Matty

"He claims to support the Iraq war from a leftist viewpoint."

Yep, it's the old split between "Enlightenment" and "Resentment" leftists. The former mistakenly believe that socialism represents the legacy of the Enlightenment and become "The God that Failed" types when that fallacy is exposed, while the latter know the truth and are driven to false and evil dreams of "equality" (for others, not themselves) out of envy.

"That logic can be argued rather convincingly."

The folks below make a stab at it:

http://www.marxist.org.uk/htm_docs/comm12.htm

"Be it a question of science, metaphysics, or religion, the man who says: 'What is truth?' as Pilate did, is not a tolerant man, but a betrayer of the human race."-Jacques Maritain

In times like these you appreciate a Hitchens!

From The Sunday Times
September 28, 2008

Muslim gang firebombs publisher of Allah novel, Martin Rynja

David Leppard

Scotland Yard's counter-terrorist command yesterday foiled an alleged plot by Islamic extremists to kill the publisher of a forthcoming novel featuring sexual encounters between the Prophet Muhammad and his child bride.

Early yesterday armed undercover officers arrested three men after a petrol bomb was pushed through the door of the north London home of the book’s publisher.

The Metropolitan police said the target of the assassination plot, the Dutch publisher Martin Rynja, had not been injured.

The suspected terror gang was being followed by undercover police and the fire was quickly put out after the fire brigade smashed down the front door.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4837994.ece

about being a contrarian - I never find that to be virtuous in itself in any way, it is only the why and the how that lends any virtue to being one. I'm sure you'll agree.

Well hello Teddy Ted, long time no see, old chap!

"an erudite contrarian, certainly not an empty contrarian. But a contrarian he is..."

I don't see what is negative about being a contrarian. One definition is [one who] "deliberately decides to go against the prevailing wisdom."

That's most of Soloists.

I was not intending to denigrate Christopher Hitchens but this thread seems to have evolved into weighing his ability against his respect/understanding of Ayn Rand. If that is to be the exclusive measure of him then my comments are laudatory by comparison. I have read his works on faith (alongwith Sam Harris' and Richard Dawkins et al) and I not only agreed with his writings I found his style entertaining and precise.His thoughts are as cogent as the other writers I mention but are written in an accessible and florid manner. I described him as an erudite contrarian, certainly not an empty contrarian. But a contrarian he is...

My introduction to Hitchens was his collecttion of writings published by Atlantic Books as "Love Poverty & War." These essays are diverse, informative and very well written. I recommend them. The second book I read of his was in the "Books That Shook The World" series, again from Atlantic Books. Hitchens' contribution is an appraisal of Thomas Paine's "Rights Of Man." A better appraisal I have yet to read.

No, Hitchens is clever and I ponder the necessity to gauge him beside Rand at all. A disparity of talents is scarcely a bad thing if respect can be granted to both talents.

I have a pretty good rule of thumb on buying an academic book with an interesting cover. I check the index for John Rawls and Ayn Rand. If it cites Rawls, but not Rand, I do not buy it.

I was not here. I did not say this.

perhaps people develop a certain embarrassment about referencing her

To put it mildly Liv.

I often look for Rand in a book's bibliography. Too many, in fact most, authors avoid referencing her. I believe that she is so far out in her own league and that this is implicit by the evading authors' gross omissions.
G

I'm pretty sure he's studied Rand quite thoroughly and genuinely disagrees with her on philosophical grounds.

I doubt this when he commits such a gross *philosophical* error in a public debate.

Rand was SO NOT a Nietzschean, she wrote a whole bloody book using Collectivism and Nietzscheanism to dramatically contrast her Objectivist hero. The collectivist was always a slave, but the most tragically enslaved slave of all was the slave-holder, the Nietzschean, while the Objectivist remained a truly free individual in full possession of his soul.

Who knows?
Rand is contemptuously sniggered at by modern intellectuals so consistently, perhaps people develop a certain embarrassment about referencing her, even if they do actually respect and admire her.

Very well put, Olivia, we most definitely need more like Hitchens, regardless of his blind spot on Rand, and then we need far more Individualistic Objectivists who have as much wit and passion in their writing and in the public delivery of their ideas .

http://fawstin.blogspot.com/

Hitchens is one of the most respected voices in the West today on Anti-theism and Islamofascism - two of the most controversially important topics at play regarding the future of our culture. He is not an empty contrarian because he takes strong and definitive stands on issues that so many ... too many, turn green and wobbly on.

Don't write him off so shallowly... please. My post was not meant to denigrate him in any way... I felt the fumes rage in me at his inaccuracy regarding Rand simply because my respect for him is deep. I mean it when I say he is too important to get it wrong. He has earned a platform in modern culture as a commentator worth his salt. We need more like him.

I find Christopher Hitchens as an erudite contrarian ,nothing more. His comments on any topic/person are likely to be waived whimsically. He is entertaining and perhaps that is his most apt role?

I am having the devil's time with my sentence construction these days.

I heard a funny expression the other day and I wonder if it applies to Hitchens? If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

So it might follow that: if the only philosophic system you've ever studied and fully understood is Marxism, it might make sense to see everything as a struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeois (or whatever, someone better read on Marx may be able to supply a better conclusion).

Like all great liars & frauds, Marx mixed a measure of truth in with his manure in order to hide the stink. (The monarchies that infested Europe in his day were awful.)
So even though Hitchens is no longer a Marxist, I'm not surprised that he hasn't make a clean break yet. It isn't as if the largest movement opposing Marxism, christian conservatives(?), have provided a comprehensive and internally consistent repudiation that Hitchens can chew on.

So I think that other responses have nailed it. Hitchens probably hasn't read far enough - which is supported by his comments on Nietzsche.

And I can see why he hasn't had the time. The research & effort that must have gone into God is not great alone would have been huge. And at no time did I notice a drop off in his TV appearances and published articles...

I find it funny that he has much distain for Leo Strauss, and yet, ignores that the basic premise of 'City and Man' centres around moral relativitisim. The fact that as a society that we have nothing which we identify ourselves with in terms of shared values, when faced with a threat such as Islam, we don't even know what we're defending in the first place. We have no basis for which we're defending ourselves.

We only need to look at the nibbling away at free speech and how willing as a society when it comes to these values, we are to give them up. This is what the enemy of freedom banks on - the willingness for people to keep sliding along rather than holding their ground and standing up for what they believe in.

I think Michael Onfrey said it best in his book when he pointed out that we are not in an age of atheism, on the contrary, we are in an age of nihlism. Too bad religionists are too focused on whining on about atheism whilst ignoring what the real threat is.

I remember Hitchens wrote a moving piece about a soldier who joined the force partly because of Hitchen's writings on the war, one who died in battle, and when it was mentioned in the article that among the books the soldier brought to Iraq was Atlas Shrugged, Hitchens chose to insert that 'Nobody's perfect',

Thanks for reminding us of that. A lethal concession to pomowanking on Hitchens' part.

I can empathies, as a libertarian I err to the left when faced with gray areas.

Hitchens as far as I can tell is no longer a socialist in the purest sense but I imagine if pressed he would still call himself a leftist. He claims to support the Iraq war from a leftist viewpoint. That logic can be argued rather convincingly. The only Hitchens book I own is 'Love, Poverty and War' which is basically a collection of Essays shortly before and after 9/11. In one essay he gushes over Trotsky and does so very effectively, it's a great piece. There's no doubt he still has fond feelings towards the left at least in a traditional sense even though he's began to align himself with the libertarian movement in America.

Speaking of Hitch as a libertarian, if you do pick up the book I mentioned, make sure to read his article on Bloomberg's New York. It's a great attack on busy body tyrants.

I think you're leading yourselves on when you say he just needs to study Rand more. In my opinion he's in no way confused. If you read Hitchens regularly you should notice that he regularly sites self interest as a primary reason for contempt. It's always one of the 1st things he hones in on on when writing a scathing profile. This is a very well read man we're talking about. I'm pretty sure he's studied Rand quite thoroughly and genuinely disagrees with her on philosophical grounds.

I remember Hitchens wrote a moving piece about a soldier who joined the force partly because of Hitchen's writings on the war, one who died in battle, and when it was mentioned in the article that among the books the soldier brought to Iraq was Atlas Shrugged, Hitchens chose to insert that 'Nobody's perfect', and mind you that this was a solemn commemoration of the young man, and still he couldn't bring himself to acknowledge the soldier's appreciation of Rand without dismissive comment, and right in the middle of this piece. Hitchens is great to read, i almost always enjoy him, esp. his public debates, but I've noticed with him that there's still something left of the left within him, and his dismissal of Rand, not in any serious way, but in cheap shot cracks, is part of that. Maybe it's as obvious as he's a frustrated Novelist/Philosopher and knows he's not up to Rand's achievement. Funny speculation, of course, but it's a sour note with me, his now common dismissal of Rand and her achievements and it lessons my respect for him. I also find that he doesn't seem to have any overriding philosophy behind his thoughts, no cohesive base from which he thinks from, and that it may be more than his rejection of god and religion at play here, possibly even a dismissal of any kind of organized system of thought, even of philosophy. Not that one requires a set philosophy behind them to have the kind of insight and interesting thoughts that Hitchens has, but again, its his dismissal of Rand, based on a misunderstanding of her that bugs me. And then there's his 'respect' for one as morally retarded as Dinesh D'Souza, even if it may be only out of the respect he has for him as a debate opponent, which is another strange thing about him. I think that if he hasn't read Rand and seriously studied her, that if he now did, his argument against her would be lessened, and it would be, hence his refusal to do so? Possibly.

http://fawstin.blogspot.com/

"Hitchens started off as a fan of Trotsky/Marx. So for him to actually come as far as he has and still be rational is something to behold."

Robert, that actually implies that to be a fan of Trotsky/ Marx is to be rational

By the way, I'm not sure that isn't still a fan. At least at the debate I saw a few years ago he suggested he still was by describing himself politically as a "semi-vibrating Marxist".

Chris Hitchens has been rather low on media radar recently. I would like to see him come out swinging against Obama and his plans to withdraw from Iraq.

A while ago someone posted the debate between the two Hitchens brothers. In it, Chris Hitchens said he had recently written something about the creeping religious tendency of Global Warming and environmentalists in 'Free Enquiry'.

I think I finally found it, but it is not as critical as he made it out to be.

........................................
Which Century is This?
by Chris Hitchens (on the Bishop of Carlisle preaching about the floods in Yorkshire last year)

"We actually know quite a great deal about climate and climate change, and, if it is true that human activity has been contributing to a rise in global temperatures (as seems extremely probable), then there is no need for any God to “do” anything. He can simply watch as his creatures reap the consequences of their own folly. Thus, the idea that an additional condemnation for that folly, visited only on the people of Yorkshire, would be needed is an idea that only the stupidest person could contemplate without mirth. But none of our advances in knowledge is enough on its own to dispel the primitive impulse to look skyward for signs and portents, even in post-industrial Britain in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

A final observation may be worth making. Until recently, fools like the Bishop of Carlisle would have been content to blame floods on gays and leave it at that. But now, they like to make the trendy insinuation that global warming may be a sin as well. This is not the only symptom I have noticed of the “green” movement taking on the aspect of a cult or religion. I have the vague impression that a majority of secularists are also environmentalists of one or another stripe. It might be time to look out for the indications of religious fanaticism, or primeval nature worship, in the ranks of the apparently “scientific.”

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=library&page=hitchens_2...

I'm pretty sure I sent it to him personally. We'd already had contact trying to set up an interview during one of my Radio Live stints. He was travelling extensively and we couldn't nail a suitable time. He was willing, though. Unfinished business.

So no response from Christopher?
kkulak

I've heard him state that anyone is welcome to knock on his door for real in DC - he's in the phone book and open to conversations about political/philosophical matters.

If...nay, when I visit Washington, I shall do so myself.

started off as a fan of Trotsky/Marx. So for him to actually come as far as he has and still be rational is something to behold.

... knocked on his door but got no invitation to sup wine with him, or any response at all. He doesn't seem in a hurry to educate himself about Rand. All he need do re her and Nietzsche is acquaint himself with what she explicitly said about him. The general point is covered in my short love note to him, though Nietzsche is not mentioned specifically.