Christopher Hitchens, Romantic
The late author picked his battles well to the end
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After Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in an airport restroom for trying to pick up another man, Hitchens penned an erudite piece on what the British once called “cottaging,” or cruising in public lavatories. Linking together conversations with gay politician Tom Driberg, a poem published in Private Eye, and statistics from a 1970 doctoral thesis, he composed a thoroughly amusing digression built on the slenderest of conceptual reeds. It is hard to view the Clapham Common toilet in quite the same way after learning that it “acquired such a lavish reputation…that, as I once heard it said: ‘If someone comes in there for a good honest shit, it’s like a breath of fresh air.’ ”
With time, Hitchens did less reporting abroad. That was a shame, but age has its prerogatives. There are exceptions in Arguably, including a piece on a visit to Beirut, where Hitchens was beaten, along with two colleagues, by members of a loutish pro-Syrian party. That episode garnered publicity but hardly showed Hitchens at his most lucid. The assault came after he had defaced a plaque commemorating a party hero.
More memorable on that trip was Hitchens’ lecture at the American University of Beirut, titled “Who Are the Real Revolutionaries in the Middle East?” In it he sought to defend modern Arab democrats who had resisted dictatorship, thinking his listeners would concur. Instead, Hitchens was rudely badgered for having supported the Iraq war. The reception so rankled him he describes it in his introduction to Arguably, explaining why he dedicated the book to a Tunisian, an Egyptian, and a Libyan who embodied the Arab revolts of 2011. Hitchens had been correct about the pull of freedom in the Arab world, his dedication a riposte to an audience too self-righteous to have anticipated this. There can be felicitous clear-sightedness in what feels emotionally proper.
The knowledge that he had perhaps less than a year to live, Hitchens noted, “has given me a more vivid idea of what makes life worth living, and defending.” How odd for him to suggest that he had ever left any doubts on that front.
Contributing Editor Michael Young is opinion editor of The Daily Star in Beirut and author of The Ghosts of Martyrs Square: An Eyewitness Account of Lebanon's Life Struggle (Simon & Schuster).
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time.
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tl;dr
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+1
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In that vein, suck my dick.
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Instead, Hitchens was rudely badgered for having supported the Iraq war.
I also disagreed with him but his intellect was second to none.
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And it is why, you suspect, his post-9/11 break with Gore Vidal, that rare American literary figure who is genuinely funny
Is he? I've never read Vidal, but I've seen plenty of him, and he never ever seems genuinely funny. He always seems quite dour and serious.
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Occasionally he attempts to cloak his bitterness and condescension in what could, in some Orwellian concept of the term, be described as "humor".
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Beirut, where Hitchens was beaten, along with two colleagues, by members of a loutish pro-Syrian party. That episode garnered publicity but hardly showed Hitchens at his most lucid. The assault came after he had defaced a plaque commemorating a party hero.
Wow, really? Hitchens had some stones.
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He did indeed possess stones of great size and hardness. Look the story up.
BTW "loutish pro-Syrian party" is redundant, innit?
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Well rounded and well written on Hitch. I didn't agree with that bastard on a lot of things, and I would've loved to tell him so over drinks whilst he made me feel like a mental midget.
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His titanic presence is understood better after his death than it was during his life. A man who'd been spanked by Margaret Thatcher shortly after claiming she was a bit sexy in a socialist periodical can't in any sense be all bad.
But it is pretty clear, if you ever speak with Muslims in the West, why they were so frightened by his invective that's in one instance channeling a Sarkozy-like danse macabre with the Front National of keeping Europe European while also courting Hindu Nationalist sentiment in the demographic fantasy of West meets Gandhi vs. the godless Chinese and Arabs in the 21st century.
Hitchens, like the Kagans and others who lent intellectual weight to the Iraq War, would have preferred a more able statesman than Rumsfeld and the rest of the cabal who sullied their take on Athenian Imperialism. They didn't get it, so they live and die with the consequences.
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Hitchens unleashed was the perfect storm of humor, intelligence and craft. Youtube is full of videos of the religious who bore the brunt of the hurricane known as Hitchens.
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I wonder if the editors here at Reason are aware of the irony that Hitchens would have been as happy as the proverbial pig in shit to see every single idea promulgated by this organization blown to the ends of the earth, despite the shared hostility to religion.
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He was a guest writer here on several occasions.
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Whenever Hitchens was asked if he wanted to eradicate religion he always said, "no." And whenever Hitchens was asked if atheistic conversions was the goal of "God is Not Great" there was another resounding, "No." Hitchens was one for political discourse. He never wanted there to be one opinion, one view, one ideology; he wanted a pluralistic society. So to say that Hitchens wanted "every idea promulgated by this organization blown to the ends of the earth" is disingenuous to his image.
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"Hitchens would have been as happy as the proverbial pig in shit to see every single idea promulgated by this organization blown to the ends of the earth, despite the shared hostility to religion."
Hitchen's views (which can and has been best described as "schizophrenic" in the vein of Orwell), at least post 1980's, were not nearly as one dimensional and in accordance with your own as you seem to think. He came to recognize Capitalism as the best outlet for liberty and improvement, and remained a big fan of Thomas Jefferson.
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first Hitchens and then Andrew Breitbart. Conservatives lost two major figures. Perhaps it is all due to a conspiracy (joke).
Hitchens endeared himself to those on the right in two ways, his honesty and his pro western stance. Most on the left insist and believe that the US and Europe are the most evil creations the world has ever known and that all non western nations are superior. He knew that was nonsense. He would always do a very brave thing, defend the west.
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Please don't compare Christopher Hitchens to Andrew Breitbart. One was brave, honest, erudite and articulate, while the other was merely Andrew Breitbart.
Hitch was a mighty intellect, and while I disagree with him on some things, I loved his brain and what came out of it.
I miss him. Thank "God" for YouTube.
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I personally think this Hitchens guy was just a lot of hot air. Not much substance behind the stuff he'd say.
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Nice.
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nice let somebody in on brother Good work. Keep Up. Thanks
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