Speaking ill of the dead
A couple of days ago I awoke to discover that Christopher Hitchens had died. The news was initially conveyed to me by my twitter stream which was knee deep in tributes and impassioned insistences that we had lost “a great thinker”. There were other opinions scattered amongst the hagiography, but by and large they were in the minority. He was described as “the beau ideal of the public intellectual” by Vanity Fair magazine. And even those from whom one might expect a little balance seemed determined to speak no ill of the dead… a convention, incidentally, that Hitchens himself was unwilling to follow. Some of those who dared question the posthumous near-canonisation of the man have been accused of being “spiteful” or “insensitive”, apparently unaware of the insensitivity and spitefulness of the man they are defending. Read, for example, the views of Hitchens on Jerry Falwell – expressed live on CNN the day following Falwell’s death. I have no time for the loathsome Falwell, but the double-standards of some of those defending Hitchens is breath-taking to witness.
Even the normally fearless Billy Bragg sought to “add [his] voice to those who mourn the loss of Christopher Hitchens”. Bragg then went on to compare Hitchens favourably to George Orwell and express his admiration for the writer’s “compulsion to speak his mind”. About the worst thing he could find to say about him was that he “didn’t always agree with him”. I wonder if I were to spend the last decade of my life writing exultant articles in defence of cluster bombs and endless wars (in which young men are sent to kill and die overseas while I eat and drink myself slowly to death in luxury)… if I were to write a series of borderline racist articles about the followers of Islam and loudly champion the “clash of civilisations” like the most boorish of George Bush’s neoconservative cheerleaders… I wonder if I were to resort to calling women who dared to criticise the Bush administration’s foreign policy “sluts” and “fucking fat slags”… I wonder if the worst I would get from stalwarts of The Left would be “well, I didn’t always agree with him”?
I certainly hope not.
The fact of the matter is, Christopher Hitchens may have been a half-decent writer (and that’s as far as I’d go incidentally… “half-decent”) and he may well have been an engaging and witty conversationalist (I don’t know as I never met the man). He certainly didn’t pull any punches, and was willing to express his opinion even when it might land him in hot water. But you know what… attend any meeting of a neo-fascist organisation (the BNP, the KKK, or your local equivalent) and you’ll find plenty of people willing to express opinions that might land them in hot water. I’m obviously not suggesting Hitchens was a member or sympathiser of such groups; but if it’s just the willingness to express unpleasant opinions in public that earns you respect, why isn’t the press filled with columns lauding the greatness of “Racist Tram Woman”?
Incidentally, I should also make it clear that I do not wish cancer or death on anyone (well, there may be the occasional dictator or mass-murderer who I’d be happy to see die in a bizarre gardening accident). I feel no happiness or satisfaction at the death of Hitchens and I wish those who knew him comfort in their grief. I’m not saying “Yay! Hitchens is dead”, I’m saying “Hang on a second, now that he is dead, why are we forgetting about all the horrible things he said and supported?”
And I’m aware that many seem willing to give Hitchens a pass because of his position on religion. A position which I personally find simple-minded and as far from “the beau ideal of the public intellectual” as it is possible to get. Humanity does indeed need to re-evaluate our relationship with religion, but that the discussion appears to be happening between religious extremists and the narrow atheist fundamentalism of Hitchens, Dawkins and the rest is just depressing. I always thought the mark of a true intellectual was that they could appreciate the nuances in complex issues and could navigate controversial and difficult discussions without resorting to pathetic insults and nonsense generalisations. No?
Perhaps my view of intellectualism needs to be revised given the recent celebration of Hitchens. Perhaps modern intellectualism is to be found in the championing of repellent military tactics such as cluster munitions while denouncing your critics as fucking fat slags. Perhaps it is to be found in taking delight in war, mayhem and violent death (from a distance of course… if Orwell really was Hitchens’ hero, then why did he never take up a rifle and face down the Taliban in Helmand province himself?) Perhaps we get the intellectuals we deserve… and judging by our violent, crass and deeply narcissistic society, perhaps we don’t deserve much better than Hitchens.
Photo courtesy of The Independent
I had just about finished writing this piece when I encountered Glenn Greenwald’s article over at Salon.com which makes pretty much exactly the same points, uses many of the same examples and goes into rather more depth than my own piece. As a result I almost scrapped this piece and tweeted a link to Salon instead. But in the end I figured that it’s an opinion that’s worthy of repeating.
I met him briefly a few years back. I certainly didn’t find him an “engaging and witty conversationalist”. In fact he was, without any provocation, boorish and graceless. But then who was I? A mere punter who’d put money in his pocket to hear him pontificate.
December 18th, 2011 | 3:18pm
by Justin
Well said, Mr Bliss.
December 18th, 2011 | 6:56pm
by Gyrus
Cheers Gyrus. I was getting royally fed up with the apparently limitless praise being heaped upon his shoulders… there’s a natural tendency when someone dies to concentrate on their good qualities and overlook their mistakes. But the man spent a decade proselytizing for the Bush regime and writing some really nasty stuff. Anyone who has read reports about the effects of cluster bombs can’t help but be appalled by the position taken by Hitchens on their use. And there are so many other issues upon which he took appalling positions. Overlooking those things in order to create a fictional legacy just doesn’t seem right.
Also, whatever anyone says, there is no evidence (that I’m aware of anyway) that he was engaged in a long-running satire… a decade long “Modest Proposal”. He appeared to genuinely hold the views he espoused and should therefore be judged on them.
As I say, Justin, I never met him myself and was basing my statement about him being an “engaging and witty conversationalist” on hearsay. That said, it really doesn’t surprise me that he might have been as boorish and graceless as your experience suggests. After all, those who lauded his personal charm and charisma are the very same people who attest to his towering intellect.
December 19th, 2011 | 2:14am
by Jim Bliss
Oddly enough, I had become really quite fond of the old bastard in his last year or so on earth, & was sad to hear of his passing. Strange, I know, given that I was so opposed to his absurdly simplified atheism (3 thousand years of violently imposed monotheism = the human religious experience). But then again, I have always been of the opinion that you can’t kick Christianity hard enough, so in some ways, he became a strange bedfellow in this regard.
I’m not that familiar with a lot of his political positions, he really wasn’t on my radar until a couple of years ago, & he appeared only because of all the atheism kerfuffle. I imagine I would have agreed with him greatly on some issues & on others would have wanted to leap over the table & bitch-slap some sense into him (Or Hitch-slap, perhaps).
He was, obviously, by no means a great ‘thinker’, but he WAS a great speaker for whatever idea he was wanting to convey. My favourite example is his taking a rabbi on over the issue of male genital mutilation. In the clip you can actually hear the audience being won over & start to think differently about something they’d simply never thought of before:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZTS6iVpSPI&feature=player_embedded
More than any of this, the way he approached & then met his death on his feet I found tremendously inspiring, & put me in mind of Terence Mackenna’s advice to meet the self-transforming machine elves in DMT hyperspace the same way, with your wits about you. His admirable unwillingness to bend the knee to anyone in life is probably the flip side to his arrogance & lack of humility in the face of the absolute, but then you have to take the rough with the smooth, as with anyone. Well, anyone interesting, anyway.
The thoughts of anyone staring into the abyss, regardless of all the cosmetic differences & ideological disagreements encountered upon this mortal holiday, are for me precious above rubies, & invariably worth listening to, just to learn a little more of what is up ahead, & what we might expect to see. And so how it might be best to proceed to that destination, as we shall all be planning a trip that way ourselves soon enough.
December 19th, 2011 | 5:57pm
by L. Byron
L. Byron, of course there are issues upon which I too agreed with Hitchens. But when I sat down to write this blogpost my aim was to provide a little balance to what I saw as an excruciating whitewash of the man’s political opinions. Opinions which – in the last decade of his life – were often little short of repellent (in my view). Like yourself, I was indeed impressed by his attitude in the face of his own mortality. There was something very admirable about that.
However, his obituaries – with only a very few exceptions – hailed him as one of our great intellectuals and a writer of genuine importance. I disagree with both assessments, and while I don’t have a problem with above-average writers being hailed as Truly Great in the days and weeks following their deaths – history eventually sorts out these things – I’m less happy with the way he was lauded for his role as a “public intellectual” (and he very much was). To me it seemed to be veering dangerously close to legitimising the views he expressed in that capacity (which as I said, I often found repellent). And right now, given the way the world is teetering on the brink of one disaster after another, repellent opinions need to be publicly challenged.
December 19th, 2011 | 11:53pm
by Jim Bliss
“his obituaries – with only a very few exceptions – hailed him as one of our great intellectuals and a writer of genuine importance. I disagree with both assessments”
Fair ’nuff.
December 20th, 2011 | 12:06am
by L. Byron