The Telegraph | Christopher Hitchens’s provocative journalism is greater than the sum of its parts, argues Nicholas Shakespeare as he reviews Arguably.
Every generation tends to look silly to the one after; those beehive hairdos, those chain smokers. Reacting to previous experience, we don’t make progress, necessarily. Vicars have randy daughters and randy daughters give birth to boys who in turn become vicars.
More: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8765444/Arguably-by-Christopher-Hitchens-review.html
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6 comments:
Very well written review.
I wonder why the Guardian's review of Hitch's new book Arguably is not featured on this site. Is it because you only seek hagiography and worship? An objective analysis of the alcoholic neocon's output won't do I see. So you link to rightwing papers keen to have a mouthpiece for Bush and Cheney. Very fitting your choice of papers.
Beat your chest over this dose of sanity:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/16/arguably-christopher-hitchens-review-essays
"I wonder why.."
The newsfeed has a link to it. I tweeted it and posted it on facebook. I don't post links to absolutely everything Hitchens related on this site and I don't have Bush, Cheney or rightwing papers on my mind when I do.
This is off-topic, but has Christopher been reached yet about what happened to him re: Think Inc? Everybody's very worried about him (including myself, obviously), and nobody's heard from him all day! Please let us know something when you find out...
--Karen
from one anon to another-- the Guardian piece is hardly the kind of critique that justifies all that maudlin prose about Hitchens being a right-winger and blah blah.
The article was pretty spot-on. It lauds Hitchens for being a good journalist, thinker, writer, and honest enough to offer his own criticism.
The article merely questions Hitchens vis-a-vis his panic over 9/11 (stupidly thinking Islamic extremists are as dangerous as Nazis) and his bourgeois infatuation with Anglo-Empire (v.2.0). These are valid critiques -- I think the Islamisists are as evil as Nazis but so hopelessly atavistic that they'll never 'accomplish' anything as sinister and devastating as The Final Solution. They are a joke in my opinion and do not deserve so extreme a response as they have gotten... but they are not to be sympathized with at all. However, it is tough to tell how big a threat something is BEFORE it becomes one-- so maybe he's right (I don't think so... but maybe).
Next, Hitch does like the shiny happy people aspect to 21st century Empire. He likes being a big fish in a big pond. So he tends to over sell the pond a bit; and I think America is much much more sinister (and malevolently right-wing) than he admits to; but he's hardly a fucking neocon. I'm pro-gun --but pro gay marriage, pro single payer, pro socialized education, anti-corporate, et.al. so am I a right-winger cuz of the gun part?! It's just stupid to take one issue and ignore all the rest-- but this is exactly what ersatz leftists do all the goddamn time.
Try try my little liberals (pretending to be radicals) to think --for once-- for yourself. Some of us are more complicated than your little label-brains can handle.
Nice post, thanks for sharing.
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