/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2653388]

So now that he's been dead for six months, are you ready to admit that he was a flash in the pan writer with no real legacy?

[Anonymous No.2653390]

Who the fuck is this guy? Nevermind, i don't give a shit.

[Anonymous No.2653392]

rip salman rushdie

[Anonymous No.2653404]

>>2653388

Don't be a silly OP. John Ritter's been dead a lot longer than six months.

[Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ No.2653406]

Said the bacteria,
that lived and died on a rock,
that no one ever noticed.

[Anonymous No.2653439]

you didn't even read his stuff lol

[Anonymous No.2653446]

Haven't read his stuff, nor am I going to - but he sure as hell knew how to debate.

[Anonymous No.2653450]

With the advent of the internet I think his debates will have more of a lasting impact.

[Anonymous No.2653457]

>>2653450
With the advent of the internet cat pictures will have a more lasting impact. What's your point?

[Anonymous No.2653461]

>>2653446
He knew how to quote people and throw out rhetorical jabs to look smarter.

[Anonymous No.2653464]

"... A legacy is either something you owned yourself (and thus could not disown) or it is some cause or issue henceforward inseparable from yourself." -Christoper Hitchens

[Anonymous No.2653465]

>>2653461

Confirmed for never having seen a single one of his debates.

[Anonymous No.2653470]

>>2653465
Confirmed for easily impressed.

[Anonymous No.2653474]

>>2653461
You can't fucking be serious? He debated like one would play chess - setting up points several moves ahead. Though he indeed may come off as a bit more "sit the fuck down" than Dennett or Dawkins.

[Anonymous No.2653479]

Well that's about right. Everyone of you only know him from youtube. Do you even read?

[Anonymous No.2653480]

>>2653474 He debated like one would play chess

Then I assume Hitchy played Chess by moving all his pawns forward and the throwing the board on the floor when his rook was captured.

[Anonymous No.2653481]

>>2653479
Unlike Dawkins, I doubt he had a pop-career before he became famous for his filmed debates.

[Anonymous No.2653482]

Hitchen's was the poor man's Gwynn Dyer.

[Anonymous No.2653485]

>>2653480

I assumed he played chess by yelling inanities at the pieces and then claiming he'd won at draughts.

draughts = checkers in less educated countries

[Anonymous No.2653493]

Hitchens was the best of the nu-atheists by not being a fucking sociopath (Harris), a mouth-breather (Dawkins) or just completely useless (Dennet). His opinions were mostly shit but you won't find a neo-con that subjugates himself to waterboarding just to prove to himself and others whether it was or was not torture (he of course concluded it was).

[Anonymous No.2653505]

You do know he's in Hell now, right?

[Benny Profane !!muO1YE/mn/J No.2653508]

he was a brilliant man and an exquisitely talented debater, a good writer, and an utter badass. i still dig him

though I disagree(d) with him on plenty

[Anonymous No.2653509]

>>2653493
Sorry, are you claiming Dawkins isn't intelligent?
*spit-take*

[Anonymous No.2653511]

>>2653505

If only his brother could have saved him. :(

[Anonymous No.2653513]

>>2653493

How is Harris a sociopath?

[Anonymous No.2653515]

>>2653509

If he's not talking about biology he ought to be charged with stealing our oxygen and replacing it with carbon dioxide.

[Anonymous No.2653518]

>>2653461
I'm guessing you people only know him from his god debates

To be fair, regardless of your personal affiliation, he was the only person who added anything interesting to the god debate. The actual questions (does god exist? can there be good without god? etc etc) are tedious and no debate between an atheist and a believer has ever amounted to a discussion. it was always just each side talking past each other. Hitchens actually responded to their points with an interesting perspective building on orwell. they failed to respond to his novel interpretation and always resorted to repeating themselves.

those debates were always elementary philosophy and he superseded that to respond to the more relevant political question

[Anonymous No.2653528]

>>2653513

Well he thinks torture is fine as long as you don't feel like causing pain to others is a problem. That and he supports nuking muslims. I'm sure on 4chan this will get me an >implying but in real life this is sociopathic.

[Anonymous No.2653547]

>>2653518
Cherry picking incidents from history as proof that religion is evil (and using rhetorical cop outs to claim that communists weren't really atheists) wasn't "adding" anything to the God debate.

He was no better than any other popular atheist, and never rose above high school outrage.

[Anonymous No.2653560]

The Enemy is remarkable and the obituary from his brother is beautiful.

[Anonymous No.2653561]

>>2653547
>Cherry picking incidents from history as proof that religion is evil
>and using rhetorical cop outs to claim that communists weren't really atheists
>never rose above high school outrage

Ah, thanks for reminding me why I never discuss religion on /lit.

[Anonymous No.2653576]

>>2653547
there isn't one case of any 'outrage'. I don't agree with all of it but his critique is well crafted. You could at least try not to come across as butthurt. and seriously, you're using the 'commies were atheists' line. Lot's of different sociopolitical philosophies are atheistic so it's not even worth responding to.

[Anonymous No.2653592]

Hitchens tried to claim that communists weren't real atheists, and that MLK wasn't a real Christian in his attempt to prove that "hurr religion is evil".

Hitchens was only popular because his accent sounded impressive to an undemanding audience.

[Anonymous No.2653610]

>>2653592

Pretty sure he just claimed that all totalitarianism like communism (a worldview which somehow becomes equated with their rejection of god?) and religion should be abhorred, not that communists were "religious".

[Anonymous No.2653655]

He never recanted his support for the Iraq War. Nay, he was one of the only ones around arguing in support of it.

[Anonymous No.2653693]

>>Hitchens tried to claim that communists weren't real atheists, and that MLK wasn't a real Christian in his attempt to prove that "hurr religion is evil".

>>Hitchens was only popular because his accent sounded impressive to an undemanding audience.

You have either not read or not understood Hitchens, friend.

[Anonymous No.2653697]

>>2653388
Hitchens was making a lot of sense up until he got to the point where he thought America should go after the Middle Eastern theocracies.

After that point he started to seem a bit crazier.

[Anonymous No.2653705]

ANY THINKING PERSON IN 2012 IS AN ATHEIST

No need to debate it, we can just leave all the fucking backwater hicks behind, fuck em.


You have to look at his politics etc. How did he go from being a trot to a neo-con, iraq war, american exceptionalist? What a fucking clown he turned out to be.

Fucking dustbin of history.


tl;dr. atheism doesnt need to be debated, a neo-con cunt,

[Anonymous No.2653717]

Hitchens' writing is far more palatable than his contemporaries as he doesn't really write like a conceited wanker. He may have seemed like it in debates and videos but his writing adopted a more modest but firm stance.

>>2653697
What? He had always acknowledged that every venture in the middle east had been an act of imperialism, but constantly affirmed that he supported the Iraqi war for valid reasons.

I can totally see why he did. Iraq needed to be liberated by Hussein; someone who oversaw a stalinist type dictatorship of oppression and persecution.

At least his argument had substance and actually acknowledged where the US had made mistakes (and they did) whereas the liberal bleeding hearts usually just sneer and giggle and bush being a simpleton.

I'd consider myself a civil libertarian and I totally relate the Hitchens mindset when it comes to the Iraq war.

[Anonymous No.2654031]

I just read The Missionary Position, it's fucking hilarious. A sort of pop-social critic, yes, but he wrote some thoroughly biting polemics.

[Anonymous No.2654034]

>>2653717
The Iraq War was disastrous from every fucking point of view. It was one of the worse policy mistakes for the United States ever. It was not a humanitarian success; it was not a success in realpolitik; it was not a success in terms of the reasons given to account for it when it was launched, which were wholly wrong and unfounded. There is no possible way to defend it. If it was humanitarian, we did get rid of Saddam - but we left the country in the throes of civil war, while consistently ignoring worse dictators. That's hardly a slam dunk to me.

I do agree that the humanitarian / liberal case for the invasion is certainly the most thoughtful of the many cases, which I think is why you hear it most often. Unfortunately, it's still fucking stupid.

[Ludwig !9CUY39dDYo No.2654043]

>>2653705
Atheist or deist. But the point is made.

And, yea, his politics were garbage. He let his gnostic atheism take control of his worldview and he became consumed with a desire for fanatic blood that only mudslime murder could sate.

[Anonymous No.2654049]

>>2653705

>a child embraces atheism and becomes just as militant in his arrogance

Take this schoolyard angst to Reddit.

I'm sure you'll fit right in at /r/Atheism with the other teenage suburban kids with no worldly experience who decree to have total understanding of life.

[Anonymous No.2654058]

Hitchens was really great with words and really great at expressing outrage. No doubt he was a very smart and educated man, but he clung to his belief system in such a way that was offputting for anybody who happened to disagree with him and his political advocacy was mind boggling.

As great an orator Hitchens was, I can't think of any meaningful or lasting thing he added to the various forums he weighed in on. Nothing he had said hadn't been said before. He wasn't a revolutionary thinker and he won't be remembered as one. He'll just be remembered as a debater of sorts. For that reason, I was always miffed at the amount of attention Hitchens recieved.

[Anonymous No.2654082]

>>2653705
>I make fun of religion as a substitute for having to make intelligent statements too.

[Anonymous No.2654089]

>>2653705

>2012
>Not being a panentheist

[Anonymous No.2654132]

wow...

i just read through most of this.. sorry i did so.

you guys (most) are not completely ready to talk about subjects that you consider yourself able to talk about.

>>2653518

this person is able to have a conversation about this topic.

[Anonymous No.2654136]

...but that's how these things go.

I'm glad Hitch was around for some of the time I've been living, so I could actually see his ideas become public in real-time.

Sad he's gone. Not dwelling. There's work to be done.

Good luck to y'all.

[Anonymous No.2654300]

>>2654082
>>2654049

butthurt godfags

[Anonymous No.2654301]

>>2654300

stop giving us atheists a bad name, man. please.

[Anonymous No.2654431]

>>2654300
Actually I'm non-religious as well, I just don't make unsolicited, poorly constructed, anti-theistic comments to make myself feel smart on anonymous imageboards.

[Anonymous No.2654457]

>>2654082
>>2654089

[Anonymous No.2654458]

Yeah, nobody is going to remember this guy. If anything, he'll be remembered for his lulzy debates with William Lane Craig and George Galloway, as well as being a cheerleader for the Iraq invasion.

I'm reading Herman and Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent," and the pages are filled with journalistic hacks who whored themselves out only to be forgotten the minute they die and can no longer parrot the government line. Hitchens will be no different.

[Anonymous No.2654460]

Yeah, nobody is going to remember this guy. If anything, he'll be remembered for his lulzy debates with William Lane Craig and George Galloway, as well as being a cheerleader for the Iraq invasion.

I'm reading Herman and Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent," and the pages are filled with journalistic hacks who whored themselves out, gained a little prestige from being attached to an institution like the NYT or Newsweek, and are forgotten the minute they die and can no longer parrot the government line. Hitchens will be no different.

[Anonymous No.2654473]

fuck all of you, hitchens was one of the best

[Anonymous No.2654487]

As someone who was raised in a non-believing household I found his anti-theism funny but repetitive, though there's no doubt the dangerously religious needed to be put in their place. I admire him for not being afraid to call out Islam as fascist instead of having a convenient blindspot to the crimes against humanity it promotes like other people on the 'Left'.

I think he wasted his mind a bit by becoming such a militant atheist, and in the process became the icon of self-proclaimed intellectuals who had Christians for parents.

I was sad when he died though. The world needs passionate and thoughtful people like him more than ever.

[Anonymous No.2654792]

>>2653705

You know fuck all about Hitchens if you genuinely believe he was a neo-con.

[Anonymous No.2654796]

I'll only ever remember him for looking like this glorious motherfucker. Just kidding. I wont remember him.

[Anonymous No.2654805]

I actually think Christopher Dawkins will be remembered for quite a while.

[Anonymous No.2654808]

I never had a particularly high opinion of him. A shallow debater who won debates due purely to charisma. I loved watching his debates for their entertainment value, but I never took him seriously as a thinker.

[Anonymous No.2654813]

I am amazed by the number of replies on this page that are simply wrong. Hysterical nonsense.

'He was a neo-con' - Wrong, do your reading.
'Hitchens tried to claim that communists weren't real atheists, and that MLK wasn't a real Christian in his attempt to prove that "hurr religion is evil".' - Wrong. You have either not read or not understood what he was saying you complete fucking retard.

Again and again I am confirmed in my belief that 4chan is full of fucking losers and morons.

[Anonymous No.2654874]

>>2654813

hitchens didnt tidily fit into a stereotype. that makes the unthinking uncomfortable.

i read his memoir. i liked the part where he was in communist cuba, as a communist.
someone told him he couldnt say anything critical of castro.
he told them off to the surprise of his fellow euro-communists.

the unthinking dont want to have to consider the issues. they want to stick to the script of "he was an X, X is widely known to be bullshit".

>>2654813
>that THE WORLD is full of fucking losers and morons.
i havent seen a decent thoughtful analysis of hitchens anywhere.
the bro wasnt deep, he was mostly style and thats fine.
still no one has anything of meaning to say about the man.
(asskissers included)

[Anonymous No.2655008]

He converted on his death-bed.

[Anonymous No.2655013]

>>2654805
As a dick, sure.

[Anonymous No.2655016]

So many rustled jimmies in this thread. I know theists who can respect him as an intellectual. Why? because they're secure in their faith. if Hitchens is troubling your theology you need to do more reading.

[Anonymous No.2655024]

Bill Hicks died ages ago and everyone thought he was shit then.

[Anonymous No.2655031]

>>2655024
Only the Americans. The English knew what a genius he was.

[Anonymous No.2655032]

>>2655024
>>2654805
>>2655008
>HAR HAR HAR SO FUNNAY XDXD

[Anonymous No.2655913]

This thread is full of fuck. Hitchens was a good writer and debater, his ideas weren't exactly revolutionary, but there's nothing wrong with joining a cause.

I know it's difficult for some theists and even some nontheists to actually bother to find out the facts about something before opening their mouths, but it's always nice to try.

[Anonymous No.2655998]

>>2655031
He is shit. At least Carlin had the tact to throw in a joke every once in a while, between spurts of proselytizing. Hicks couldn't even be bothered to do that. He's said a few things that I've found funny, but overall I'm almost wary to call him a comedian -he's more spoken-word, a la Henry Rollins.

[Anonymous No.2656000]

>>2655998
wtf.

hitchens wasnt a comedian lol

[Anonymous No.2656003]

>>2656000
I was talking about Hicks, you troglodyte.

[Anonymous No.2656010]

>>2656003
my apologies. i read who you responded to but not who he responded to

faggot

[Anonymous No.2656898]

bumping for thread of general badasses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIhyZaA8yqo
dat insecure attack

[Anonymous No.2657444]

He spent his entire life trying to prove something with no good evidence for or against it wrong. What a damn waste. I like to quote Sagan when it comes to this sort of thing:

"An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence. Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists. To be certain of the existence of God and to be certain of the nonexistence of God seem to me to be the confident extremes in a subject so riddled with doubt and uncertainty as to inspire very little confidence indeed"

[Anonymous No.2657448]

>>2657444

Hitchens never once in his life claimed certainty. He claimed a lack of certainty, that was his entire running thesis

[Anonymous No.2657450]

>>2655032

Looks like we struck a nerve.

[Anonymous No.2657453]

>>2657448

Well how the fuck does that follow, then?

[Anonymous No.2657458]

>>2657453

his entire point was that the theist was the one making the positive claim, and as such the burden of proof lies with them

[Anonymous No.2657463]

>>2657458

Okay. But that's silly. Positivism and negativism hardly matter. It's anybody making a claim. If he's going to claim (or, apparently he didn't) that God does not exist, he had better be able to prove it. Further, if this is the only argument he cared to make, that's pretty cowardly, because it demonstrates that he wasn't willing to admit that he's completely unable to disprove God, and therefore, at most, is an agnostic atheist.

[Anonymous No.2657464]

hey guys, check out this debate about god, that doesn't suck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXPdpEJk78E

[Anonymous No.2657466]

>>2657463

he was an agnostic atheist, admittedly so

[Anonymous No.2657472]

>>2657463
>unable to disprove god
Seriously? No one can and no one has tried. They only try to demonstrate that god is unnecessary for the creation of the universe and that religions formed around god are immoral and dangerous.

[Anonymous No.2657473]

>>2657466
I think he once described himself as an anti-theist.

[Anonymous No.2657477]

>>2657448
There's already a word for that: "agnostic." Something Hitch never claimed to be.

[Anonymous No.2657481]

>>2657477
You seriously never actually listened to him, did you? You're just using blanket arguments about atheists.

[Anonymous No.2657482]

>>2657463
He was saying god probably doesn't exist.

Basically: "I don't believe in the coalition between faries and goblins and here is a rational list of all the reasons why they probably don't even exist. I can't prove their non existence, but I can demonstrate why there is no reason to believe in them"

[Anonymous No.2657545]

I'm not too familiar with him, but I always find it strange when non-philosophers talk extensively about the existence of god (and not, e.g. religion as a social force)

Whether or not he did, and how well he did if so, I don't know. But I do know that the majority of people on both sides don't really know much about, for example, Plantinga or modal ontology

[Anonymous No.2657586]

>>2655998

Perhaps he's not laugh out loud funny, but at least there's substance to his humour rather than going for cheap laughs like most:

'You know this thing that happens to everyone? it funny ain't it?' (Crowd goes wild).

It's telling that he was more popular in the UK where irreverent anti-establishment comedy is admired and has a long and glorious tradition (Monty Python, Peter Cook & Dudley Moore etc.).

[Anonymous No.2657611]

>>2657545
i don't why you would think someone being deemed a philosopher means they are offering something something more than the same word games. in fact, it makes it more likely that what they have to say is trivial. I'd rather read the work of a social or political commentator than a sophist.

[Anonymous No.2657625]

>>2657545

What a ridiculous statement. You can have an opinion on something without having a grounding in the canon of Western philosophy. Also, the definition of who counts as a philosopher is totally subjective and indefinite.

Anyway, Hitchens was very well read and studied philosophy (PPE) at Oxford so I imagine he has some knowledge on the subject.

[Anonymous No.2657627]

>>2657611

Except that with a philosopher, you're more guaranteed that they've attempted to deconstruct the actual conception problems, instead of just analyzing surface-level social phenomenon, like how religion causes widespread violence.

[Anonymous No.2657632]

>>2657627

I don't think the victims of ritual abuse implemented by practitioners of some religious doctrines can afford the time to 'deconstruct the actual conception problems'...

[Anonymous No.2657636]

>>2657632

Don't bother discussing this if you're going to be flippant.

[Truman Capote !!cO9KVBDtkqQ No.2657652]

his charisma and wit was empowering man, say what you want about his political ideas but the man knew how to give life to a debate

i miss you everyday hitch

[Anonymous No.2657665]

>>2657627
their strictly theoretical insight might be interesting to some, it might be rigorous and absolutely 100% faultless (which it never is) but it doesn't change the fact that it's frivolous and meaningless on the ground.

for example, leibniz's idea is brilliant (of course, not perfect), but it's parodied not because it is wrong. it's parodied because it's an unnecessary task to anyone who has already come to terms with the realities of atrocity. the only people it is of interest too are those who need to reconcile the world with preordained biases.

>>2657636
I'm catholic and that wasn't flippant. the church should have spent more time thinking about how to handle the irish child abuse cases than they do discussing anselm and auinas

[Anonymous No.2657704]

>>2657652
I'm here for you. Hugs.

Hitch is up in heaven now.

[Anonymous No.2657775]

>>2653493
>but you won't find a neo-con that subjugates himself to waterboarding just to prove to himself and others whether it was or was not torture (he of course concluded it was).
haha you honestly think that's what that was, not just a showy excuse to reverse his long-held position while presenting the decision as intellectual instead of political and empty

so you think he's both A: a smart guy and B: someone who couldn't define waterboarding as torture without actually experiencing it. yeah, those two beliefs are pretty much incompatible.

the narrative as presented, is this: hitchens spends a decade defending waterboarding as both not torture and absolutely necessary to the effort in the global war against islamofascism (two more incompatible beliefs, how can it be essential if it's not torture? why would it get you so much good intel if it's not torture?) then he's challenged by vanity fair to put his money where his mouth is, and he accepts the challenge because, hey, what's to lose, it's not torture so its not like it'll hurt or anything. he undergoes a neutered version of the procedure, where he's never in any real danger and can stop at any time. he stops, IMMEDIATELY, like within a SECOND, and announces that "whoops, its torture, okay, my bad" -- do you honestly think that there was an experience in that first second of being waterboarded that couldn't be intellectualized by simply reading a description of the procedure? that a man, whose intellect and integrity we're supposedly praising here, that he couldn't understand that "simulated drowning" would be uncomfortable?

[Anonymous No.2657777]

>>2657775 (cont.)
no. like so many other neo-cons who defended waterboarding, he knew it was torture, but he believed that torture was essential to defending the west from its new enemy, and he knew that the majority of the population wouldn't get behind something that was called "torture" so he defended it on semantic grounds instead of actively defending the necessity of torture.

[Anonymous No.2657863]

I thought Hitchens was against waterboarding, even before he had it performed on himself.

I can recall him saying that none of those defending it would dare to go through with it themselves.

[Anonymous No.2657964]

>>2657863
No, he defended it up until the end of the Bush administration when it became clear which way the tide was turning and then used the Vanity Fair piece as an excuse to publicly reverse his position.

[Anonymous No.2657994]

>>2657777
Oh shit, quints for the truth.

[Anonymous No.2658035]

>>2657994
>quads for American education system at work

[Anonymous No.2658047]

>>2656898
Holy shit Henry Rollins gets his shit rustled when the wind blows. Awkward as hell.

[Anonymous No.2658053]

>>2658035
Oops; that's what happens when your an English majur!!

[Anonymous No.2658062]

>>2657775
>>2657777
http://exiledonline.com/who-can-forget-christopher-hitchens-fake-waterboarding-stunt/

[Anonymous No.2658110]

>>2658062
Good article. Hehe, I guess this was sort of like the Exiled's obituary for Hitchens, eh?

[Anonymous No.2658343]

>>2656010
Well in that case I apologize for my brashness.

[Anonymous No.2658396]

I think Hitchens will be remembered in the same vein as Robert G. Ingersoll...not widely known, but an inspiration to many of those who know of him.

[Anonymous No.2658406]

>>2658396

Something like this, is my opinion of Hitchens. Except H.L. Mencken instead of Ingersoll.

Hitchens' books covered more ground than just atheism, you morans. He picked apart Mother Theresa and Bill Clinton, for one.

[Anonymous No.2658415]

RIP Hitch. I know you're out there somewhere looking down on us. You will be missed

[Anonymous No.2658716]

Don't you even fucking dare compare Hitchen to HL Menckens.

Menckens had more intelligence and style in his fucking pinky finger.

[Anonymous No.2658713]

>>2658406
Ingersoll was more than just an atheist as well. He spoke about politics, women's suffrage, slavery, and all sorts of other issues. Mencken is a good comparison as well, though.

[Anonymous No.2658719]

Fuck this guy.

I still miss George Carlin.