The Hitch is dead.

HUNK

On the Sam Harris blog.

http://www.samharris.org/blog/item/hitch/

The moment it was announced that Christopher Hitchens was sick with cancer, eulogies began spilling into print and from the podium. No one wanted to deny the possibility that he would recover, of course, but neither could we let the admiration we felt for him go unexpressed. It is a cliché to say that he was one of a kind and none can fill his shoes—but Hitch was and none can. In his case not even the most effusive tributes ring hollow. There was simply no one like him.

One of the joys of living in a world filled with stupidity and hypocrisy was to see Hitch respond. That pleasure is now denied us. The problems that drew his attention remain—and so does the record of his brilliance, courage, erudition, and good humor in the face of outrage. But his absence will leave an enormous void in the years to come. Hitch lived an extraordinarily large life. (Read his memoir, Hitch-22, and marvel.) It was too short, to be sure—and one can only imagine what another two decades might have brought out of him—but Hitch produced more fine work, read more books, met more interesting people, and won more arguments than most of us could in several centuries.
I first met Hitch at a dinner at the end of April 2007, just before the release of his remarkable book god is not Great. After a long evening, my wife and I left him standing on the sidewalk in front of his hotel. His book tour was just beginning, and he was scheduled to debate on a panel the next morning. It was well after midnight, but it was evident from his demeanor that his clock had a few hours left to run. I had heard the stories about his ability to burn the candle at both ends, but staggering there alongside him in the glare of a street lamp, I made a mental note of what struck me as a fact of nature—tomorrow’s panel would be a disaster.
I rolled out of bed the following morning, feeling quite wrecked, to see Hitch holding forth on C-SPAN’s Book TV, dressed in the same suit he had been wearing the night before. Needless to say, he was effortlessly lucid and witty—and taking no prisoners. There should be a name for the peculiar cocktail of emotion I then enjoyed: one part astonishment, one part relief, two parts envy; stir. It would not be the last time I drank it in his honor.
Since that first dinner, I have felt immensely lucky to count Hitch as a friend and colleague—and very unlucky indeed not to have met him sooner. Before he became ill, I had expected to have many more years in which to take his company for granted. But our last meeting was in February of this year, in Los Angeles, where we shared the stage with two rabbis. His illness was grave enough at that point to make the subject of our debate—Is there an afterlife?—seem a touch morbid. It also made traveling difficult for him. I was amazed that he had made the trip at all.
The evening before the event, we met for dinner, and I was aware that it might be our last meal together. I was also startled to realize that it was our first meal alone. I remember thinking what a shame it was—for me—that our lives had not better coincided. I had much to learn from him.
I have been privileged to witness the gratitude that so many people feel for Hitch’s life and work—for, wherever I speak, I meet his fans. On my last book tour, those who attended my lectures could not contain their delight at the mere mention of his name—and many of them came up to get their books signed primarily to request that I pass along their best wishes to him. It was wonderful to see how much Hitch was loved and admired—and to be able to share this with him before the end.
I will miss you, brother.

Galvasean

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

To clarify. I'm not saying that raising a glass to Hichens is in and of itself wrong. I really don't care what people do with their whiskey. However, in terms of consequences such a private ceremony has very little lasting impact on anyone - possibly even yourself. A donation to charity X (be it involved in research or palliative care) would surely have the potential to make more of a difference.

I agree with you, in a purely logical sense of course, but after that gig in my sig I'm all charitied out

ironingbored

Arcus Arrow wrote: »

the poison of religion outside the Pro Cathedral next Saturday night when the Cloyne report will be burned.

Sorry, off topic... but are you saying that Catholics will be burning a copy of the Cloyne Report (presumably as a sign of their disdain for its findings) outside the Pro Cathedral on Saturday? :eek:

Get me Michael Nugent on the phone...:D

MagicMarker

The Quadratic Equation wrote: »

The ironic thing is, going by his alleged favourites, he knew feck all about Whiskey either.

Any recommendations?

[-0-]

MagicMarker wrote: »

Any recommendations?

Midleton Very Rare Irish Whiskey is one of the nicest on the planet.

Connemara Peated Whiskey is also lovely, as is 12 year old RedBreast.

strobe

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

To clarify. I'm not saying that raising a glass to Hichens is in and of itself wrong. I really don't care what people do with their whiskey. However, in terms of consequences such a private ceremony has very little lasting impact on anyone - possibly even yourself. A donation to charity X (be it involved in research or palliative care) would surely have the potential to make more of a difference.

Ahh for the love of God Fanny do you really need this explained to you? People saying they are having a glass of whiskey in the man's honour are not doing so to 'make more of a difference'. It's just engaging in a pleasure that someone else had.

Actually you know what, I don't agree with Sean and Shooter, your posts along this line have really fucking annoyed me. You know perfectly well that drinking some Johnny Walker is not related in any way to people 'wanting to make a difference' or any such crap.

If you want to come on here on a high horse and chastise people for what you consider behaviour unbecoming at least be up front about it, rather than cloaking it in faux naivety. Ugghh...

Fanny Cradock

strobe wrote: »

Ahh for the love of God Fanny do you really need this explained to you? People saying they are having a glass of whiskey in the man's honour are not doing so to 'make more of a difference'. It's just engaging in a pleasure that someone else had.

Actually you know what, I don't agree with Sean and Shooter, your posts along this line have really fucking annoyed me. You know perfectly well that drinking some Johnny Walker is not related in any way to people 'wanting to make a difference' or any such crap.

If you want to come on here on a high horse and chastise people for what you consider behaviour unbecoming at least be up front about it, rather than cloaking it in faux naivety. Ugghh...

If you want to read something into my post that isn't there then go right ahead. But perhaps you could you show me the point at which I chastised anyone?

Lucy8080

the paxman interview with hitch is now starting on bbc 2.

a change of schedule.

thought id let ya know. enjoy.

Lucy8080

just my own personal input on this thread.

i thought the best post here was the photo of the whiskey bottle and the reason why.

we all know personal loss...and we all know "others" in our life we feel inspired us along the way.

that post combined both...and in that we can all share a commonality of understsanding of what moves us...and to me it seems the best of us.

ill raise a glass..

Brown Bomber

Lucy8080 wrote: »

ill raise a glass..

... to a warmonger.

Lucy8080

read about the life thomas paine brown bomber. you will get a feel for hitchens...and what you want and dont want.

i never realised hitch wrote a book about his life( paines) until a while after my own reading. i got his spirit then...and his own inner struggle...played out bravely in public.

none of us want war. ever.

whats ur solution?

Zillah

Brown Bomber wrote: »

... to a warmonger.

It is quite appropriate that we should be graced by the presence of one capable of making arguments as cutting and lucid as we might expect from Hitchens himself.

Brown Bomber

Lucy8080 wrote: »

read about the life thomas paine brown bomber. you will get a feel for hitchens...and what you want and dont want.

i never realised hitch wrote a book about his life( paines) until a while after my own reading. i got his spirit then...and his own inner struggle...played out bravely in public.

none of us want war. ever.

Hitchens wanted war, by his own account, he didn't try to hide it. He was exhilarated on 9-11 and it's implications. Not only did he want war, he displayed a vile indifference verging on sociopathic bloodlust to the victims of the wars he cheerleaded for.

Lucy8080 wrote: »

whats ur solution?

Not falling over myself to pay homage to a warmonger, and Bush's pet intellectual.

Brown Bomber

Zillah wrote: »

It is quite appropriate that we should be graced by the presence of one capable of making arguments as cutting and lucid as we might expect from Hitchens himself.

Is your ad hominen attack some kind of admission that he was indeed a warmonger?

Lucy8080

hitchens could clearly define what he saw as an enemy.

like you have in him.

but i asked a question.

whats your solution?

hitchens engaged in polemics....but at least he defined what he was for/against. why blame him for his enthusiaism? he knew his enemy.

right or wrong ...we can debate. at least he defined it for us. and said what he would do about it. u have not.

u have not.

u have not moved from polemics...hating bush or hitch...well what of it?

help us out here b.b.

none of us want war.

so again...whats ur solution?

Brown Bomber

Lucy8080 wrote: »

hitchens engaged in polemics....but at least he defined what he was for/against. why blame him for his enthusiaism? he knew his enemy.

No he did not know his enemy. He claimed his enemy had WMD and should be attacked. He was wrong, and millions have sufferered greatly.

Lucy8080 wrote: »

none of us want war.

I'm sorry but this is plain wrong. Many people want war, (and Hitchens is very much in that camp). That's why there is so much of it. That's why people lie to create situations favourable to conflict and bloodshed. Realpolitik.

Lucy8080 wrote: »

so again...whats ur solution?

My solution is not to eulogise a warmonger....(Like Holocaust denier David Irving, who announced with "deep regret" his death on his Hitlerian site http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/ )

Lucy8080

im kinda sorry this is going on in this thread.

id rather have this discussion outside it....regardless of my or anyone elses opinion on c .h.

this thread was to honour him.

a new thread is not so hard a leap for b.b. or anyone who wishes to challenge the position of c.h.

this one should have its own space.

Lucy8080

no. he hated saddam and the suffering caused to such people as the kurds.

yes people and politicians lied. he didnt care after the facts came out...he still saw tyranny that needed to be addressed.

thats a deeper discussion.

i know why hitchens favoured war when he saw it as inevitable.

what is ur alternative for those being tortured gased and raped under the hussein family? ignore it?

this is different from wanting war.

o.k.

u dont want to eulogise warmongers...

this is ireland....we do it every easter...our warmongers wrote our proclaimation. proclaiming freedom based on the ideas of people like thomas paine who influenced people like hitchens.

so again...

whats ur solution to this way of achieving equality and freedom for all?

help us out.

what should we do?

Lucy8080

i wont reply to another challenge here.

new thread please.

apologies to all and any.

Brown Bomber

Lucy8080 wrote: »

no. he hated saddam and the suffering caused to such people as the kurds.

yes people and politicians lied. he didnt care after the facts came out...he still saw tyranny that needed to be addressed.

thats a deeper discussion.

Tyranny is also violating international law to attack a soveriegn state on fabrications and lies.

Why didn't he address this tyranny? Why didn't he join the armed forces himself then?

Lucy8080 wrote: »

what is ur alternative for those being tortured gased and raped under the hussein family? ignore it? .

Torture: Abu Ghraib, or alternatively read this e-mail from a US solider stationed in Iraq who describes the murder and torture of innocent Iraqis, including skinning them
Gassed: Cancer rates are higher now in Fallujah than Hiroshima from US Chemical weapons.
Rape: There are numerous accounts of rape and gang rape of Iraqis, including minors by US troops.

What's your alternative?

Lucy8080 wrote: »

this is different from wanting war.

No it's not.

Lucy8080 wrote: »

so again...

whats ur solution to this way of achieving equality and freedom for all?

help us out.

what should we do?

Diplomacy vs dopping bombs on people is a no-brainer.

Brown Bomber

Lucy8080 wrote: »

i wont reply to another challenge here.

new thread please.

apologies to all and any.

There is no challenge. He was a warmonger. While your raising a glass to him perhaps you could also spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of people now dead due the war that he advocated for.

amacachi

MagicMarker wrote: »

€37 actually.

And no.

Jesus, 20 at the border. :pac:

I actually bought the bottle a little over a week ago for me and a mate to drink while watching some stuff with the Hitch since we knew he might not be around next year. Circumstances delayed it and I've left it unopened til both of us can have a crack at it now under slightly different circumstances.



Something I meant to say earlier in the thread was that when I saw the news of Hitchens' death scroll along on BBC they also showed a news report about a baby born at (I think) 24 weeks weighing half a pound in America and she should be home with her family before the end of the year. He loved that kind of amazing stuff that we've managed to somehow do with the useless collections of replicating matter that we all are. Circle of life etc. :pac:

amacachi

Brown Bomber wrote: »

There is no challenge. He was a warmonger. While your raising a glass to him perhaps you could also spare a thought for the hundreds of thousands of people now dead due the war that he advocated for.

His trigger finger must've been worn down to a nub before he died.

[-0-]

My thought's on Hitch's passing.
http://semirandommusings.blogspot.com/

God obviously lost the debate and Hitch said he would stop ridiculing him if he got rid of Kim Jong II. :P In all seriousness though I would love to hear what he would have said regarding his passing.

Dades

Brown Bomber wrote: »

... to a warmonger.

Okay you've had your say. We know where you stand. You're not going to wreck this thread with a tangent about the US war (one of which has already been stopped).

There is a "New Thread" button if you want to make a stand there.

Thanking you.

antiskeptic

Lucy8080 wrote: »

the paxman interview with hitch is now starting on bbc 2. thought id let ya know. enjoy.

I suppose some will see Hitch facing into death in the same way that he faced into everything else (it would appear).

But it struck me as hollowed out fist-waving. It was as if, after a life time of battles in which he had gotten used to being the victor (such was his unapologetic, "no regrets" response to Paxmans probing of doubts) he had turned around to face this insurmountable opponent ... and shivered in the face of it. Never having developed the tools of humilty or doubt or deep self-reflection (at least they were not on show here) all Hitch could do was approach certain death with the same defiance that had proved so successful in the past. I think he knew how hollow his stance was but, after a lifetimes investment in the proudful polemic, couldn't bring himself to admit it.

Not in public anyway.


I've never read him or even seen much of him but I see now the source of the god-model deployed by so many here, It's a cardboard-cut-out-god, constructed with a view to self-righteously and (worryingly, if you took a moment to ponder on it) easily demolishing it - so as not to have to countenance bowing to Him.

Theologically illiterate (© Terry Eagleton) to jaw-dropping degree (given his figuring to be able to comment intelligently on the subject), Hitch didn't appear to leave open the chance that a God who was claimed to have created this universe would nigh on certainly be more sophisticated and nuanced that the one he was bent on skewering.

Although denouncing Pascals Wager, he immediately went on to lay his money down on a personal version of it - supposing that God (if he exists and was after all, a decent old skin) would take into account his non-hypocritical approach: "I didn't believe because there was no evidence and couldn't be hypocritical enough to believe in you just in case - that should score me points? No?"

Were it that God was limited to issuing forth evidence of his existence in a manner deemed sufficient by Hitch. Were it that Hitch's notions as to how God would evaluate Hitch were God's notions as to how he would evaluate Hitch. It's not hard to see who is supposed to bow to who in Hitch's economy.

Hitch did what so many here do. He clung to simplistic notions of God and constructed a god in an image and likeness that suited him - such that he could live life in whatever the hell way he wanted to without God cramping his style. It's a mad option given the feebleness one's fist waving is reduced to when faced with God's ultimate sanction of death - I mean, your system needs to work for all the game or it don't work at all. And it's a mad option when a God of any kind of sophistication at all will wipe out your arguments in a heart beat.

My only hope is that a frightened (for that is what I detected), fist-waving Hitch did as the frightened, fist-waving thief on the cross did when advancing death propelled him to the very edge of the precipice. A merciful God saves the most compelling reason that a man reach out for salvation 'til last.

Dades

antiskeptic, you can build up a wall of prose around it, and use words like 'nuance' and 'sophistication' to describe your God, but it won't matter if the basic god-concept has more holes than a Swiss cheese.

For a start if someone can explain to my why our planet regularly attacks and kills thousands of innocent people (Happy Christmas, 95% Christian Philippines), then maybe we can move on to the next question.

In the meantime the minutia we'll all missing about your God can wait.

King Mob

antiskeptic wrote: »

My only hope is that a frightened, fist-waving Hitch did as the thief on the cross did when advancing death propelled him to the edge of the precipice. A merciful God saves the most compelling reason that a man reach out for salvation 'til last.

So you hope that a dying cancer patient became so scared of dying and of the possible eternal torture that you think God had waiting for him for simply not believing that he skipped any peaceful, rational transition to Christianity and instead betrayed everything he believed and begged for mercy?

That's a pretty ****ing sick thing to hope for.
It's a pretty sick thing for a "loving" Christian or God to want to happen to someone.

But if that's the sort of "sophisticated God" you are waffling on about, then I how can you blame Hitchens for being so eloquently opposed to such a tyrant?

Brown Bomber

Lucy8080 wrote: »

read about the life thomas paine brown bomber. you will get a feel for hitchens...and what you want and dont want.

i never realised hitch wrote a book about his life( paines) until a while after my own reading. i got his spirit then...and his own inner struggle...played out bravely in public.

Surely you don't mean Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’: A Biography by Christopher Hitchens???

It was thoroughly discredited by John Barrell for The London Review of Books.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n23/john-barrell/the-positions-he-takes

He shows Hitchens up for his numerous factual errors, shoddy research and very strongly hints at plagiarism.

It is the more surprising to find these errors, as none of them occur in John Keane’s biography of Paine (1995), on which Hitchens depends heavily – it must have been lying open on his desk as he was writing this book. Here for example is Keane on Watson’s Apology:

Watson … went so far as to admit that parts of the Pentateuch were not written by Moses and that some of the psalms were not composed by David … Paine took particular pleasure in some of the Bishop’s curious admissions. For example, The Age of Reason questioned whether God really commanded that all men and married women among the Midianites should be slaughtered and their maidens preserved. Not so, the Bishop indignantly retorted. The maidens were not preserved for immoral purposes, as Paine had wickedly suggested, but as slaves, to which Christians could not legitimately object.

And here is Hitchens: Watson, he tells us,

was willing to admit that Moses could not have written all of the Pentateuch and that David was not invariably the psalmist. But he would not give too much ground. Paine was quite out of order, wrote the good bishop, in saying that God had ordered the slaughter of all adult male and female Midianites, preserving only the daughters for rapine. On the contrary, the daughters had been preserved solely for the purpose of slavery. No hint of immorality was involved.

Or here is Keane on the problems Paine encountered in his efforts to publish Part One of Rights of Man:

Paine finished the first part of Rights of Man on his 54th birthday, 29 January 1791 … The next day, Paine passed the manuscript to the well-known London publisher Joseph Johnson, who set about printing it in time for the opening of Parliament and Washington’s birthday on 22 February. As the unbound copies piled up in the printing shop, Johnson was visited repeatedly by government agents. Although Johnson had already published replies to Burke’s Reflections by Thomas Christie, Mary Wollstonecraft and Capel Lofft, he sensed, correctly, that Paine’s manuscript would attract far more attention and bitter controversy than all of them combined. Fearing the book police, and unnerved by the prospect of arrest and bankruptcy, Johnson suppressed the book on the very day of its scheduled publication.

And here is Hitchens again:

Having completed Part One on his 54th birthday, 29 January 1791, Paine made haste to take the manuscript to a printer named Joseph Johnson. The proposed publication deadline, of 22 February, was intended to coincide with the opening of Parliament and the birthday of George Washington. Mr Johnson was a man of some nerve and principle, as he had demonstrated by printing several radical replies to Burke (including the one by Mary Wollstonecraft) but he took fright after several heavy-footed visits from William Pitt’s political police. On the day of publication, he announced that The Rights of Man would not appear under the imprint of his press.

antiskeptic

Dades wrote: »

For a start if someone can explain to my why our planet regularly attacks and kills thousands of innocent people (Happy Christmas, 95% Christian Philippines), then maybe we can move on to the next question.

1) There is no such thing as an innocent person. Not Christian, not non-Christian. Your structure wobbles from the get go.

2) A Christian is a Christian when they meet God's definition of a Christian - not mans. We cannot therefore tell what percentage of the population of the Phillippines are Christian.


3) Genesis 3 “Cursed is the ground because of you". Storms, floods, weeds, disease - is the theological conclusion drawn.

In the meantime the minutia we'll all missing about your God can wait.

I would be thinking less about minutiae and more about glaring gaps in understanding.

Hitchens' model of (the presumably Christian) God saw God creating us sick (sinners) and commanding us that we be well (behave ourselves). It's a mis-comprehension seen with monotonous frequency around here.

The actual position is that you are born a sinner and are commanded to let God make you well because you are incapable of behaving yourself.

It struck me as rather pitiable that someone who supposedly knew what they were talking about didn't have even a basic comprehension of the argument they were supposedly demolishing. The man was in his 60's for crying out loud.