both. But as a Hitchens follower (and I have all 17 of his) for over 30 years, I was shocked by this piece. To say he was a neo-con and to the right of your list is just silly. Hitch was a Marxist conta mundum in terms of historical analysis. And, like Nick Cohen (London ‘Observer’ & ‘Guardian’) was always of the Left (post 9/11) if highly critical of some elements’ willingness to take the side of totalitarian regimes merely because of their anti-Americanism. As for him being a misogynist … words fail me. You just need to read him on Clinton (No One Left to Lie To) to know this is nonsense on stilts.
Keep up the good work on the God bothers though.
You said Hitchens gave you the courage to write your first book, yet you patently lacked the courage to say what you said above about him when HItchens was alive.
The misogyny accusation is unfair. Many of Hitchens debates contain contrary evidence to disprove your point. (I also thought that he was given the subject of “why women aren’t funny” and was told to write about it. But I could be wrong) What he said about the Dixie Chicks was vile. I have heard many more comments from his debates that repudiate this as a stupid mistake.
As far Iraq, I disagree with much of what Hitchens said on that, but his arguments were always well constructed. The Ann coulter comparison is lazy and cowardly of you. Once again, silence when he was alive and now you decide to pipe up? You should read more of Hitchens work, his many essays and articles will speak volumes as to why this comment is an incendiary piece of weak writing.
I implore you to listen again to HItchens, read his work. Anyone who assumes that he is just a right wing reactionary, as you seem to, is quite frankly wrong. Just as those on the “left”, like George Galloway, are given respect even though they supported murderous regimes, like Saddam Hussein’s, thinking that this was a leftist stand point. It is an ignorant standpoint, and further more it highlights the complications that exist for left Vs right. I have been on the political left all my life, so yes, I have found disagreements with HItchens but I disagree with your conclusions.
I disagreed and, still do, with Hitchens rose tinted spectacles view of US Imperialism. But your sensationalist blog is ill informed. I Originally felt as you do until I READ his writing on Iraq and why he held that position. I realized where he came to his conclusions. Read Kanan Makiya’s “Republic of Fear” to understand Hitchens a little better.
I can’t wait to read your new book, loved the first two. But I recall something you mentioned in one of your recent blogs when you were researching the new book you and accused Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens et al of quoting the Qu’ran out of context. I feel you have done that with HItchens. He was, like all humans, flawed. He chose weird alliances. But I cannot agree that HItchens was on the far right.
Well, there is something that happens in the breast of one when an iconic personality dies (more so than killed off).
In this mans case, I as a fanciful wordsmeister would have liked to have his memory and wit in his good years.
But may I remind you all that he was a monster boozer and the Cancer was only the final assault on that brain/mind.
AND that the old dictum is absolutely true:
“power corrupts etc…”
Vale.
Only great comments are warrented for this great man.. He cannot reply now to any negativity so lets praise him for all his has done to stop religious powers ruling what we say or do.
On reading his memoirs at the beginning he talks of death I am 75 and after his words look to death as something not to dispair of but going to the sleep we were in before our births.I have no fear of death only what it will mean cfor my family and their grief.
You know, nobody brings up why he had such a strong hatred of the Islamic state. It all goes back to Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie. Combine the fact that his good friend was nearly murdered (and forced to live in fear of his life for a long time) for writing a book that dared to be based on parts of Islam with the fact that Hitchens spared no love for any religion, ever, and you start to see why he was extremely affected when 9/11 happened, and why he was adamantly pro-Iraq War. Was he misguided? Sure, you can’t turn personal injury into national policy. But it’s a lot deeper than “Oh, he was a secret neo-con all along!!1!” and to ignore that is something that I find as distasteful as many find his remarks toward the Dixie Chicks.
Hitchens was only human, whatever else he might have been.
I should correct myself and say that he didn’t just have personal reasons; he also hated the censorship of ideas and cultural freedom. Read an article about it here: http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/02/hitchens200902
You are spot on. Just because I agreed with the man on one topic (religion), it doesn’t mean that he was a guru on everything else. His stance on the Iraq was was nothing short of sickening.
I’ll miss his writing – whether it made me smile or cringe. Good obit!
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Two things:
1.) Someone who equates “left” with “liberal” needs to hop on planes across the Atlantic more often. This whole liberal-vs.-conservative dichotomy is pretty much a U.S. only phenomenon, and someone who doesn’t know that probably hasn’t read enough Hitchens, to be honest.
2.) To quote, real quick: “Like other neo-Cons, Hitchens rarely commented or examined the cause of the Islamic hatred of America i.e. U.S bases in the Holy Land; prejudiced treatment of the Palestinians; economic sanctions against Muslim countries; and support of tyrannical Arab dictators.”
Yeah, these accusations are usually made by _other_ tyrannical Arab dictators or regimes, established or otherwise. Hitch did speak to these issues often and elaborately enough to dismantle them quite convincingly; Thomas Jefferson already went to war with barbaric Muslims (as we called “Islamofascists” back then) during his time as president. U.S. bases in the Holy Land is a bullshit reason to want to kill someone over, and worthy of no respect. Economic sanctions against Muslim countries – same there. And finally, let’s not bullshit, bin Laden said (and this is Hitch’s paraphrasing that I’m paraphrasing) “we will never forgive you for taking East Timor from us” – how’s that for being anti dictatorship.
Please don’t misrepresent Hitch. I’m quite sure he wouldn’t have misrepresented you if you’d have gone first. Do write though, and do criticize. If your timing is “offensive”, then remember what Hitch himself would’ve thought that criticism was worth.
Oh, get real. The Hitch defended the rights of women under Islamic oppression when the feminists and fashionable freethinkers, such as yourself, ran for cover. I know you’ll never forgive him for that, nor for standing up for freedom of speech when it was at stake, nor for opposing fascism when you were accommodating it.
Please stop embarrassing yourself.