/lit/ - Literature

HOW

A great writer and rhetorician, and a decent journalist. Also a blasphemer, but I hate to speak ill of the dead.

>>6994023
dont tell me you prefer sam harris the pseudo-intellectual night at the museum looking piece of shit

he was raped as a child, and took it out on his readers and listeners, whom, like he, could not get enough of it.

>God is dead - Hitchens

>Hitchens is dead - God

kek

Considering the respect he's been given, his books must be much, much better than his speeches.

I've found his essays literate but not compelling. I feel very differently about his brother's work, which is always salient, taking anecdotal observations on irony and paradox, and relating them to greater profundities.

I suppose I've found that Chris did the opposite: hIs technique seemed to apprehend the greater aspects of our existence, but only sought to grind them down to an attributive level. In practice, this means losing a lot of respect for your fellow man, and it clearly harms a man who falls into it. It's mystifying to see a crowd united with such a limited philosophical ambit.

He seemed smart when I was 14.

Now he just seems sad.

>>6994169
You're not allowed to have an opinion if you can't use "whom" correctly.

>>6994651
Is it possible to sound like more of a tryhard? You barely managed to say anything at all either.

>>6995679
>le "when did you grow out of atheism" maymay

>>6994019
A useless conceited bourgeois oik.

>>6995695
>le "things I disagree with" maymay
sperge harder gentlesir.

As a secular nationalist hawk, he pissed off and made an enemy out of just about everyone.

Right-wingers hated him for his antitheism and dissoluteness, and left-wingers hated him for his hawkish nationalism, his nose for hypocrisy, and for his horning in on their "intellectual atheism" monopoly.

Now that he can't wrek his deriders in face-to-face debate, they're finally gleefully crawling out their holes to shit on his grave every time he's mentioned, because he caused them so much trouble and ass pain.

"Tha-that Hitch! What a li-a little bitch that guy was! Y-yeah, he wasn't.. he w-wasn't anything sp-special!"

>>6994022
DARE

>>6995714
He wasn't a nationalist you moron. And the left disliked him mainly for his stance on Afghanistan and Iraq, nothing to do with atheism or "hypocrisy". You do know he remained on the left even after he began supporting neo-con foreign policy?

he wanted to go to war with Iran which is fucking stupid
like that he called out Islam though

LITTLE CELESTIAL DICKS

the right brother died

>>6995760
If you would please: Stop barging into threads, and opining on people and concepts you obviously know nothing about,

I've seen you in about five threads, now, yelling "MORON!" and "IDIOT!" and then supplying nothing but your own incredible retardation.

If you want to fish for replies while leaking shit from your toilet of a head, please move to >>>/b/. You've contributed nothing but misinformation.

>>6994019
I don't care what you think about his position, you have to admit that he's a great speaker.

he called out the islam threat publicly in the fucking 80s and defended that position ever since, and how true his predictions were. he writes very well about orwell and american history. he exposed mother teresa as a fanatic long before she herself admited to having no faith whatsoever. he's articulate and he inspires people to read
i've nothing but admiration for him, even though i might not agree with everything he said

>>6996260

BIG BLACK HUMANIST COCK

>>6996302
Moron is not a word I use lightly, and I can't recall using it in any other threads today. Care to actually engage? Why do you think he was a nationalist? He argued against it pretty frequently. Take this, the conclusion of the chapter arguing against particularism in Letters to a Young Contrarian:

"what you swiftly realise if you peek over the wall of your own immediate neighbourhood or environment, and travel beyond it, is, first, that we have a huge surplus of people who wouldn’t change the way they were born, or the group they were born into, but second that ‘humanity’ (and the idea of change) is best represented by those who have the wit not to think, or should I say feel this way."

>>6996333
>Why do you think he was a nationalist?

Here is one source of a few where he makes it clear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7muS0qFor6g
>"[After 9/11], the United States was subject to a fantastic amount of slander. I began to feel really protective of the United States. It's my country you're talking about."
>"And then I thought because we're going to have to talk about war, and fighting back. If I'm going to be saying we ought to send our armed forces over seas, I'd better be [in a position to be drafted]."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-cQZNcaujs&t=290
>"There's hardly a country in the world that wouldn't benefit from adopting [American] principles."
>"It certainly makes me very proud to be a citizen of it."

So, he talked like a Fox News anchor, but still tried to be "on the left..." and the left got pissed.

Here is one hatchet job, among many, run on him by the left after his death that called him, yes, a nationalist imperialist:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2011/12/christopher-hitchens-a-nationalist-imperialist-bully/

>>6996420
But you don't mention the numerous times where he talks about the great wrongs america has done or when he trashes it's presidents
He certainly talks highly of the American constitution, especially in comparison to theocratic countries, but i don't see how defending the ideas you love makes you a nationalist, even though they might happen to be associated with a certain country. it's not like he praises America day in and day out

Not that guy btw

>>6996420
This doesn't constitute nationalism, at least not of the essentialist kind. At a stretch you could call it civic nationalism. But it's worth bearing in mind what was motivating this of kind of rhetoric: Hitchens believed there was a struggle underway between the forces of democracy and enlightenment on one side and religious fundamentalism on the other. This muddies the issue. Looking at the man's work as a whole, he is by and large an internationalist.

And I agree there were people who viscerally disliked him. Some leftists saw him as guilty of apostasy. For a more cogent critique of Hitchens from the left, I suggest Richard Seymour's Unhitched. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

However, he still saw himself as remaining on the left. He sometimes quipped that it was the left that changed, not him. I'll remind you of his dying words: "Capitalism. Downfall."

I'm glad he's dead.

>>6994613
Try harder.

>>6996513
what a well researched post, points 2 and 3 sure convinced me

>>6994019
He supported the Iraq War because "muh atheism." He's just as bad at making all non-religious look like assholes as Dawkins. Also he doesn't bring anything new to the question/debate on religion.

>>6996333
Read his fucking memoirs you pleb, he LOVED being an American.

>>6996440
Which he would argue is true nationalism.

>>6996525
he supported the iraq war to remove an obviously delusional dictatorship which was running a nuclear program to acquire weapons of mass destruction. how about you actually read his stuff before you start posting about him, he barely mentions religion when talking about iraq

>>6996532
Well then thats a different kind of nationalism from what is talked about in here

>>6996529
I have read his memoirs. He liked some aspects of America (freedom, democracy, pluralism etc.), and disliked others. He was not attached to America come hell or high water: if America had become fascistic he would have changed his opinion about it. I think you might be a tad confused about what nationalism is.

>>6996535
What was it like to vote for Bush twice?

>>6996558
neither me nor hitchens did
nice meme post

>>6995679
right...

>>6995714
nationalist? he talked about internationalism all the time and it would seem to have followed from his humanism.

i read this piece of shit a couple of days ago: http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/comment/articles/2013-04/01/michael-wolff-on-christopher-hitchens/viewall

i wish the johnnie walker and rothmans didnt get to hitch so soon. i only came to his writings after he had died. i am an unregenerate fanboy of this man and i wont apologize it. his atheism seemed sometimes misstated or over-stated even, but political and literary sense was un-fucking-matched.

>>6996558
fuck yourself.

>>6996513
piss poor drivel replete with dubious assumptions and oversimplifications of what is a very sophisticated, sincere, and genuine oeuvre.

>>6996586
He spoke in the language of nationalism and aggressively leveraged every nationalist position--sovereignty, unilateralism, civic duty, American exceptionalism--in the service of American foreign intervention, and his eagerness to naturalize as an American citizen doesn't make him seem a particularly indifferent "citizen of the world," so I don't see why people are so averse to calling him a nationalist. He walks and quacks like a duck, so he's a duck.

Oh wait, it's because the left successfully turned "nationalist" into a filthy slur.

>>6996535
how can anybody objectively defend the Iraq War once it was revealed there were never WMDs in the first place? I talked to an Iraq veteran about this, and he said in his view it was still a good war because we still removed a dictatorship and built some bridges and schools for the Iraqi people.

Except there are tons of countries in the world who are in much worse positions than Iraq was under Saddam. Iraq War defenders like to act like America is some kind of benevolent force here to right the wrongs in the world, when in the end we couldn't give less of a fuck about anything except our own interests, and that's the way it should be. And in the end Iraq has oil and Rwanda does not.

>>6996617
>once it was revealed there were never WMDs in the first place?

Man... you're a few years behind aren't you

>>6996611
This is an odd post. Hitchens would have disagreed with you on almost every point, but it seems you're a fan.

His arguments for American intervention were never nationalist in character. I have no idea where you get this from. In the case of Iraq his major arguments were that Saddam was attempting to acquire WMDs, that he posed a danger to the people of Iraq and the region, and that the continuation of the sanctions regime was intolerable. None of his arguments were related to America. Before Iraq, he was often in opposition to American foreign intervention.

And yes, leftists have made it a slur. Hitchens was with them on it.

>>6996611
he thought the american revolution was the only one still 'in progress' or that had born its fruit and definitely admired a set of ideals which he believed america represented. but his love for america never distracted him from a sense of duty towards his fellow man - which seems to me somewhat internationalist. in this way, both terms may be predicated of him in various senses. idk

>>6996645
he said plenty of shit about american foreign policy. we shouldnt let his support for the war in iraq distract us from that and conflate him with the conservative nationalist hawks. his arguments for the war were very unique. you're right i think

>>6996617
he supported intervention in rwanda, darfur, and kosovo - and none of his arguments for such interventions seemed to have any american zeal or exceptionalist tone. idk what you're on about

>>6996666
By this he was talking about the failure of socialism as a viable alternative to capitalism:

“Joseph Schumpeter called it creative destruction: capitalism needs to go on devouring things and making things unstable and dangerous in order to keep on existing. Finding shorter and more scientific routes to production, productivity, demand, efficiency, discarding waste or competition, creating and then breaking up monopolies. It creates a destructive force. But anyone can recognize it as a revolution. It’s the only revolution in town.”

>>6996621
I don't get your point. There weren't WMDs in Iraq, regardless of their intention to develop them. North Korea has an obvious intent to develop WMDs, you don't see us massing on their borders for invasion.

>>6996704
Well they had blueprints and actual components
If you want to intervene once they have the weapons ready to go, fine. might just be a tad too late then though don't you think?

>>6996685
then I would still disagree with him on the basis that I don't think Americans should be the world police and sacrifice our soldiers to fix other shitty countries, but it's a more valid stance.

>>6996567
>>6996567
>>6996567

>>6996567
>>6996567
>>6996567

>>6996712
as shown with the Israeli/American interference with Iran's nuclear program, there are a hell of a lot of better ways to disable a WMD program than a full-scale invasion and occupation.

>>6996723
big differences between iran now and iraq then. i have no idea how sadaam should have been deposed and dealt with, but im pretty negotiation wasnt gonna work

>>6994169
whom my butthole

>>6996645
His justifications were nationalist. From whence came the US's "authority" to intervene?

It could only come from moral absolutism and American exceptionalism, the superiority and security of the American+Commonwealth way of life--or "Western civilization."

Actions speak louder than words, and in actions, he was a nationalist and a moral absolutist, not an internationalist and a moral relativist.

You may say I'm conflating things, but a American national character is a concretization of its principles, so they're really the same--to be pro-American values is to be pro-America, and Hitchens more or less said he was both, and he supported neocon "preventative democracy spreading wars" in the interest of America and its allies, and he defended the neocons, so he was a modern American nationalist.

Perhaps he was crafty Marxist puppetmaster trying to guide the world toward constant revolution through whatever means available, but if that were the case, he failed completely and just got things to explode in the name of capitalism.

I'd like to think he was smarter and more honest than that and just an American.

>>6996784
UN resolutions and a basic sense of morality and concern for one's fellow human being.

'from whence' is redundant.

moral relativism is for pussies and the lazy.

if all that's nationalism, i dont think he would mind the label.

>>6996822
also: congress resolved under clinton to depose sadaam at some point.

>>6996772
but we're not purely negotiating with Iran. There's been a lot of sabotage by Israel and America. American air superiority and technological superiority is so great that I think Iraqi WMD program could have been dealt with without a full scale invasion. It would have required more force than we're using with Iran but an invasion was a waste of life.

>>6996535
No thanks, reading Pop sci gives you literal cancer. See the man himself

>>6996784
Moral absolutism, definitely. This is not incompatible with internationalism. The authority thing is purely moral in character: if another country had both the values and military might of America, he would have supported that country's interventions.

And yes, I do think you're conflating things. Nationalism, as commonly understood, is of the "my country right or wrong" sort, and a belief in innate superiority. The most that can be said about Hitchens is that American values (and the values of "the West") aligned with his own. If this is all it takes to be a "modern American nationalist" pretty much everyone (in the West) is one. And so it becomes nearly meaningless.

He called himself a Marxist up until the end, but with the caveat that he saw no future for socialism. Odd combination, I know, but there you have it.

>>6996513
This, more or less, explains my feelings on Hitchens.

My suspicion is that he wasn't sincere about much of what he had to say.

Chomsky wrecked him too:

http://www.thenation.com/article/reply-hitchens/

>>6996844
hitch mentioned in some interview that he believed morality came down to 'approximations' and spoke against moral absolutism elsewhere. obviously, he probably had a different sense of the term so idk wtf. hitch thought america was founded on some innate principles that were consonant with his humanist convictions. he also definitely thought that the west had, so to say, 'a better idea' than - say - China, most of the middle east, etc. but he wanted desperately to support the emerging secularists and democrats throughout the 'non-western' world. if you must insist upon terming this chauvinistic, nationalistic, or absolutist, then such is your prerogative. maybe im misunderstanding you. idk wtf. im gonna go jerk off.

oh - he became more of a left-libertarian towards the end of his life and disavowed the appellation of 'socialist' - thinking it had become meaningless.

>>6996847
fuck chomsky and fuck you for doubting hitchens's sincerity. your suspicions and anon's assertions are baseless and demonstrate your ignorance or misunderstanding of a great deal of his writing and speaking.

>>6996847
'wrecked'. also, think of the inordinate number of liberal pussies from whom hitchens ended up ostracized because of his support for the war in iraq, and disdain for clinton, among other things.

his sense of humor was always nice. ive seen some of his standup on youtube also.

>>6996965
What am I supposed to think about that? Or feel? Sympathy?

Hitchens was fun to read and listen to. I never felt enlightened by anything he had to say though.

>>6997183
you said you agreed with the post about hitch being a social riser.

how much of what he said have you read or heard?

I like his Camus cosplay.

the guy could quote incredible amounts of poetry and literature, made convincing arguments about any and everything, drank and smoked like a tank, had an ironic and witty sense of humor, and a wide-ranging vocabulary and set of interests. he was a literary polymath and was as literate as most people on this board probably wish themselves to be.

also: shut the fuck up about him if you haven't read letters to a young contrarian or listened to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyoOfRog1EM

>>6997183
one musnt trust their own intuitive sense of 'enlightened' or 'enlightening' writing. especially any anon's

>>6997570
Letters to etc is the
Plebbiest
Of pleb

you will look back on this opinion and cringe

>>6997637
Altho, in contrast, that speech is the beat speech i have ever heard
It is his finest moment

>>6997637
i hate 4chan. 'cringe'. 'look[ing] back'. bunch of insecure fucking babies desperate for self-affirmation. same shit on every fuckin board except the porn ones. at least theyre honest douchebags over there

>>6997666
K
Its bad writing tho

>>6997674
right... and even if it were poorly written, of course, it doesnt make it not worth reading.

>>6997674
what fuckin standard are you judging it against anyway and why?

>>6996847
>Chomsky wrecked him too
You must be using some strange definition of wrecked that I've not been previously made aware of. Chomsky makes good points about Sudan, but then fails to actually provide any evidence for his other two examples, and just lazily dismisses Hitchens in his conclusion, which makes it look like Chomsky is just buttmad that Hitchens had criticized him.

>>6994019
His support for the Iraq War and his effusive praise for Tony Blair prevents me from loving him.

>>6997786
check your verb and reasoning.

>>6996464
Hitler didn't constitute nationalism, at least not of the essentialist kind. At a stretch you could call it civic nationalism. But it's worth bearing in mind what was motivating this of kind of rhetoric: Hitler believed there was a struggle underway between the forces of Germanic people and enlightenment on one side and Bolshevist fundamentalism on the other. This muddies the issue. Looking at the man's work as a whole, he is by and large an internationalist.

And I agree there were people who viscerally disliked him. Some leftists saw him as guilty of genocide. For a more cogent critique of Hitler from the left, I suggest Ian Kershaw's Hitler. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

However, he still saw himself as remaining on the left. He sometimes quipped that it was the left that changed, not him. I'll remind you of his dying words: "Bolshevism. Downfall."

>>6995714
This

>>6996464
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS1AKW0Tt5o this is discouraging me from checking out that book

>>6996881
Why are "fanboys" not permanently banned on sight?

The majority of immigrants rushing into Europe right now are refugees from Libya, a country illegally bombed and destroyed by NATO in 2011, action this left-wing zealot has called to and fully endorsed, just like advocated for war Iraq.

The reason why these refugees will never integrate into western society and will likely establish ISIS in Britain and France in your lifetime, is because this hypocritical fedora shitbag has effectively dismantled what was left of christianity, thus ultimately burying major cornerstone of european indentity, without offering anything viable in return.

Of all possible time to bash christianity, this slimy delusional prick has chosen the era of culutral relativism, a time when christainity in the west was already sick old starving dog dying on the roadside of history. And yet this pharisaic imbecile has actively resorted to christian concepts of compassion and sacrifice in order to justify his hawkish political agenda, called for crusade for the sake of saint liberal democracy to save those poor innocent kurdish children from evil bloody dictator Saddam in almost messianic fashion. Appealed for emotions instead of logic and never bothered to mention what will happen to the region once the last sane moderate secular state there will be gone.
Of course, Chirs, who needs consistency, logic and common sense when you're self-righteous neo-liberal bigot. How would you be able to hear any critics when you have army of infantile rabid followers foaming their mouths at the words "moral" and "religion". Who needs arguments when stand up jokes to retarded American audience would be enough to justify anything.

I hope you suffered immensely while you were rotting inside, Chris. I really rejoice imagining your agony was long and excruciating.

The majority of immigrants rushing into Europe right now are refugees from Libya, a country illegally bombed and destroyed by NATO in 2011, action this left-wing zealot has called to and fully endorsed, just like he advocated for war in Iraq.

The reason why these refugees will never integrate into western society and will likely establish ISIS in Britain and France in your lifetime, is because this hypocritical fedora shitbag has effectively dismantled what was left of christianity, thus ultimately burying major cornerstone of european indentity, without offering anything viable in return.

Of all possible time to bash christianity, this slimy delusional prick has chosen the era of cultural relativism, a time when christainity in the west was already sick old starving dog dying on the roadside of history. And yet this pharisaic imbecile has actively resorted to christian concepts of compassion and sacrifice in order to justify his hawkish political agenda, called for crusade for the sake of saint liberal democracy to save those poor innocent kurdish children from evil bloody dictator Saddam in almost messianic fashion. Appealed to emotions instead of logic and never bothered to mention what will happen to the region once the last sane moderate secular state there will be gone.
Of course, Chirs, who needs consistency, logic and common sense when you're self-righteous neo-liberal bigot. How would you be able to hear any critics when you have army of infantile rabid followers foaming their mouths at the words "moral" and "religion". Who needs arguments when stand up jokes to retarded American audience would be enough to justify anything.

I hope you suffered immensely while you were rotting inside, Chris. I really rejoice imagining your agony was long and excruciating.

>>6998327
good post

>>6998327
'christian concepts of compassion and sacrifice' 'crusade' 'messianic' 'neo-liberal bigot' 'fedora shitbag' '[buried' major cornerstone of european identity, without offering anything viable in return'

come off it

>>6998173
one needn't been a fanboy to notice that hitchens valued sincerity in people and tried to emulate it himself and in his work

>>6998173
and is anon's post so obviously 'fanboyish' as to be noticeable 'on sight'? even if it were, youre still ignoring his claim

>>6997809
kek

>>6998490
Just stop.

>>6998490
this is shitpost level 1000
work of a master
i have punted my cat through a window and am giving you a standing ovation

>>6998500
stop treating your view as a matter of course that doesnt need to be qualified or justified. and stop talking about me. im not christopher hitchens (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignoratio_elenchi).). i dont know by whom or of what that painting is but i want to murder that kid now.

>>6998512
make a proper reply or pound your cat up your ass.

>>6998514

>>6998537
<3. i should stop coming to this website.

>>6998537
this is fucking misological, complacent bullshit. fuck you

>>6998537
A tripfag and an avatarfag? Get your shitposting ass the fuck off of /lit/.

>>6994019
fuck what /lit/ thinks

>>6994019
Great.

>>6994019
Worst Hitchens

Directly from his wiki page:

"His mother was born Jewish, and kept that fact a secret."

>unironically reading atheist literature

>>7000953
Worst gag-meme evar.

>>7001146
>unironically reading theist literature

>>6998143
He's a better writer than he is a speaker. As far as I know he remains the only person to have written a full book on Hitchens, and he does know his stuff.

>>6995714
GET HITCH SLAPPED WITH MY LOGIC COCK

THIS GUY JUST DROPPED THE HITCH BOMB ON ALL THE FUNDIE FAGGOTS ON /LIT/

GET FUCKING REKT GET FUCKING REKT GET FUCKING REKT

insufferable twat

>>7001127
ive heard and read him mention his mother's jewish ancestry on several separate occasions.

>>7002285
shut up you cunt

"Our common speech contains numberless verbs with which to describe the infliction of violence or cruelty or brutality on others. It only really contains one common verb that describes the effect of violence or cruelty or brutality on those who, rather than suffering from it, inflict it. That verb is the verb to brutalize. A slaveholder visits servitude on his slaves, lashes them, degrades them, exploits them, and maltreats them. In the process, he himself becomes brutalized."

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/03/american_inaction_favors_qaddafi.html

>>6994019
nah

>>7001599
this fuckin mick needs better arguments than the shit he rolls out here without much evident attempt at substantiation or justification. and the interviewer just giggles and agrees without contest or soliciting of elaboration. fucking joke. there are legitimate criticisms to be made of hitch, but he'll be the greatest journalist of recent memory for a long fucking time - especially as long as boring idiots like this remain his detractors. also seymour's criticism of hitch's ascribing a latent totalitarian instinct to religion as sounding like something 'a 9 year old would come up with' is fuckin infuriating. fucking joke. absolute fucking joke

>>7002559
and apparently seymour accuses hitch of plagiarism and doesnt bother with substantiating the claim.

>>7002559
http://grammar.about.com/od/pq/g/paralepsisterm.htm is the concept you want

He's a bore about religion. It's a pity he didn't continue writing for Vanity Fair and appearing on C-SPAN. I did enjoy his memoir.

>>6998540
><3
Yes, you're right about fucking off.

>>6998537
You can leave too, dolt.

>>7002918
fuck off
>>7002887
i like his comparisons of most religion and totalitarianism and that the sleep of reason conjures monsters, among other points

>>6994169
>whom

>>6997570
good speech tho

>>7002567
He actually does substantiate the claim, if you read Seymour's book. Also, I suggest looking around on the internet. Hitch's plagiarism is well documented. Here's a good article which focuses on one book:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n23/john-barrell/the-positions-he-takes

>>6994613
more like
>god is dead-Hitchens
>Hitchens is dead-Cigarrattes

>>7005313
ill have to buy seymour's fuckin book at some point. i found another article on hitch plagiarising something.

hitch also wrote an article in apparent 'defense of plagiarism'. ill have to read it later today.

a lot of what seymour said in that interview still seems really shoddy to me.

>>7006639
AND I CANT FUCKIN POST THE LINKS TO THOSE ARTICLES BECAUSE COCKSUCKIN FUCKIN MOTHERFUCKIN 4CHAN THINKS IM SPAMMING

I'd say "NO,