Partly out of curiosity, I am posting this to see if Mr. Hitchens's site will pick it up. (There is a page which represents those who link to that site.)
That aside, I've lately become enamored of Mr. Hitchens, as you might already know. So, I'm really linking to his home page because he's a good man, and I'm happy to hear (segment 2) that he has become an American citizen.
But back to his site. Here is a fun audio link, swiped from his site. Ignore the tiresome host of the program, and wait for the moments when Mr. Hitchens answers the callers-in and the other guests. Pure gold.
BTW, the link to the Hannity & Colmes appearance is hardly worth watching. Unless you're like me, and need reasons to be reminded of why you don't pay for cable, and further, think that Hannity & Colmes both are in desperate need of enhanced interrogation.
5 comments:
What's the appeal of Hitchens -- other than his dislike of organized religion and his legendary ability to hold drink?
I find it hard to take seriously someone who's pro-Iraq War.
You can reject Islamic extremism without embracing Condaleezza Rice.
Hitchens appeal is his biting wit and sharp prose and encyclopedic knowledge on many subjects something like Gore Vidal plus his eagerness to take on sacrosanct icons like Mother Teresa and all types of religious beliefs including Islam and the Mormons and Jews. He's certainly an iconoclast and I think he's probably for the war because everybody is now against it. That is, if he still is, it seems like his position has been shifting on the war lately.
He certainly doesn't like Bush or by extension Rice, his reasons for initially supporting the war didn't have to do with supporting Bush. He lived in the Middle East for several years and had his own take on events there. I can't agree with him on the Iraq War if he's still for it, but it's a fun read in any case and well argued.
Anybody who dislikes organized religion is appealing even if you disagree with everything else he says. He's an atheist but doesn't agree with Dawkins or Dennet who are fellow atheists when they want to call atheists "brights". Hitchins marches to his own drummer and is fun to read for that reason even when he takes flawed positions.
Don't forget that H.L. Mencken, whom he is most often compared to, argued for bringing back the whipping post and the stocks. His idea was that if you catch someone like Scooter Libby doing wrong, fining him money doesn't really dissuade him or dishonor him. Mencken's idea was that if you put him in the stocks and let people thrown things at him and then horse whipped him in public it would be more of a deterrent. We all enjoyed the vision and the reasoning even if we didn't really think bringing back public whippings would be feasible or desirable.
Hitchins is appealing for the same kind of reason. He takes some kind of unpopular position and then argues brilliantly for it. His roast of Mother Teresa in "Missionary Position" was a classic and both funny and convincing.
Need I say I'm a fan.
BTW Brendan, I tried to listen to the audio link you provided but nothing audio ever came up. I got a transcript of an interview with him and I couldn't find a link to any audio with questions from the audience.
Well, with recommendations from TC and Brendan, I'll try a few more of Hitchens' pieces. But I do find damning TC's comment that Hitchens is "probably for the war because everybody is now against it." Isn't that rather juvenile? What about having the courage of your own convictions?
Good critics should challenge received wisdom, as Hitchens does. And challenging the simplistic justifications for and against this war is valuable work.
But it's so easy to be a critic and so hard to be a creator.
I am enamored of your (now all too rare) use of the preposition "of" instead of the vulgar "with" after "enamored".
And tc has convinced me that we should bring back public whippings and humiliation. Then maybe Scooter's "friends" wouldn't be so quick to bail him out if they had to take his place.
It would be Rich irony if that thick brown envelope that Libby had set to be automatically mailed to the NYT and Washington Post in the event he saw any real jail time actually did get sent by mistake. That might actually push Paris Hilton off the front page!
To clare, let me say that long after this Iraq fiasco is forgotten, we will still be stuck with theofascist ignorami, so I guess I'm willing to cut Chris Hitchens a little slack on Iraq.
None of which matters, anyway. When it comes to political thought, I live by a principle that has never failed me:
Brendan said it. I believe it. That settles it.
Well, I've probably done Hitchins a disservice by saying that he's "probably" for the war because everybody is now against it. He was for the war while "everyone" was for it too. Rather than being just a contrarian I guess it would be more fair to say that he's an independent thinker and isn't swayed by popular opinion. He sees the Middle East from a slightly different viewpoint than most and his conclusions apparently come from that.
If you're unfamiliar with his writing that audio link "here" that Brendan posted which turned out to be a transcript rather than an audio link has another link on the right side which says it's excerpts from his book. It turns out to be the whole first chapter of his book rather than scattered excerpts. The first chapter is a little different than the rest of the book in that it's about him as a boy and how he was conditioned rather than an excerpt of his argument against religion. The main thrust of his book is to take every religion and religious practice and show how in every case religion makes things worse rather than better in any way. The subtitle of the book is "how religion poisons everything." Every kind of religion from the Dahli Lama and Tibetan Buddhism (generally respected for it's pacifism) to Mahatma Gandhi and his non violence as well as all forms of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
The first chapter is about him growing up rather than these heavyweight subjects, so as I say it's a little anomalous but he was trying to show that his animus toward religion doesn't come from some unpleasant childhood experiences with religion, lest anyone were to claim that he was molested by a priest or something which turned him against religion.
BTW the title "God is not Great" is a twist on the motto on the Iraqi flag. Siddam put "Allahuh Akhbar" on the Iraqi flag which means "God is Great", so Hitchins turned it around. Once again injecting religion into Iraq made things worse which is the theme of his book. He's rather more anti-Siddam and anti-Islamic extremism than pro-Bush or pro-Candy Rice. Once again things got worse when Bush injected his right wing Christianity into the "crusade" in Iraq. Religion on both sides poisoned everything.
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