Letters to a Young Contrarian (Art of Mentoring (Paperback))

Product Information

But when facing terror and threat of violence, Hitchens takes pleasure in dismantling it on the grounds of logic and sheer eloquence. He knows the other side won't budge, but his hope is to plant the seed of scepticism in the mind of the audience. This is evident in his commentary on the death sentence Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued for the prominent writer Salman Rushdie. May I assume that you are opposed without reservation to the suborning of the murder, for pay, of a literary figure? It was educational to see how often this assurance would be withheld, or offered in a qualified form. In those cases, I would refuse to debate any further. So I was a reductionist in that instance, and proud of my simple-mindedness.

consider for a moment what their heaven looks like. Endless praise and adoration, limitless abnegation and abjection of self; a celestial North Korea." I nearly hit upon the word "dissenter" just now, which might do as a definition if it were not for certain religious and sectarian connotations. The same problem arises with "freethinker". But the latter term is probably the superior one, since it makes an essential point about thinking for oneself. The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks. When this formula is combined, one learns from the past without using it as a defensive tool: If one remains truthful to oneself, there will be no use for lying. You will be guided by the facts because you are not grounded in your own truth. This isn’t a review. You quote Hitchens too much. If I wanted to read Hitchens quotes, I’d buy a book of Hitchens’ quotes”, to which I respond, as Hitchens says, “You… noticed that I make liberal use of extracts and quotations, not just to show off my reading but also to enlighten my text and make use of those who can express my thoughts better than I am able to.”

Selected

Christopher Eric Hitchens was an English-born American author, journalist, and literary critic. He was a contributor to Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, World Affairs, The Nation, Slate, Free Inquiry and a variety of other media outlets. Hitchens was also a political observer, whose best-selling books — the most famous being God Is Not Great — made him a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits. He was also a media fellow at the Hoover Institution. A fiery, eloquent, direct condemnation of injustice, fundamentalist unreason, religious prosecution, and a loud encouragement to think for one's self. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence."

Death hath wrought a pernicious dent in the erudite and intellectual world; Hitchens will not be one to be soon forgotten, nor ever replaced (but emulated, definitely). Let me stop you before you roll your eyes. Yes, I am providing my belated, unasked-for, and pedantic tribute to the late Hitch, but this is as appropriate of a forum as any to do so, right? Indeed, I read this magnificent little collection of letters of advice written to no one in particular (but everyone) in modest and solemn remembrance. Distrust any speaker who talks confidently about “we,” or speaks in the name of “us.” Distrust yourself if you hear these tones creeping into your style. Always ask who this “we” is; as often as not it’s an attempt to smuggle tribalism through the customs. 2. Hitch never spared even the most revered figures. And that chilling observation cloaked in Greek philosophy… So I have no peroration or clarion note on which to close. Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the “transcendent” and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant and picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your motives and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you. 15. The Konrad’s Quote He thought of the awful status quo as permanent and irrevocable. As it happens, I was able to differ with both of them—Milosz in person and Kundera in print—and in time everybody lived to see the survival and renaissance of these cultures. But I did not, I hope, misunderstand the essential Stoicism that was present in their work; there were times when the cause seemed hopeless and yet they would not give it up. One way of facing this impossible position was to be as grim as possible and to treat all hopes as illusions. For those facing a long haul and a series of defeats, pessimism can be an ally. (Apart from anything else, as some American Indians have also discovered, the presentation of the bleakest and starkest possible picture can have the paradoxical effect of mobilizing the emotions and the intellect.) 14. The valediction Since this often seems to come up in discussions of the radical style, I'll mention one other gleaning from my voyages. Beware of Identity politics. I'll rephrase that: have nothing to do with identity politics. I remember very well the first time I heard the saying "The Personal Is Political." It began as a sort of reaction to defeats and downturns that followed 1968: a consolation prize, as you might say, for people who had missed that year. I knew in my bones that a truly Bad Idea had entered the discourse. Nor was I wrong. People began to stand up at meetings and orate about how they 'felt', not about what or how they thought, and about who they were rather than what (if anything) they had done or stood for. It became the replication in even less interesting form of the narcissism of the small difference, because each identity group begat its sub-groups and "specificities." This tendency has often been satirised—the overweight caucus of the Cherokee transgender disabled lesbian faction demands a hearing on its needs—but never satirised enough. You have to have seen it really happen. From a way of being radical it very swiftly became a way of being reactionary; the Clarence Thomas hearings demonstrated this to all but the most dense and boring and selfish, but then, it was the dense and boring and selfish who had always seen identity politics as their big chance.

Customer Reviews

Wasn’t that refreshing? If not, tell me why I am wrong in thinking that argumentation is a common good. He invites us to connect with our fellows on the grounds of truth and respect, so that we may learn and teach without violence - neither physical nor psychological. The great reward, if that’s the right word, lies in the people you will meet when engaged in the same work, the lessons you will learn, and the confidence you will acquire from having some experiences and convictions of your own—to set against the received or thirdhand opinions of so many others. If you care about the points of agreement and civility, then, you had better be well equipped with points of argument and combativity, because if you are not then the "centre" will be occupied and defined without your having helped to decide it. That is unless you trust the transcendent sapience of the Dalai Lama, whose work I was reading in parallel with Huxley's. Here is what the enlightened one told his interlocutor, at the opening of The Art of Happiness: A Handbook for Living, an extensive and bestselling transcription of his own words: He's too smart to be unaware of the trap - 'I shall pretend that I am a stranger to all forms of modesty, including the false,' he quips - but too human to avoid it. Thus the reader is frequently reminded of the many stands Hitchens has made across the globe - from Chile to Czechoslovakia, from Cuba to Korea - against oppression, injustice, hypocrisy and corruption. The Village Voice's Joy Press, reviewing the book alongside Martin Amis's The War Against Cliché also tendered tempered praise:

So I decided to try him again with the slimmest book possible, and though the series itself is one of those lower-third of the middle-est-brow possible, I kinda sorta mostly loved it. It was just really good to feel his cadences within me again, and feel his deep allegiance with the Preterite and his eloquent rage against all that is most unjust in this world resonate in what's left of my apostate conscience. Indeed, he's particularly good (if, of course brief) at championing those caught in the teeth of a political vicegrip, those inhabitants of partition, in Belfast, Cyprus, Palestine, Kashmir, or cold war Berlin, say. Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the "transcendent" and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you.Liberals and conservatives have variously laid claim to Christopher Hitchens, but neither can. Hitchens was his own man. Vaclav Havel, then working as a marginal playwright and poet in a society and state that truly merited the title of Absurd, realised that "resistance" in its original insurgent and militant sense was impossible in the central Europe of the day. He therefore proposed living "as if" he were a citizen of a free society, "as if" lying and cowardice were not mandatory patriotic duties, "as if" his government had signed (which it actually had) the various treaties and agreements that enshrine universal human rights. He called this tactic the "power of the powerless" because, even when disagreement is almost forbidden, a state that insists on actually compelling assent can be relatively easily made to look stupid. At around the same time, and alarmed in a different way by many of the same things (the morbid relationship of the cold war to the nuclear arms race), Professor EP Thompson proposed that we live "as if" a free and independent Europe already existed. Like Orwell, Hitchens synthesizes what he deems valuable from the left and right – to use rigid definitions – and his rejection of all unthinking forms of political tribalism mean Hitchens offers a balanced approach to reasoning out one’s own position. As someone who’s lived a full life, he cannot help but drop in plenty of autobiographical tidbits, which illustrate his points while ensuring his own ego is suitably stroked, in a form which leaves very little room for modesty. Hitchens, though, is a great example for the aspiring intellectual / contrarian, and the congruence between his life and his writing makes his example all the stronger. Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect them to live for you.”