Christopher Hitchens

take everything

Just watching a few YouTube videos of Hitchens from years ago and he really is a great speaker. A Charlie Rose interview where IMO he sees right through Bill Clinton and openly expresses his antipathy for him for example (where incidentally Rose is as combative as I've ever seen him- birds of a feather and all that)

I often wonder what he'd think of some of the bull**** that goes on today.
I haven't seen a massive amount of his stuff, but from what I've seen, he is eloquent, polite, incisive, insightful and just intellectually honest. Something in short supply nowadays.

He's a huge loss.

As articulate & savvy as Hitchens could be, his credibility was tainted after gung-ho support for the Iraq war. Far more likeable than his dour brother.

Woke Hogan

His only problem was he completely lost his mind after 9/11, transforming into a mouthpiece for American imperialism overnight.

Lil Sally Anne Jnr.

Pro-Iraq war new-atheist dullard no thanks. But the kiddies love him. I prefer his brother, Peter.

JohnnyFlash

Was he ever sober? Always found him slightly more bearable than that Dawkins dickhead.

biko

He had some great sayings though.

My favourite - "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

Franz Von Peppercorn II

He had that very real thing - upper class british privilege. People associate that accent with intelligence but he wasn’t all that well read. People who like him tend to like his post 9/11 manifestation as well.

His brother, a total reactionary, was far better on the wars in the Middle East.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

biko wrote: »

He had some great sayings though.

My favourite - "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

He should have applied that logic to weapons of mass destruction.

DEFTLEFTHAND

The debate between himself and his brother is fascinating to watch.

I think it's up on YouTube somewhere.

suicide_circus

i like both brothers. but then i'm capable of liking people that i dont agree with 100% on everything. and i dont have a chip on my shoulder about posh accents or "privilege". both great writers, speakers and thinkers.

JohnnyFlash

The dude had a 3rd class degree. He wasn’t exactly a public intellectual. Being a crank and left-wing social critic is piss easy.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

suicide_circus wrote: »

i like both brothers. but then i'm capable of liking people that i dont agree with 100% on everything. and i dont have a chip on my shoulder about posh accents or "privilege". both great writers, speakers and thinkers.

Great writers and speakers, yes.

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

He was a great speaker and writer but I wasn’t in thrall to all of his notions just because of that.

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

He had that very real thing - upper class british privilege. People associate that accent with intelligence but he wasn’t all that well read. People who like him tend to like his post 9/11 manifestation as well.

His brother, a total reactionary, was far better on the wars in the Middle East.

Yes, sometimes people can be very taken in by articulacy as well as by a commanding accent. I can fall prey to it myself but I really try not to and try to listen to the actual point the person is making.

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

The dude had a 3rd class degree. He wasn’t exactly a public intellectual. Being a crank and left-wing social critic is piss easy.

A third from Oxford in the 1970s is probably equivalent to a 2:1 from many institutions in the present day.

ILoveYourVibes

He told a lot of half truths about things.

ILoveYourVibes

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts wrote: »

A third from Oxford in the 1970s is probably equivalent to a 2:1 from many institutions in the present day.

But much easier for white middle class men to get into an achieve.

Back then all you had to do to go to college in the UK was have the money.

tritriagain

A great debater to listen to. You don't have to agree with him on everything to appreciate him. I particularly like when he and Stephen fry take on Anne Widdecombe and a Catholic Bishop.

Ipso

His interview with Sean Hannity after the death of Jerry Falwell was hilarious.

daveorourke77

I dont like him. I find him to be rather pompous.

moonage

biko wrote: »

My favourite - "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Still waters

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

The dude had a 3rd class degree. He wasn’t exactly a public intellectual. Being a crank and left-wing social critic is piss easy.

I know people who left school at 13 who would wipe the floor with doctors and teachers on a wide range of subjects, education is no indicator of a sharp mind, you're statement and post history is testament to that

Irish_peppa

I love his religious debates on youtube


The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.:pac:

Christopher Hitchens

ILoveYourVibes

I always found him shifty. I felt he got away with a lot because he was a posh british guy.

JohnnyFlash

Still waters wrote: »

I know people who left school at 13 who would wipe the floor with doctors and teachers on a wide range of subjects, education is no indicator of a sharp mind, you're statement and post history is testament to that

Your.

ILoveYourVibes

Irish_peppa wrote: »

I love his religious debates on youtube


The Koran shows every sign of being thrown together by human beings, as do all the other holy books.:pac:

Christopher Hitchens

But when you questioned him it was obvious he had never read the Quran.

The only religious education he had received was Christian.

Dyr

Hitchens had a schtick and that was to machine gun the audience with factoids on topics they were not familiar with, stringing them all together to make his points

Every time he broached a topic I had some degree of familiarity with, I could see how deliberately disingenuous he was being even though I usually agreed with his broad points.

ligerdub

ILoveYourVibes wrote:

But much easier for white middle class men to get into an achieve.

Back then all you had to do to go to college in the UK was have the money.[/quote]


Emmmmm no.

Bit different now though eh, where there's a trend towards allocating spaces to the "disadvantaged".

There's always a bit of reverse snobbery towards well spoken folk making up the bulk of the likes of Oxbridge, but these sort of criticisms ignore the fact that university was not as important in terms of the jobs market as it is now. Hitchens went, good for him, this modern standard of "ugggh, rich white guy did something, big deal" is a baseless, lazy trope.

Bambi

Bambi wrote: »

Hitchens had a schtick and that was to machine gun the audience with factoids on topics they were not familiar with, stringing them all together to make his points

That sums him up very well. Dawkins has a similar MO, as does Jordan Peterson, albeit in a very different context.

I always found it interesting that their target audience was (or is) young men who may not be very well-read, may not be particularly well-educated, but seem to need some kind of epistemological or ontological demi-God to tell them how to be, or how they are, in the world. Maybe it's a natural consequence of the decline of organised, western religions. Maybe it's economic, or a consequence of female empowerment. It is interesting that they have so few successful and/ or female followers.

Westernyelp

JohnnyFlash wrote:

The dude had a 3rd class degree. He wasn’t exactly a public intellectual. Being a crank and left-wing social critic is piss easy.

You have certainly demonstrated being a crank is piss easy. I await your social Thesis

A Tyrant Named Miltiades!

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

That sums him up very well. Dawkins has a similar MO, as does Jordan Peterson, albeit in a very different context.

I always found it interesting that their target audience was (or is) young men who may not be very well-read, may not be particularly well-educated, but seem to need some kind of epistemological or ontological demi-God to tell them how to be, or how they are, in the world. Maybe it's a natural consequence of the decline of organised, western religions. Maybe it's economic, or a consequence of female empowerment. It is interesting that they have so few successful and/ or female followers.

Empty postulating, with more than a hint of smug condescension ("they're not particularly well-read/educated but worry not folks because I am").

A natural consequence of the decline of organised, western religions? "Maybe" you're miles off the mark.

ILoveYourVibes

ligerdub wrote: »

Back then all you had to do to go to college in the UK was have the money.

Emmmmm no.

Bit different now though eh, where there's a trend towards allocating spaces to the "disadvantaged".

There's always a bit of reverse snobbery towards well spoken folk making up the bulk of the likes of Oxbridge, but these sort of criticisms ignore the fact that university was not as important in terms of the jobs market as it is now. Hitchens went, good for him, this modern standard of "ugggh, rich white guy did something, big deal" is a baseless, lazy trope.[/QUOTE]
Not the disadvantaged.

The high achieving scholars from middle class areas.

ILoveYourVibes

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

That sums him up very well. Dawkins has a similar MO, as does Jordan Peterson, albeit in a very different context.

I always found it interesting that their target audience was (or is) young men who may not be very well-read, may not be particularly well-educated, but seem to need some kind of epistemological or ontological demi-God to tell them how to be, or how they are, in the world. Maybe it's a natural consequence of the decline of organised, western religions. Maybe it's economic, or a consequence of female empowerment. It is interesting that they have so few successful and/ or female followers.

They have very few female followers at all. And any they do have they put a spotlight on.

Corbyn has few female followers either.

But then i know many women who didn't like Hilary.

I don't think women go for individual leaders as much. More the party or idea.

They don't need to support a person.

Yamanoto

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

but seem to need some kind of epistemological or ontological demi-God to tell them how to be

Where's Paul Calf when you need him?

Bag of sh1te

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Empty postulating, with more than a hint of smug condescension ("they're not particularly well-read/educated but worry not folks because I am").

Not in the slightest. I don't claim to be well-read. I'm just making an observation that, from what I can see, a lot of the followers of Hitchens, Dawkins and yes, Jordan Peterson seem to view those characters as ready-mix alternatives to answering basic questions about the meaning of life as opposed to putting the graft in and reading some real books.

Those guys are the Betty Crocker of philosophy.

Junkyard Tom

Bambi wrote: »

machine gun the audience with factoids on topics they were not familiar with, stringing them all together to make his point.

Sounds a lot like that toxic little elf Ben Shapiro.

JohnnyFlash

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Not in the slightest. I don't claim to be well-read. I'm just making an observation that, from what I can see, a lot of the followers of Hitchens, Dawkins and yes, Jordan Peterson seem to view those characters as ready-mix alternatives to answering basic questions about the meaning of life as opposed to putting the graft in and reading some real books.

Those guys are the Betty Crocker of philosophy.

Careful, the Peterson fans get very tetchy if you suggest he’s actually a spoofer and a charlatan.

suicide_circus

yeah you've always got to be weary of a Messiah but if people get benefit from it fair enough

Obvious Desperate Breakfasts

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

That sums him up very well. Dawkins has a similar MO, as does Jordan Peterson, albeit in a very different context.

I always found it interesting that their target audience was (or is) young men who may not be very well-read, may not be particularly well-educated, but seem to need some kind of epistemological or ontological demi-God to tell them how to be, or how they are, in the world. Maybe it's a natural consequence of the decline of organised, western religions. Maybe it's economic, or a consequence of female empowerment. It is interesting that they have so few successful and/ or female followers.

Except when it comes to biology which he does know a lot about.

HappyAsLarE

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Careful, the Peterson fans get very tetchy if you suggest he’s actually a spoofer and a charlatan.

Charlatan is a bit strong for someone with a PhD and clinical practice.

HappyAsLarE

HappyAsLarE wrote: »

Charlatan is a bit strong for someone with a PhD and clinical practice.

It isn't if your doctoral thesis, twenty years ago, was in psychology and today you're behaving like an expert in economics or Marxism, and allowing yourself to be regarded as such.

Peterson's debate with Zizek was as clear an example as you can get of a man who was out if his depth. It was the logical equivalent of some barely literate eejit on twitter trying to start on a professor of French history about the French being a nation of surrender-monkeys. Embarrassing stuff.

Ardillaun

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

The dude had a 3rd class degree. He wasn’t exactly a public intellectual. Being a crank and left-wing social critic is piss easy.

Good degrees are a worthy goal for the many of us who require supervision. Like Waugh, Hitchens had his own curriculum and didn’t need to be told what to read. There’s no question he was a distinguished public intellectual and an extraordinary speaker but he often seemed fonder of making a big splash arguing his points than getting them right. For example, socialism was a disaster and Clinton was one of the better Presidents. Throwing his lot in with the neocons was a major error that wasted much of his later years in dreary feuds many lesser writers could have penned. I liked his literary criticism the most, e.g. an exquisite review of Brideshead Revisited. He had a great book about Waugh in him that he never got round to writing. Somehow the Trotskyist and the devout Catholic convert were kindred spirits.

Dyr

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

That sums him up very well. Dawkins has a similar MO, as does Jordan Peterson, albeit in a very different context.

I always found it interesting that their target audience was (or is) young men who may not be very well-read, may not be particularly well-educated, but seem to need some kind of epistemological or ontological demi-God to tell them how to be, or how they are, in the world. Maybe it's a natural consequence of the decline of organised, western religions. Maybe it's economic, or a consequence of female empowerment. It is interesting that they have so few successful and/ or female followers.

Your M.O is very similar to Hitchens

Hitchens audience was not young men.

Peterson is the exact opposite of Hitchens from what I've seen of him, he goes into excruciating bloody detail and makes it clear when he's going out on a limb

Junkyard Tom

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

Peterson's debate with Zizek was as clear an example as you can get of a man who was out if his depth.

When Zizek said [paraphrasing] 'who are these postmodern neo-Marxists, have you any names' and 'I'm not trying to make an idiot of you'. You can see Peterson just dying inside as he tries to come up with some answers as he's been completely exposed.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

It isn't if your doctoral thesis, twenty years ago, was in psychology and today you're behaving like an expert in economics or Marxism, and allowing yourself to be regarded as such.

Peterson's debate with Zizek was as clear an example as you can get of a man who was out if his depth. It was the logical equivalent of some barely literate eejit on twitter trying to start on a professor of French history about the French being a nation of surrender-monkeys. Embarrassing stuff.

Zizek. Now there’s a spoofer. Not that Peterson is not.

HappyAsLarE

A Tyrant Named Miltiades! wrote: »

It isn't if your doctoral thesis, twenty years ago, was in psychology and today you're behaving like an expert in economics or Marxism, and allowing yourself to be regarded as such.

Peterson's debate with Zizek was as clear an example as you can get of a man who was out if his depth. It was the logical equivalent of some barely literate eejit on twitter trying to start on a professor of French history about the French being a nation of surrender-monkeys. Embarrassing stuff.

You don’t see how a psychologist can understand economics and Marxist leaning through their knowledge of human behaviour??

Still waters

JohnnyFlash wrote: »

Your.

It shows the level of YOUR mental ability to reduce the debate down to grammar, the first port of call for someone out of their depth

Franz Von Peppercorn II

Ardillaun wrote: »

Many of the great figures of Silicon Valley were college drop-outs. Good degrees are a worthy goal for the many of us who require supervision. Like Waugh, Hitchens had his own curriculum and didn’t need to be told what to read. There’s no question he was a distinguished public intellectual and an extraordinary speaker but he often seemed fonder of making a big splash arguing his points than getting them right. For example, socialism was a disaster and Clinton was one of the better Presidents. Throwing his lot in with the neocons was a major error that wasted much of his later years in silly spats anybody could have penned. I liked his literary criticism the most, e.g. an exquisite review of Brideshead Revisited. He had a great book about Waugh in him that he never got round to writing. Somehow the Trotskyist and the Catholic were kindred spirits.

Hitchens was better when he was broadly left alright, I must look up that essay.

Dyr

Junkyard Tom wrote: »

Sounds a lot like that toxic little elf Ben Shapiro.

Very similar approach, what helps Shapiro is he's usually up against SJW type college students who's worldview is so risible that it's like shooting fish in a barrel.

Mad_maxx

Lil Sally Anne Jnr. wrote: »

Pro-Iraq war new-atheist dullard no thanks. But the kiddies love him. I prefer his brother, Peter.

I like both of them

p1akuw47h5r3it

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

Hitchens was better when he was broadly left alright, I just look up that essay.

So he was better when he had the same politics as you. Classic.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

DanDan6592 wrote: »

So he was better when he had the same politics as you. Classic.

He never had the same politics as me. I’m not a far left Marxist or Trotskyite, as Hitchens was to his dying day. I’ve never hoped that soviet horses would win the Cold War and water its horses in Hendon

That assumption tells us about your limited view of the world.

He was just a better writer then when he was more honestly on the left.

Mad_maxx

Ipso wrote: »

His interview with Sean Hannity after the death of Jerry Falwell was hilarious.

Yes indeed, to quote hitch in reference to Jerry Falwell

"if you gave him an enema, you could bury him in a matchbox"