Contrarian (or at Least Contradictory) Thoughts on Christopher Hitchens

2011-12-16T16:33:00.002-05:00

Since discovering the writings of Christopher Hitchens inthe pages of The Nation (before hehad a post 9/11 hissyfit and stomped off its pages) many years ago, I’ve had anodd relationship with him as a reader, mixed with admiration and disappointment.

Given his passing, I’ve found myself revisiting thesefeelings, and offer the following thoughts for whatever they might be worth . ..

First, cancer can suck it.

Second, seriously, cancer can suck it. Hard.

Third, my ambivalent feelings about Hitchens come in partfrom the mixed bag of his political positions. Yes, Kissinger did criminal things. But the man who made the case against Kissinger turns around andsupports an illegal and immoral war in Iraq? Yes, waterboarding is obviously torture. But Bush deserved reelection?

That, however, is garden-variety differences in opinion onspecific issues. I feel a bit moreconflicted about Hitchens because (I think) of a deeper disconnect. On one hand, I admire his rhetorical skillgreatly, as well as his willingness to take on conventional wisdom. But on the other, I found myself turned offby what I felt was too often a boorish and bullying style when he turned hissites on targets that, while perhaps in need of criticism, also called for amore nuanced approach than Hitchens was willing or able to deliver.

Take, for example, his infamous skeweringof Mother Teresa. On one hand, it’sprobably good to cast a skeptical eye on figures in society who seem beyondreproach and ask if our unqualified praise is merited. Is it possible that, in celebrating thealleged virtues of poverty and championing policies of the Catholic Church(e.g. no contraception), Mother Theresa at times did and said things that mighthave run counter to her professed mission to help the poor? I don’t know, but it’s a question worthasking. On the other hand, to lambastethe woman as a “fanatic, fundamentalist, and a fraud” is like lighting a candlewith a flamethrower: obscene overkill lacking any careful use of that qualityHitchens professed be committed to—reason.

It was that needlessly bombastic, pugilistic rhetoricalstyle that made me feel a bit uncomfortable even when I found myself in generalagreement with him. It’s also what madehis career, so I can’t say that he would have been better off taking a morenuanced approach to his topics, but I felt he sometimes gave “reason” and “intellect”a bad name by wielding them like a Bowie knife rather than a scalpel.

When turned against those with status and power, Hitchens’sharp-bladed wit could make him a rhetorical freedom fighter. But when used against those without, it couldbe bullying plain and simple. The latterwas on inarticulate display when he loutishly flipped off theaudience on Bill Maher’s television show twice because they had thetemerity disagree with him. And likemost bullies, Hitchens seems to have had an utter inability to admit he waswrong. In that same Maher telecast, hemade the risible claim that al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein had some sort ofworking relationship. The fact that thewar in Iraq had proved to be a disaster based on false premises was not anoccasion for him to rethink his position, but to double-down on his claims toinfallible wisdom, to the point of simply lying to cover the fact that he was obviouslyand horrifically wrong.

Hitchens’ passionate (fundamentalist?) atheism also revealedthis tendency to simplify a complex issue for the sake of skeweringothers. Yes, certainly fundamentalistsof a variety of religious stripes are largely ignorant and all too happy todehumanize and persecute those they deem heretical. But to call religion in general the “sleep ofreason” is to betray a colossal ignorance of huge swaths of intellectualhistory (See: Aquinas, Thomas).

Contrary to Hitchens’ claims that religion has been theprimary cause of inhumanity and misery in human history, I’d suggest that thetrue culprit is utter conviction in one’s own certainty. True, religion is the most obvious place tofind this enemy of basic humaneness in its undiluted form, but unquestioning certitudeis not a necessary component of religious belief. Nor is religion the only place to findit. People have demonstrated equaldevotion to utterly non-spiritual beliefs and entities (the “People,” the “Worker,”the “Ubermensch,” etc.) with equally appalling results. Even reason itself cannot ‘scape a whipping. Like religion, reason can be, and often hasbeen, used clumsily, wrongly, and contradictorily to excuse all manner ofevils.

To me, Hitchens often seemed to partake in the same sins heso effectively pointed out in others. Hederided those who claim to have absolute metaphysical knowledge, but claimedjust such knowledge for himself in his evangelical atheism. He rightly nailed to the wall those who sawnothing wrong with inflicting death and destruction on innocents for the sakeof realpolitik, but championed justsuch action himself in the case of Iraq. He championed “reason” as a God-term, but often showed an inability orunwillingness to examine issues with the degree of subtlety reason demands.

But such are contrarians, of which Hitchens was certainlyone. We probably need such folk, in alltheir self-contradictory, self-satisfied pugnacity. And God knows (said this agnostic) that weneed more good writers of Hitchens’ large caliber.

It’s just a shame that such qualities often bring with them adegree of obnoxiousness and bullying aggression that diminishes the manypositive qualities that folks like Hitchens possess.

But maybe, in a time when critical and creative thinking isdenounced as heretical or treasonous, and demonstrating an ability tocommunicate above a sixth-grade-level is derided as “elitism,” we are beggarswho shouldn’t be choosers.

And we are certainly the poorer in many ways for Hitchens’passing.

Peace.

Pax Rhetorica

Contrarian (or at Least Contradictory) Thoughts on Christopher Hitchens