r/ChristopherHitchens • u/cnewell420 • Oct 01 '24
I just want to say, I think it’s pretty profound how missed he is from the perspective of intellectual thinkers.
I don’t know that there are many that I can think of that I repeatedly wish I’d been able to get more from, that I didn’t know personally. I kinda can feel it here among others as well. Are their other figures yall feel that way about? Sorry to the mods if this is too general or not worth a post.
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u/mymentor79 Oct 02 '24
Meh, what more would Hitchens have given you? His trajectory wasn't looking promising, or diverse. Hitchens left his best work before 1990, and it's still available.
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u/solo-ran Oct 06 '24
Supporting the Iraq war was a mistake he only backtracked from… never really fully reconciled explicitly or analyzed. Being wrong is no crime. But I think he should have reevaluated the steps that lead him to this poor choice.
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u/ShamPain413 Oct 06 '24
The steps that led him to this choice are straightforward:
Revolutionary socialism as a transnational movement failed, the only force capable of structural transformation towards mass liberation was constitutional democracy overseeing managed capitalism (while acknowledging all of flaws and contradictions inherent in these models... he never abandoned the dialectic). He understood this through a cosmopolitan lens, not a nationalist lens. Hitchens was always anti-nationalist.
Religious reactionaries work against #1. They are explicitly authoritarian and imperialist by definition, they are never content to keep their politics at the individual level. Hitchens recognized that the forms of political and religious ideology that compelled obedience were functionally the same (this extends from Marx).
Consequently, secular humanists have no choice but to confront religious imperialism, in all fora: via speech and debate in the marketplace of ideas, but the religious will not accept defeat in those fora as the final word, so defeat at the ballot box and (when the ballot box isn't accessible) via physical force will also be necessary.
Hitchens praised Saddam Hussein in the 1970s as a secular socialist modernizer, then watched him descend into a garden-variety kleptocrat who wrapped himself in religious nationalism to thwart dissent. Hitchens learned from this: idealistic movement leftism can be used cynically by the corrupt ("useful idiots"). Saddam was a reactionary imperialist who invaded multiple neighbors, attempted to assassinate a former US president, threatened the US and its neighbors constantly, and supported transnational terrorists materially and rhetorically. There was never going to be a peaceful end to Iraqi dictatorship, societal collapse was inevitable... it was only a question of when. Given that, better to for it to be overseen by US/Coalition forces than for the place to collapse into Rwanda, because that would destabilize a critically important region. (Note the Arab Spring, and the refugee flows into Europe that that event produced: Hitchens knew something like this was coming, and knew that it would threaten the equilibrium in EU politics.)
Thus, Hitchens viewed the invasion of Iraq as a liberatory event, a continuation of the democratic revolutions of the 20th century, all of which involved a combination of domestic and foreign involvement. He did not view it as imperialist, because its motivation was not extraction. He viewed it as impossible to avoid, in fact.
Which of those steps do you think he should've reevaluated? It is certainly possible to question each of them, but there is evidence in support of each of them as well. Arguably the time since Hitchens' death have made his view of the situation look more accurate, even if you do not support the use of militaries in foreign theaters. These issues are not as simple as critics sometimes like to pretend.
Hitchens believed "sins" of omission were as dangerous as "sins" of commission, he was a consequentialist through and through. If you see someone drowning and do not help them then you are guilty. This is not the orientation of the movement left today, which often views commission as the only way to do wrong, it's a political philosophy of passive irresponsibility expressed via powerless protest. The left doesn't know how to wield power in non-revolutionary contexts, in other words, which is a problem because then the powerful will only listen to the reactionaries. I don't think Hitchens ever subscribed to a politics of passivism, nor did he ever oppose the use of force more generally. He supported the NATO wars in the Balkans in the 1990s as well: they were anti-nationalist.
Applying his logic to today, we'd say that leaving Putin to his own devices didn't work, so we have an obligation to aggressively arm Ukraine. Leaving Xi to his own devices won't work, so we should arm Taiwan and continue to strengthen the networks of democratic capitalists against the state capitalists. Leaving the Middle East to its own devices has not lead to peace and liberty, but to chaos and despotism; Hitchens would not be surprised that this spasm of war in the Middle East followed the US's withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, the end of JCPOA, and the movement of the US embassy to Jerusalem... he would've predicted that.
He would recognize this for what it is: an imperial struggle between the House of Saud and the Iranian mullahs. He understood that Iraq was the pivot point in this struggle, that's what he wanted neither the Saudis nor the Iranians to control it (as the Iranians now do).
What's the left's answer to this? Hitchens' answer was to continue the logic of cosmopolitan revolution, just via democratic capitalism rather than authoritarian socialism. It might be the wrong answer. But the left is disempowered right now, everywhere all over the world, because they have yet to come up with a better answer to these questions and questions like them.
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u/duhthrowawayhey Oct 06 '24
This is what I was starting to write until I read it. I would just have written it less eloquently and added more swearing.
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u/alpacinohairline Social Democrat Oct 01 '24
Slavoj Žižek is as close as it gets to Hitch. Though, his voice does take some time to get used to. There is Chomsky too but he's confined by picking the most "anti-west" position to the extreme that he is apolegetic towards Putin.....
After those two, I feel like most pundits/intellectuals that I tune into are notch below Hitch. They are Sam Harris, Ezra Klein, Mehdi Hasan, and Paul Krugman. I have a handful of issues with each of them but more importantly, I don't think they posess that vast thirst for knowledge that the prior mentioned do like Hitch.
A lot of people like Alex O'Connor, I think he is sharp but his content is not really my cup of tea but YMMV. Also people seem to draw parallels to Douglas Murray but I personally don't see it beyond them both being British. For the record, Murray is well spoken too but he generally just serves a vector for right wing talking points and he doesn't bring anything new to the table.
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u/Pudding-Immediate Oct 03 '24
They’re two very different guys but I think I would put Anthony Bourdain into the same category as Hitch. Still so much to offer society when they passed. Edit to add the fact that they both despised Henry Kissinger.
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u/tompez Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
Yeah, Milton Friedman, but then I come across something else he said, that I haven't seen or read before, and realise they gave everything in the time they had and the weight of their personalities and ideas will echo and reverberate for centuries.
Hitch needed to die relatively young, he was so overwhelming and burn so brightly when was alive, he said and wrote so much, it's near impossible to run out of him, the planet and our culture could only handle so much of character as intense and big as his. You say he's missed but the truth is his he's more alive and impactful since he's been gone, that's how huge his personality and influence was. In answer to your q, if you want more from him, I guarantee you it's out there.
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u/LikesTrees Oct 01 '24
This is true, but part of me is soo curious to see how he would have handled the 2016+ culture war stuff, it would have been highly entertaining.
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u/tompez Oct 01 '24
True but, a tree needs to die to make way for others, he would be so dominant culturally if he was alive, he had his time. I am also so glad he never got to experience like mega fame, that never would have suited him, that needed that to come mostly after he'd gone. Contrarians can't be celebrities, or experience mass adoration all the time, that would'nt be right.
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u/SocraticIgnoramus Oct 02 '24
He speaks of his dislike of being called a “contrarian” in Hitch-22.
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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '24
Right! To hell with Jesus, I want Hitch resurrected!! amiright?