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/lit/ - Literature

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4689119 No.4689119[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Is Hitchens worth reading? if so where should one start with him?

>> No.4689133

You should start - and end - with his brother Peter.

>> No.4689143

Hitchens was pretty gifted with rhetoric, so if nothing else he's fun to read for that.

>> No.4689146
File: 68 KB, 540x700, younghitch.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4689146

Hitch was so good-looking

>> No.4689148

>>4689133
Okay which book? Im not interested in any books in favor or against the existence of god.

>> No.4689163

>>4689119
Read Letters to a Young Contrarian, Arguably, Hitch-22, and Mortality.

>> No.4689168

>>4689163
thanks for the suggestions.

>> No.4689171

>>4689133
what are you afraid of?

>> No.4689172

>>4689146
dayum son

>> No.4689191

>>4689146
9/10, would look into eyes and listen
no homo

>> No.4689196

>>4689146

The epitome of britbong genetics.

>> No.4689228

>>4689133
bait
peter is scum

>> No.4689233

>>4689146
no

>> No.4689241

>>4689146

This is what smoking does to you

>> No.4689258

>>4689241
smoke and drink

>> No.4689262

>>4689241
... or time.

>> No.4689325

>>4689119

He's a pseudo-intellectual who is only adored by fedora tippers and other autists.

>> No.4689331
File: 31 KB, 350x285, Hitchens-Beard.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4689331

>>4689241
>implying he isn't just as sexy in this pic

>> No.4689346

>>4689325
one of the other autists I am then.

>> No.4689360

>>4689171

Do you lock your door at night?

>> No.4689370

Pretty cool political commentator, crappy anti-religious dialectician. I wish he stayed away from theological debates because all he brought into the discussion were historical narratives and >muh divine tyranny. Why he even argued with guys like Craig is beyond me.

>> No.4689472

>>4689119
The work he is most famous for is his worst. The anti-theism is fedora-tier masked with bad history and an excellent wit. The Iraq stuff has some salvable parts, but is not worth it.

Read his older collections of essays about literature, America, culture, the Left and so on.

1. For the Sake of Argument
2. Love, Poverty, and War
3. Unacknowledged Legislation
4. Arguably
5. Hitch-22 - if you want more
6. Everything else - you wish you were British.

>> No.4689477

>>4689472
salvageable

>> No.4689759

Best thing he ever wrote was that piece on why women aren't funny.

Everything else goes right to the trash.

> neocon apologetics
Not even once.

>> No.4691635

Letters to a Young Contrarian is a fantastic book. I can respect him for that alone. Read it when I was 16 and have held it dear pretty much since then.

>> No.4691706
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4691706

>>4689133
I'd agree with this.

I used to love listening to Hitch dishing out hitch-slaps left and right, but now, looking back, I think he was wrong on so many levels. The fact that he was such an articulate and gifted orator seemed to blind many people however.

The whole "Anti-Theist" campaign I think was terribly misguided, attacking the Church for it's crimes is one thing but attempting to drive all spiritually out of the world itself is another thing entirely - I'd definitely agree with his brother Peter when he says; (that) "If you drive God out of the world all you are left with is a howling wilderness." I'd just like to point out that I'm in fact agnostic, not some die-hard American fundamentalist. Politically speaking I think Hitch was a shambles, beginning as a socialist calling for Marxist revolution and ending as a neo-con supporting the Iraq War. I recall one interview with him vainly clutching at straws in an attempt to justify the invasion of Iraq, it was painful to watch, it would have been better had he simply admitted he hated Islam.

To put it another way I think Hitch's popularity stemmed from his being in the right place at the right time. He essentially served as a voice for a generation of teenage angst that grumbled and sought to rebel against something, and who found it's champion in Hitch.

>> No.4691731

He was an atheist. Stay away from his writings.

>> No.4691742

>>4691731

*anti-theist

>> No.4691760
File: 76 KB, 468x437, peter-hitchens-with-a-gun.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4691760

Don't bother

>> No.4692050 [DELETED] 

>>4689148
All Hitchens can offer is a list of shit people have done. He then tries to paint this as being the fault of religion. Best book on the existence of God is

http://www.amazon.com/The-Miracle-Theism-Arguments-Existence/dp/019824682X

>> No.4692143

>>4689370
Are you implying Craig had any good arguments?

>> No.4692174

>>4692143
All Craig had to do was point out that people do shit for a variety of reasons and that blaming religion as the sole creator of evil in the world is fucking dumb.

>> No.4692180

>>4692143
Craig argues theology and philosophy, Hitchens presents witty historical narratives and jabs. For his legion of fans he's always right, but it doesn't mean shit in an actual discussion.

>> No.4692186

>>4689133

Shots fired

I like both.

>> No.4692387

I read Unhitched: The Trial of Christopher Hitchens by Richard Seymour recently and it was a fun read. It was good to see someone dismantling this charlatan's bullshit. It showed that contrary to the opinion of most of those on the left in the UK, Hitchens never was a leftist, but a posturing Zelig who was an imperialist, Thatcherite blow-hard all along.

Simple-minded teens love him because he cultivated an image of being a rebel, but he was just a sycophant, highly aware of class, who resented not being born into the upper-classes and consistently went out of his way to ingratiate himself with them.

He also, consistently, picked easy targets:
>Bill Clinton
Born out of spite because he was snubbed by Hillary.
>Mother Teresa
Wow, real match-up there. Dead charlatan torn apart by a living charlatan.
>God
The biggest "duh" ever. Banality of epic proportions.
>Kissinger
What separated Kissinger from Bush or Cheney?
>Princess Diana
Another unimportant celebrity and easy target.

Has there ever been such a waste of potential as Christopher Hitchens?

>> No.4692426

>>4689119
No, not really, neither is Dawkins or any of the other contemporary religious advocates/critics.
All of the things worth saying have been said, and by people much better than them.

>> No.4692452

>>4691706
But Iraq was one of the most secular Islamic states. Saddam contravened the 1991 cease fire agreements repeatedly, the invasion was legal. Not to mention he was a tyrant who had engaged in ethnic cleansing on multiple occasions.

That the invasion, or at least the occupation was botched goes without saying, but whether or not invasion/deposing saddam was justified is far less clear.

>> No.4692463

>>4691760
Reactionary cretin, can't stand when he's given a chance to talk about drug laws.

>> No.4692547

>>4692174
>blaming religion as the sole creator of evil in the world is fucking dumb
He did no such thing.
>Craig argues theology and philosophy
What consistent, non-retarded argument has Craig ever presented?

>> No.4692562

>>4689370

>being a Craigbot

toplel