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A Literal Literary Luminary has passed.
14 years ago
Christopher Hitchens was many things, and about half the adjectives I’d use to describe the man are far from complimentary. He was one of the most eloquent, most powerful, most dogged and most determined atheists I’ve ever encountered, and for that I hated him.
I’m an ardent believer in the divine myself, and I never saw the sense in a determined belief in nothing. Yet if ever there existed a man of sufficient argumentative ability to make me sit down, shut up, and listen anyway, it was Christopher Hitchens.
I’m an ardent believer in capitalism. Christopher Hitchens was a dedicated communist. These two positions alone ought to have been sufficient to drive me away from reading anything the man had to write, or listening to anything he had to say, but such was his compelling nature that I never passed up an opportunity to read what he had written and listened to just about everything he said with the finest attention.
Christopher Hitchens believed, as I do, in the human spirit. Though clearly his belief had different impulses it was a common drive that I shared with him while he lived and which in my own small way I will carry on now that he has passed. Hitchens was a bon vivant in the truest sense of the word, an unapologetic consumer of the finer things in life. He was a categorical foe of all things born of or in support of piety. He was a deeply thoughtful man with a vast intellect and an unbelievable store of historical knowledge to which that intellect was applied with regular and thorough diligence.
I could never tenth in my most rigorous attempts the degree of wit and irony the man was capable of producing off the cuff and half drunk to boot.
Hitchens and I have one thing completely in common though, and that is a deep and abiding respect for the people who fight evil. Like him, I have long recognized the existence of bald malevolence in the world and have always believed that violence is an answer, and sometimes it is the only answer, to such malignancy. Hitchens was born in Britain, but emigrated to the United States and was a life-long supporter of the American way of life and of our national willingness to support the downtrodden and the oppressed.
When we neglected to do so, Hitchens was rightly castigatory, but the man never failed to give credit where credit was due, and for that he has my eternal admiration. He was an active journalist in some of the worst war zones this generation has seen, and all his life he was willing to put his money where his mouth was. The man was far braver than most journalists I have read or read of. His belief in America alienated many on the left, his god-less communism alienated many on the right, but such was his power of presence and word that people both left and right cheered him when he spoke and quoted him when he was done.
I will miss Christopher Hitchens. He was a godless-communist. He was an unwavering supporter of freedom. He was a lush. He was brilliant. He was a great man.
eleftheria i thanatos
rest in peace.
I’m an ardent believer in the divine myself, and I never saw the sense in a determined belief in nothing. Yet if ever there existed a man of sufficient argumentative ability to make me sit down, shut up, and listen anyway, it was Christopher Hitchens.
I’m an ardent believer in capitalism. Christopher Hitchens was a dedicated communist. These two positions alone ought to have been sufficient to drive me away from reading anything the man had to write, or listening to anything he had to say, but such was his compelling nature that I never passed up an opportunity to read what he had written and listened to just about everything he said with the finest attention.
Christopher Hitchens believed, as I do, in the human spirit. Though clearly his belief had different impulses it was a common drive that I shared with him while he lived and which in my own small way I will carry on now that he has passed. Hitchens was a bon vivant in the truest sense of the word, an unapologetic consumer of the finer things in life. He was a categorical foe of all things born of or in support of piety. He was a deeply thoughtful man with a vast intellect and an unbelievable store of historical knowledge to which that intellect was applied with regular and thorough diligence.
I could never tenth in my most rigorous attempts the degree of wit and irony the man was capable of producing off the cuff and half drunk to boot.
Hitchens and I have one thing completely in common though, and that is a deep and abiding respect for the people who fight evil. Like him, I have long recognized the existence of bald malevolence in the world and have always believed that violence is an answer, and sometimes it is the only answer, to such malignancy. Hitchens was born in Britain, but emigrated to the United States and was a life-long supporter of the American way of life and of our national willingness to support the downtrodden and the oppressed.
When we neglected to do so, Hitchens was rightly castigatory, but the man never failed to give credit where credit was due, and for that he has my eternal admiration. He was an active journalist in some of the worst war zones this generation has seen, and all his life he was willing to put his money where his mouth was. The man was far braver than most journalists I have read or read of. His belief in America alienated many on the left, his god-less communism alienated many on the right, but such was his power of presence and word that people both left and right cheered him when he spoke and quoted him when he was done.
I will miss Christopher Hitchens. He was a godless-communist. He was an unwavering supporter of freedom. He was a lush. He was brilliant. He was a great man.
eleftheria i thanatos
rest in peace.
Keegan-Ingrassia
~keegan-ingrassia
*ovation*
