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

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This was in stark contrast to those Stalinists on the left like George Galloway who flocked to defend Saddam and might therefore be described as being Right but for the Wrong reasons. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will suply plenty of time for silence.

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? More to the point at hand is the inauspicious concept of Nirvana; sheer nothingness, or mindless ‘bliss’, which renders discovery and thought useless, or at the very least unnecessary. The problem is that, much different than rebellion for its own sake, Hitchens backs it all up with historical (and anecdotal) proof. I could extract a handful of great quotations but generally found its subtlety muddled and the italicized foreign phrases snotty and maybe he used "tautology" too often for me to really get all psyched? Bertrand Russell records in his autobiography that his Puritan grandmother "gave me a Bible with her favourite texts written on the fly-leaf.Everything he wrote I had to ration how much I read at a time so I could savour his writing, his pronouncements, his humour and his wisdom. He mines a vast archive of historical and intellectual precedent in making his case and molding it all into original observations of his own. It remains true that I do not share many of his specific views, or at least approaches to them, but that does not take away from the fact that Christopher Hitchens was a remarkable and highly intelligent man who stood by his convictions and contributed more than most to some of the the great debates of his generation. When he died suddenly of Cancer in 2011 after a bohemian lifestyle of smoking and drinking eventually caught up to him, much of the Intelligentsia mourned the loss of this great literary critic and pamphleteer who had become such an unexpected viral sensation after years of relative anonymity. You may wish to choose a more rigorous mental workout but I credit this daily infusion of annoyance with extending my lifespan.

I am not sure if I would ever wholly embrace any ‘words to live by’, but if I did, the words above wouldn’t be a poor choice. What I have discovered is something very ordinary and unexciting, which is that humans are the same everywhere and that the degree of variation between members of our species is very slight.Like most of Hitchens best writing (I'm aware many will disagree), it is valuable because his approach to the topic is level-headed, honest, and inquisitive.

Christopher Hitchens is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a visiting professor of liberal studies at the New School. But lost between the vague, self-serving references and the almost indiscernible pieces of advice, one is more or less forced to conclude that being a contrarian is either innate or it isn't.

So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out the ethical principles for ourselves. every time a Bastille falls one is always pleasantly surprised by how many sane and decent people were there all along. 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. If you have a political loyalty, you may be offered a shady reason for agreeing to a lie or a half-truth that serves some short-term purpose. Therefore I suggest that this book is to be treated both as textbook and exercise book for developing an opinion on many controversial.