The end of Hitchens

[Kyuss Apollo]

...because he challenged us to make our argument in its strongest form and changed his mind to fit the facts.

Two excellent points regardless of whatever -- that anyone might make that remark about one's passing is something to aspire to. RIP CH.

[LadyShea]

The guy seems to have lived authentically. I dig that in a person. And he made discussions happen.

I am surprised at the extreme opinions on both ends expressed here.

[vremya]

Originally Posted by D. Scarlatti

Alex Pareene is excellent.

"....so let’s remember that in addition to being a zingy writer and masterful debater, he was also a bellicose warmongering misogynist."

And that's just from the first paragraph.

[Kael]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

The guy seems to have lived authentically. I dig that in a person. And he made discussions happen.

I am surprised at the extreme opinions on both ends expressed here.

As one of the fabled "Four Horsemen" CH had nearly as devout a following as the Illustrious Dawkins, and a few of his opinions, most notably support of the invasion of Iraq, earned him plenty of animosity, especially from those who saw it as a sell-out or betrayal.

Personally, I think it's all too easy to sanitize the lives of the dead, mostly because many people see it as disrespectful to speak ill of them. Because of that, I think it's at least as important, if not more so, to hear from those who disagreed, disliked, or opposed them as it is to hear from those that admired and supported them.

And, frankly, if Hitchens was authentic, he would have preferred it that way.

[LadyShea]

I think it's the extremity on both sides that surprises me. I don't understand the hero worship, and in the event of a human being dying, I reserve "good riddance" for those who have actually caused serious harm, like Ted Bundy or Hitler.

[lisarea]

I do think a lot of the anger was based on the notion that defending the Iraq war was a kind of fucked up thing to blow basically all of his political capital on. And it really was kind of heinous the way he'd completely discount the deaths of so many innocent civilians in pursuit of some nebulous ideological notion of a great noble war or some shit.

But he was basically a kneejerk contrarian with a quick wit. He wasn't really the master debater he's made out to be by many so much as he had become revered for his willingness to take the piss out of Mother Theresa and things like that that really needed to be done. And he sure acted like he cared about the fate of the people harmed by the Catholic church in that case. But the value of his argument there wasn't really so much that he made an astonishingly artful case, but just that he reported facts that other people didn't and sometimes made arguments that hadn't been seen much yet in a public forum. And he was eloquent and quick witted, which is not the same as being a great debater.

It was I guess surprising to see him put his reputation behind the Iraq war and all, but it's not as though he made super-compelling arguments or anything. He was kind of sloppy and scattershot in his support of that, in such a way that it probably revealed some underlying bigotry or possibly just his contrarian tendencies.

And the whole misogyny thing was blown way out of proportion. He qualified the things he said far more than people remember. In fact, I suspect a lot of people didn't even read the "women aren't funny" thing, but just based their arguments on someone else's summary. That was just a sloppy and all-too-common case of a layperson slapping an 'evolutionary psychology' argument on top of some emotional bias of theirs to give it weight. I don't really get why people even cared. He wasn't an anthropologist or a biologist or a psychologist or anything. He was just some old guy woolgathering in defense of his personal biases. That happens all the time. The appropriate response is, "Ha ha, well, good for you, li'l fella."

So the whole "you gotta respect him for making us think" thing is a little mawkish. He liked to take contrarian positions (and the Iraq war support was very much a contrarian opinion for his audience), and he did it artfully enough that he brought some previously obscure but extant arguments to the forefront of public discourse. But all the ridiculous cult of personality shit going around is really stupid but also pretty predictable. His illness has been public for quite a while, so it's given people plenty of time to write a shitton of obituaries and have various other smarmy tributes at the ready.

The internet's just lousy with shitty Christopher Hitchens fan art and stuff, which is alternating between really getting on my nerves and making me lol. I am trying to mostly lol.

[SR71]

[erimir]

Originally Posted by lisarea

In fact, I suspect a lot of people didn't even read the "women aren't funny" thing, but just based their arguments on someone else's summary. That was just a sloppy and all-too-common case of a layperson slapping an 'evolutionary psychology' argument on top of some emotional bias of theirs to give it weight.

That reminds me.

I know you're not a lesbian, but according to that article, you must be a Jewess then, because you're too funny to be a heterosexual gentile lady.

I don't like some of the things Hitchens did, and some of them were pretty shitty, but watching him go to work on people like Jerry Falwell was a thing to behold.

I don't really remember seeing him on TV before the "New Atheism" stuff though, so I don't remember his Iraq War advocacy very well.

[D. Scarlatti]

Actually liked him more when I disagreed with him. I could never bring myself to say 'good riddance' to such a wonderful writer.

His book on Thomas Jefferson is very good, by the way.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by erimir

I know you're not a lesbian, but according to that article, you must be a Jewess then, because you're too funny to be a heterosexual gentile lady.

Didn't he also exempt extreme uggos?

[Crumb]

Christopher Hitchens and the protocol for public figure deaths - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com