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/lit/ - Literature

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8815672 No.8815672 [Reply] [Original]

What does /lit/ think of Christopher Hitchens?

>> No.8815677

>>8815672
not much

>> No.8815680
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8815680

>>8815672
Outshone by his brother.

>> No.8815686

>>8815672
Is he cosplaying Camus in this picture

>> No.8815689

>>8815686
Someone tell him he isnt hot

>> No.8815699

>>8815672
Hated by theists and Trotskyists, so something of a miracle to hear any kind words for this great journalist. His style should be emulated if not his various topical stances

>>8815680
In your dreams.

>> No.8815794

He's the guy that got me into reading serious books. I wanted to be like him.

Is this cringy to admit?

>> No.8815848

>>8815680
Kek. Peter is quite often an idiot on any subject he discusses. See his recent Twitter rants on weed legalisation for example.

>> No.8815850

>>8815689
He's a bit dead, so that may not be possible. However, feel free to tell the rest of his squadron, Fenton, Amis, McEwan, etc.

>> No.8815951

>>8815794
if for nothing else, i owe him for how rewarding i found Hitch 22. he was probably my first positive introduction to a whole world of literature .

his enthusiasm for books was wonderfully infectious.

>> No.8816169

>>8815951
This is probably his saving grace
I picked up his 'Unacknowledged Legislation', a collection of smaller pieces Hitchens wrote on authors in the public sphere, like notoriously antisemitic T.S. Eliot, but whose work newer criticism has also tried to subsume under this label. Hitchens looks at one critique of a certain poem (can't remember and cba to find the book) and makes a both fair and well-reasoned defence for autonomous interpretation as opposed to a biographical and says something along the lines of having to 'hesitate once, hesitate twice, hesitate a thousand times' before applying external viewpoints to a piece of work
Tl;dr: all atheist polemics aside, the dude at least wasn't an aesthetic illiterate.

>> No.8816187

Letters to a Young Contrarian is really good, and very well-written tbqh senpai.

>> No.8816198

>>8815672
contrarian pseud
but a good one

>> No.8816210

>>8815680
one trick pony

>> No.8816235

I've only read his short biography of Thomas Jefferson. It was well written and enjoyable.

>> No.8816343

I don't care what sort of excuses anons have to refute this - it became cooler to hate Hitchens on /lit/ after 'le four atheist horsemen' became the meme it is, and after his death. He was a very effective speaker, contrarian to a fault with his often unpopular opinions and has a huge body of work varying from pop-political science to good literary criticism (I particularly enjoyed why Orwell matters).

Just a daily reminder that the anons in this thread are literally nothing in the political fields, literary world etc and will likely never be invited on CNN, BBC etc for their take on world events. Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade and accept that you're all just jelly faggots.

>> No.8816396

>>8815672
literal cancer

>> No.8816495
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8816495

>>8816396

>> No.8816498

A real life /r/atheist, i.e. pathetic.

>> No.8816566

>>8815672

Probably would have been best if he'd died before 9/11

>> No.8816572

The William Hazlitt of our times.

all his books and articles make for enjoyable reading

>> No.8816596

>>8816187
all his other stuff is really worth reading also
>>8816343
>contrarian to a fault
He was a seasoned polemic, calling him a contrarian without substantiated evidence is just overreaching.

He had an established well of persona beliefs, such as freedom of speech and defense of western civilization. the reason why he supported the Iraq war was all outlined in his arguments, it's just that he underestimated the incompetency of the Iraqis and their American backers to establish a decent political system

>> No.8816598

oi oi oi

>> No.8816602

>>8815699
>Trotskyists
funny how Hitchens still stayed an admirer of Trotsky to end of his life
Probably the only Soviet that Hitchens poured superlatives on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98uw-qzFq88

>> No.8816610

>Capitalism. Downfall.

What did he mean by this?

>> No.8816700

>>8815672
I envy the man and his ability to handle most conversations like a professional and stutter or use fallacies. He was a good rhetoric and that is something all would be philosophers should strive towards to.

>> No.8816704

>>8816700
* not stutter

>> No.8816715

>>8816700
>all would be philosophers
the thing is that Hitchens never strived to be a philosopher
Philosophy as dead. the last substantive philosopher this world had was Foucault or Derrida, and I don't agree with a lot of their beliefs

>> No.8816716

>>8816610
Was probably high on crystal meth t bh.

>> No.8816803

He was a sober voice of reason during the hysterics surrounding Diana and Mother Teresa. Rightly dubious about Bill Clinton from the very beginning, a real loss that we will never hear his eulogy for Kissinger.

>> No.8816826

>>8816803
or his thoughts on the American election and the current geopolitical situation, with all the hubbub that he would've been for Trump just because Trump espoused "anti-Islam" stances

>> No.8816849

>>8816826
He probably wouldn't even have voted this year, or supported either candidate. He would have been a pure contrarian.

>> No.8816854

>>8815951
>>8816169
Yeah I'll always love Hitchens for opening my eyes to the true depths of the intellectual life. For me it was his talk on Jefferson that I stumbled across.

>> No.8816855

>>8816803
The only thing I agree with about this statement is the part about Mother Teresa. He was not 'sober' about that at all. In fact, I would say he attacked her with a sense of hysteria desu. He seemed way too emotionally invested, like he was taking his personal angst against God out against her or something.

>> No.8816858

>>8816855
*disagree with

>> No.8816871

>>8815672
Wrote the definitive Clinton hitpiece, which I regularly quote from to this day whenever Democrat-voting nu-males need a bigdicked conservative to put them in their place

>> No.8816877

>>8816855
He was as a whole really virulently anti-Catholic, moreso than he was against any other religion. It's always made me ambivalent about him.

>> No.8816892

>>8816855
He was right about her though.

>>8815672
He's absolutely worth reading.
>Letters to a young contrarian is a near flawless piece.
>Hitch 22 is one of the best memoirs out there
>His best work and sadly half finished is Mortality
>His essays on literary personalities like Nabokov, Orwell, Chesterton, Maugham etc. are remarkably good.
>his essays on wine and terrorism alike evoke a clarity nearing Orwell.

Overall, an extraordinary intellect and essayist. He made the fatal mistake of trying to be Orwell which he was not. He should have written some fiction.

>> No.8816956

>>8816871
What's it called?

>> No.8816973

>>8816849
>He would have been a pure contrarian.
no.....maybe because he wouldn't have the gall to give his support to any candidate?

after the whole Clinton shitshow in the 90s, guess who he supported in the '00 election.

>> No.8816982

>>8816956
if going by published novel, I think he's referring to "No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton"

>> No.8817024
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8817024

>>8816700

>Christopher Hitchens
>Not using fallacies

My god this board is so full of shit at times. I read 'God is Not Great' from cover to cover, and that piece of shit is an ad-hom-fest. Don't even get me started on his other work, but like many here, he was one of the earliest authors I seriously read.

Thank fuck I grew out of it.

>>8816803

Hitchens was guilty of his own hysterics. The Iraq War, for example.

As for what started my doubts regarding him, you need only watch his documentary entitled 'Collision.' At the end, he is asked that if he could 'convert' the last religious person on Earth out of their religion, would he do it?

He hesitantly answered 'no.' Something about him struck me as 'off' ever since that moment. I was left with the lasting impression that, far from principled, he was someone who lived for the 'thrill of the rhetorical hunt' with regard to debate/etc.

>> No.8817035

Heavy rhetoric and light on dialectic. He has an awful habit of just making shit up and passing it off as fact too.

>> No.8817043

>>8817035

He had a great knack for weasel words and begging the question desu.

>> No.8817049

>>8817024

That's the best Pepe/Wojak gif I've ever seen

>> No.8817067

>>8816892
>He was right about her though.

Was he "right about her" when he accused her of forcing baptism on people that came to her hospice despite having no evidence and despite the fact that forcing baptism is clearly against Catholic doctrine? Any sort of baptism that is forced is automatically invalid so it would be a pointless thing for a nun to do.

>> No.8817073

>>8817024
good post but don't mention 'ad hominen' - for some reason its become like a battle cry of fox news/alt-right dopes who dont even know what it means

>> No.8817086

>>8815672
An entertaining and well-spoken polemicist, able to banter with the best of them even when looking like he just rolled out of bed after a night of getting drunk.

>> No.8817089

>>8817073

How about you go fuck yourself and stop trying to tone police people here.

>> No.8817093

He was friends with the poet james Fenton who made an insightful point about him; he was called an intellectual but he was anything but - Hitch was a polemicist who was very easily influenced - not a staid careful thinker in the way an historian or soemthing should be. He didnlt mean it as an insult (I think he was defending Hitchens in terms of the weird position he took on iraq) but was just highlighting how important eloquence is and how easily ppl are bowled over by it. He's held to these standards like he's Plato or something but he was a good journalist and brilliant public speaker, thats all.

>> No.8817110

>>8817086
He might have lived longer if he had better taste in drugs, alcohol fuckin sucks, especially for a writer or an artist, theres nothing worse

>> No.8817114

>>8815680
He's right you know

>> No.8817122

>>8815672
The only one of the big 4 fedora men I actually respected, he was well spoken, witty and always said somethign interesting.

>> No.8817125
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8817125

>>8817110

He pretty much fell hook, line and sinker for the all the stupid shit /lit/ usually seems to be 'patrician.'

Remember when we had all those threads asking if people lived the '/lit/ lifestyle'?

Natural selection at its finest.

>> No.8817139

>>8815672
>Journalist
He's a hack like the rest of them. Journalists are charlatans.

>> No.8817147

>>8817139
how bitter can you be?
what high views you have on a whole profession

>> No.8817148

As an atheist I always thought his arguments were horrible and that the 'atheistic community' shouldn't elect someone like him as a leader because it would make the whole group look bad. I've listened to most of his debates and am appalled at the missed opportunities to destroy any sort of arguments he makes. makes me sad never knowing I could never debate him.

>> No.8817162

>>8817067
I dunno man, but i live in Mumbai and everyone here hates her. She has some charity mission nearby. People avoid even talking about it. Just like the bubonic plague that she was brewing in her 'dying shelters'. She's not that saintly as you think she is. I don't know why the westerners have this fascination with a retarded old anti-science scam artist.

>> No.8817230 [DELETED] 

>>8817147
Sorry, but it's true.

>> No.8817237

>>8817147
At least many journalists are charlatans

>> No.8817433

more lettered, erudite, and better spoken and read than any of us will ever be. best journalist since orwell. RIP.

>> No.8817567

>>8815699
i don't understand why trotskists would hate him he had some communist sympathies didn't he?

>> No.8817599

>>8817147
the journalist is but a lowly vulture feeding on others suffering for his own survival

>> No.8817730

>>8817162
How much of that stems from her being a Christian in a majority Hindu/Muslim country?

>> No.8817856

>>8817730

It mostly stems from her historically famous actions such as refusing to provide medical care to the people she was supposedly caring for. She fetishized pain and suffering and thought that through experiencing this agony it would bring one closer to god. please refrain from being such an apologist without at least attempting to inform yourself. btw i was raised catholic in america. i'm not the indian dude you were responding to.

>> No.8817997

>>8816596
In terms of Iraq, I think he had too much faith in America and the neo-cons and too much of a soft heart towards the Kurds and made an error of judgement

>> No.8818003

>>8817730

additionally she was albanian born and moved to india when she was 19. mother teresa wasn't a westerner.

>> No.8818055

>>8815672
He looks a lot like Cowmoo, only slightly less handsome.

>> No.8818332

Sophist, but a good prose stylist and people tell me his literary criticism is worth reading. I've only read his thoughts Brideshead Revisited, which were surprisingly untainted by his dumb opinions about religion.

>> No.8818371

>>8817997
even if he did, he had a stark belief that Iraq without Hussein was better than nothing.

>> No.8818383

>>8817433
>lettered
oh come on.
He knew from the moment he started his career that he would never be a good fiction writer and was in constant awe of his friend Martin Amis for being able to publish good novels like Money. it's more endearing that he realized his creative limits early and devoted entirely to journalism and political stuff.

>> No.8818392

>>8815672
He's the graphic tee of philosophers, which is to say he's a philosopher for people who don't know dick about philosophy

>> No.8818403

>>8817567
he betrayed the cause. APOSTATE

>> No.8818641

>>8816855
She herded the sickly into buildings to die, keeping them out of sight lest the bourgeoisie actually see what their sociopathic behavior brings.

I would've liked to have heard Hitch's take on the characters shaping the world today. Frances and Trump and all that.

>>8817139
>Except those swell guys from Breitbart.

>>8817567
His momentary siding with the Bush administration and it's invasion of Iraq. I'm not a fan of this period either, but Trots seem a little fundamentalist.

>> No.8818705

>>8815672
Overrated.

>> No.8818986

>>8818641
>>8818403
i thought i remebered him supporting communist factions in africa unless im confusing him with someone else

>> No.8818989

>>8815672
good at writing essays, charming, bad at philosophy

>> No.8818992

>>8817089
>tone police

kek
he's just trying to help you not sound dumb, anon

>> No.8819027

>>8817856

She never set out to provide medical care. You're making the same mistake that Hitchens did and confused hospital with hospice. Her order treated people when they could but their mission first and foremost was to simply give a place for terminally ill people to die, and that's what she did. She took them off the streets and gave them a bed. It's a very common belief among Catholics that pain and suffering do bring us closer to god and if you don't like it that's fine but don't take it a step further like Hitchens did and accuse her of trying to inflict pain because that doesn't even make sense. If her goal in life was to inflict pain then why bother trying to alleviate any suffering at all? She could have just left the terminally ill to die in ditches.

Why don't you try checking the sources and notes that Hitchens provides with his essay on Mother Teresa. Oh wait, there are none. I wonder why that is.

>> No.8819098

>>8818986
I'll bet he did.

Part of his reasoning concerning the Iraq invasion was about the US to fight "Islamo-fascism there. The Baathists. Now we have ISIS in their place. His heart may be in the right place, but he's no tactician.

>> No.8819133

>>8819027
She hid them from the very people that put them there so that they wouldn't have to feel any guilt. Instead of treating them for their ills she converted them and earned brownie points with her god.
And she didn't give them beds, she gave them mats and then starved them. "Go to god!"
Her mission was disgusting. Her sainthood is a fraud.
>She could have just left the terminally ill to die in ditches.
Or fought to do something about the crushing poverty, like Castro did for Cubans.
Her mission was disgusting.
You want sources, but your problem is your perspective.

>> No.8819139

>>8815686
kek. From the catalogue I thought it was a picture of Camus...

>> No.8819160

>>8819098
>>8819133

oh god, this stupid idiot is back.

Nobody likes you here. you putting on the name adds no value.

There is such a thing as human nature, which gets in the way of any other scheme of human (dis)organizaiton which might have been meaningfully categorized as anarchism.

Don't you know that?

>> No.8819198
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8819198

>>8819160
>you putting on the name adds no value.
I don't care. You posting about it holds no value to anyone either. Least of all me.

>There is such a thing as...etc.
It's called capitalism+autism. But you place your faith in determinism, so I'm not getting sucked into this debate.

>> No.8819698

>>8817024
man that gif would be beyond perfect if wojak didn't put on the angry face

>> No.8819797
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8819797

>>8817125
Condescending post from a person who doesn't understand how natural selection works. Good shit.

>> No.8819813

>Outlived and outgunned by David Starkey.

https://youtu.be/WOuBRMKtM1g

>> No.8819827

>>8819813
Starkey BTFOs that mincing queer who is promoting a degenerate homosexuality. Guy was literally going
>Haha I'm on Grindr ;) I have AIDS ;) You jelly?
on stage. Faggot.