Hitchens and Orwell

The Humanist's Anthony Lock on why Christopher Hitchens' overwhelming hatred of totalitarianism puts him squarely in Orwell's tradition of leftist apostasy: "Try as best as you can, he challenged us, to not allow one belief to squander clear thinking about another ... [or] a kind of worship whereby anything deemed negative against the topic or person, even the act of criticizing, is illicit. This is totalitarian, he warned: a control over one’s head and what can be said, creating corrosive preconceptions."

• [Jeremiah Cornelius]

  Too bad “hatred of totalitarianism” drove Hitch to become a lackey for America’s expanding imperial adventure of the 200o’s.   The fool thought that actual danger to the well-being and individual liberty of the world’s peoples came from religious minorities of historically exploited peoples.

  So he backed the overwhelming and oppressive “security” and surveillance states in the US and UK. 

  This is the very definition of a tool.

  • [Andrew Conlon]

    I don’t think he was a “tool”, I just think he had a differing opinion than mine.  This, believe it or not, is fine.  I actually respect him for this, despite having an opinion almost completely opposite of my own.  He stuck to his guns, and followed the consequences of his personal philosophy.  Further, unlike most people today, he could actually argue his point, and not just call people who disagree with him “toadies” or “tools”.

    • [Sirkowski]

      Yet he once told his brother his wish was for the Red Army to march over London.

      • [IRMO]

        And Orwell was too was others’ tool before he went to Spain.

    • [Antinous / Moderator]

      I don’t think he was a “tool”, I just think he had a differing opinion than mine.

      You might feel differently if your wedding party were burned to death by foreign troops.

    • [nemomen]

      >Further, unlike most people today, he could actually argue his point, and not just call people who disagree with him “toadies” or “tools”.

      If that were true I’d have more respect for him, but if you look at his hit pieces on Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, or Mother Teresa and other people he spewed his vitriol on (due to differing opinions) they were full of ad hominems, name-calling, and weak arguments.

    • [C W]

      “I actually respect him for this”

      I find it ever-amusing how people respect Hitch for his desire to murder people of a different belief system at the same time they decry the horrors of religion.

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        It’s almost as if people who decry religion do so with a religious fervor.

  • [Petzl]

     Get it right: the correct terms are “useful idiot” or “fellow traveler.”  Sheesh.

  • [breadteam]

    What do you mean by “backed the overwhelming and oppressive “security” and surveillance states in the US and UK.”?

    If you mean to say that he fully supported a Big Brother-style surveillance apparatus or anything even remotely like that, you’re just wrong.  His support of domestic intelligence gathering on terrorists was very much conditional.

    From his Wikipedia article:
    “In January 2006, Hitchens joined with four other individuals and four organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, as plaintiffs in a lawsuit, ACLU v. NSA, challenging Bush’s warrantless domestic spying program; the lawsuit was filed by the ACLU.”

    One of his statements regarding this lawsuit, from the ACLU’s site:
    http://www.aclu.org/national-security/statement-christopher-hitchens-nsa-lawsuit-client

    Information on the lawsuit itself:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACLU_v._NSA

    I do not agree with Hitchens on many topics, particularly his support for the Iraq war, but I have tremendous respect for the man. He was a tremendously powerful and inspirational communicator and thinker. Calling him a “tool” is dismissive and simply inaccurate.

• [tristan eldritch]

  Hitchens was an extremely entertaining character, but I don’t see him being on the same planet as Orwell as either a thinker, or in terms of contribution to human culture.  Also, there is surely an industrial dose of irony in the following, in relation to Hitchens: “Try as best as you can, he challenged us, to not allow one belief to squander clear thinking about another …”

  • [GawainLavers]

    Well, Hitchens certainly thought he was (on the same planet as Orwell), and honestly, I think that fantasy of being the apostate leftist heroically saving the cause from Stalinism is what led him to find his own Stalin…somehow in the form of a violent rightwing theocrat living in a cave…posit that the indolent, decadent left had somehow aligned themselves with him, and then heroically denounced them for it.

    He used to make me angry, and I though of him as basically aiding and abetting people like George Bush and Tony Blair, but thinking about it calmly, he probably had no discernable impact on history whatsoever.

• [nomind]

  Selling the Iraq War to liberals is not something Orwell would do.

  • [Jonathan Badger]

    No, but he unfortunately might have supported the Vietnam War had he lived to see it (which would be the proper analogy for Orwell). I suspect Orwell’s reputation is helped by his early death before the Cold War really got going.

• [Carsten Agger]

  I’m sorry to say that I have no respect whatsoever for Christopher Hitchens. In some ways, even his earlier exploits like the  attack on Mother Theresa were mainly provocation for the sake of it, bravado without substance. When he sucked up to George W. Bush and the torture and murder regime that was enacted in these years (just ask the people in Afghanistan and Iraq), he became a complete sellout. I’m sorry for his family’s loss, but as a thinker I believe he had no value at all. Comparing him to Orwell is very far out.

  • [Ladyfingers]

     Uh, have you actually followed what was revealed about Mother Teresa? The woman was a con.

    • [Carsten Agger]

      I’m not defending Mother Theresa, I’m quite certain the things Hitchens attacked her for are completely true. I’m attacking Hitchens for lack of integrity. I stand with Alexander Cockburn in this.

    • [C W]

      Absolutely true, absolutely irrelevant. He ignored one sacred cow to mindlessly follow another.

  • [breadteam]

    No respect? Really? This is one of the most intelligent journalists, critics, and general polemicists to appear in the 20th century and you have no respect for him? If you’re so upset because he hurts your delicate feelings, try reading more of his work. He wrote about such an incredible range of topics that I’m sure you’ll find something you both agree on.

    I’m not sure he really “sucked up” to George W. Bush but he did agree with some of his foreign policies. I recall Hitchens writing about him in very negative terms – despite still supporting the Iraq war until the end of his life (a topic I disagree with him on completely, but I still respect him tremendously).

    As for his feelings on torture, did you ever read this article?
    http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/08/hitchens200808

    Yes, Christopher Hitchens underwent “waterboarding” and called it torture.  How far would you go to prove a point?

    As for his attacks on Mother Teresa, there is no way that you can read his book “The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice” and make the claim that his attacks lacked substance. Unless, perhaps, your name is Bill Donahue.

    Don’t want to read the book (it’s not that long, really)? Take a look at this article on Slate:
    http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2003/10/mommie_dearest.html
    Or search Youtube for “Hell’s Angel”

    The reason anyone is comparing Christopher Hitchens to George Orwell is because he wrote a book called “Why Orwell Matters” and wrote and spoke about him in glowing terms at just about every opportunity.

    Something tells me that you’re not very familiar with Christopher Hitchens.
    Try looking at the Wikipedia article about him before making uninformed comments:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens

    • [Carsten Agger]

      Frankly, I think Hitchens’ waterboarding stunt was a bit of a free ride. He did it voluntarily. That makes all the effing difference.

      As a celebrity journalist, Hitchens could be confident his waterboarders would not risk doing him any physical harm. And he did not suffer the psychological damage of being violated and coerced. Also, I don’t recall how he denounced waterboarding as a crime and demanded the persecution of each and every person in the responsibility chain leading to the torture of detainees (but that might include himself). Like I said, little to no integrity.

      • [breadteam]

        Actually, in the article I linked to, that you obviously didn’t read, Hitchens himself acknowledges the fact that he was getting the easy treatment. He goes on to mention that despite the fact he knew what he was in for and that he had an easy way out, the experience was so utterly horrifying that he believed it was unequivocally torture.

        Big deal, though, right? It’s pretty clear that I could throw any number of corrections your way and you wouldn’t reconsider your position on the man, or even argue in good faith. 

        Again, I encourage you to actually read some of Christopher Hitchens’ writing before you half-bake your opinion of his work.

        • [Carsten Agger]

          I did read the piece, years ago and now.

          It’s not a bad piece – I don’t claim the man couldn’t write. He could, and well. Still, he stops short of calling for the prosecution of torturers. You might say that’s not what the piece is about, but the actual revelation that waterboarding is torture is hardly breaking news – as he also writes, the US Army has known it for decades.

          As for Mr. Hitchens’ general merits, who can say it better than Alexander Cockburn?

          Between the two of them, my sympathies were always with Mother Teresa. If you were sitting in rags in a gutter in Bombay, who would be more likely to give you a bowl of soup? You’d get one from Mother Teresa.  Hitchens was always tight with beggars, just like the snotty Fabians who used to deprecate charity.

          http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/16/farewell-to-c-h/

    • [C W]

      “This is one of the most intelligent journalists, critics, and general polemicists to appear in the 20th century and you have no respect for him?”

      People wouldn’t be so annoyed if he was actually “one of the most intelligent journalists, critics, and general polemicists to appear in the 20th century”. The hype doesn’t match his rhetoric.

• [Summer Seale]

  I think Hitchens was, by far, a better thinker and much better read person than anyone commenting here. And not only did I support him as an anti-theist, but on many other issues as well – including Iraq and Iran. For people to think that he hadn’t thought it through, hadn’t seen the effects of war first hand on many different occasions, hadn’t experienced the threat of death by many different groups in a very real way, bespeaks of such an idiotic knee-jerk reaction to anything dealing with war that it automatically has to be labeled the worst thing in the world. It is utter idiocy and, I’m happy to say, he finally didn’t fall prey to it. Neither, might I add, did Orwell. So I agree that they are both firmly entrenched in the same camp. 

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    And not only did I support him as an anti-theist, but on many other issues as well – including Iraq and Iran.

    Of course you did; you’re a raging islamophobe.

    • [Summer Seale]

      I knew you’d have to chime in and accuse me of that.

      I’m a raging Christianophobe as well. Only, I don’t see you bothered by that. Why is that?

      • [Antinous / Moderator]

        Perhaps because you don’t rage about it. Perhaps because raging against the dominant culture that runs the government and the military has a radically different subtext than raging against a small minority that suffers incessant discrimination here while being bombed by our military in their homelands.

        • [Summer Seale]

          Really? I don’t rage about it? You are basing this upon what evidence? And you are making these assertions with what data?

          It would seem that you’ve been picking on me on this subject for goodness knows how long, and you don’t even know the first thing about me.

          And, not to mention the intended insults you’ve been throwing my way. Thanks for that.