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December 15th marks the 10th anniversary of Christopher Hitchens’s death.
Since he was a formative influence to both of us here at the Little Platoon, I thought I’d upload my own – suspiciously terse, he might have said – reflections on who he was, what he meant, what he teaches; and, most importantly, on how *not* to treat him today.
The irony he might have appreciated, but the fact there is something of a cult around the man and his legacy just proves how many people have lost the point. It is a cruel fate for an iconoclast to be made an icon.
Christopher Hitchens was a remarkable man, and one sorely missed. He was – for the most part – right on the big questions of his day, a quality he himself attributed to George Orwell. That his days are not ours, also, is one of the great modern tragedies.
But we oughtn’t parrot him, or treat his words as though they were themselves some holy writ divinely inspired, whether we are talking about religion or politics, God or Iraq, booze or literature.
Disagreeing with Hitchens, where disagreement is warranted, is a more fitting way to celebrate him than is repeating his words and his arguments like an incantation.
Not that I’m unaware of the irony, but as he himself wrote, in Letters to a Young Contrarian: “Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.”
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