Today, we lost Christopher Hitchens. Though the obituary pages will focus on the obvious stuff (his politics, atheism, etc.), I think his most impressive accomplishment was one of PR: He made reading, writing and thinking seem relevant, thrilling and sexy.
Our age celebrates folksy sentimentality and the doctrine that no one’s feelings ought to be hurt under any circumstances. It was a decisive pleasure to turn on the TV news and occasionally see this glorious, charming, erudite and slightly bedraggled Englishman speaking to his viewers like intelligent adults and never hesitating to dispense a clean, effortless smack-down. He performed a great public service.
In my years of teaching, both on the secondary and community college levels, I’ve seen a number of students (not so many, but enough) get turned on by Hitchens to reading, writing and thinking. He taught them that being the smartest guy in the room actually helps you to get the girl, and that thinking can be an adventure.
He taught them that the world around them, the world they took for granted, is shaped by a complex tissue of ideas—that ideas matter, and that those who have ideas as their medium are the real unacknowledged legislators of the world.
In some respects, Hitchens had badly limited human understanding, especially of religion. Though he claimed to “get” what makes religious people tick, I don’t think he really did. When it came to religion, he had a habit of asking the wrong questions, and then answering them incorrectly.
But here’s the thing about Christopher Hitchens: in today’s media environment, which somehow contrives to be both knee-jerk and timid, when he invited people to argue with him, he meant it.
The Hitch's altercation with Thanatos reached its tragic (the word is selected with care) and inevitable conclusion last night. He was a champion of liberty and a connoisseur of language. I hope he is remembered as such.
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