# Christopher Hitchens just died **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 16, 2011, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384 "2011-12-16T05:36:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/61 "2011-12-16T17:04:28Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > We have already had many threads on what a dangerous religious fanatic Mother Teresa was and how few people she actually helped . . . and as for Oscar Romero, I agree that he was great as the Joker and in all those Betty Grable musicals! The only evidence I’ve ever seen offered for why I should hate Mother Teresa is that she was a Catholic and that all Catholics are evil. You may find that a convincing argument; I don’t. As for Oscar Romero, the human rights activist who made the only serious attempt to protect the people of El Salvador against the horrors committed by both sides in the Civil War, I don’t see what you’re trying to accomplish by mentioning details from the life of Cesar Romero. Is that supposed to be funny? > [@RedFury](#): > > Again, I disagreed with him on any number of issues, but what the fuck does any of that have to do with this “pity” on him in some ethereal afterlife he, and many of us here, don’t believe in? I don’t shit on believers @their funerals – and I’ve gone to quite a few – or mock them on-line when they die, why are you doing the reverse? Taking this tack in defense of Hitches is somewhat ironic, given that spewing vile slander at people right after their deaths was one of his specialties. I’m merely telling the truth about Hitchens, a truth that most other people would rather not face. He rarely met a mass-murdering, mass-torturing communist dictator that he didn’t immediately fall in love with, and he rarely saw a Christian populace being slaughtered without defending those doing the slaughter. The result? Publications all over America in Europe, from all parts of the political spectrum, lavished him with praise and let him publish articles with them, and now that he’s died most of them will write obituaries that don’t mention the fact that he supported almost all of the most murderous regimes of the 20th century. I, on the other hand, will mention that fact. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/62 "2011-12-16T17:11:31Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > [Yes, Trotsky was a mass murderer.](http://www.theamericanconservative.com/article/2005/oct/10/00022/) > > Leon Trotsky—a man who was an active participant in and apologist for Lenin’s Red Terror, the inventor of the “blocking units” that would gun down Russian troops foolish enough to defy the commissars by retreating, and the author of such witty aphorisms as “We must rid ourselves once and for all of the Quaker-Papist babble about the sanctity of human life.” I’d want a better cite than ‘the American conservative’, but further Googling reveals that he was involved in Cheka and some pretty unpleasant business in the civil war…an area of history I know little about, more reading needed I think. Ignorance fought, anyway. As a Trotskyist in his early career Hitch also championed Mugabe when he was fighting British imperialism. > [@](#): > > And the result of that war is over a million dead, most of them civilians, and Islamic groups with greatly increased power over the lives of the people. I read several articles in Slate where Hitchens, being aware of these facts, proudly refused to retreat from his earlier support for the war. If he later changed his mind, I’m not aware of it. He didn’t, and I know around here the war is as unpopular as can be, but he saw it as part of a wider goal of fighting forces of religious fundamentalism. I didn’t agree with the invasion at all but I still think he threw up interesting points that aren’t worth condemning his memory over. > [@](#): > > I can’t watch the video right now because my computer’s sound driver isn’t working, but if what he says there is similar to what I’ve read from him elsewhere it’s not a very satisfactory answer. He happily attacked great people including Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders, Lech Walesa, Bob Hope, Oscar Romero, Joseph Bernardin, and many others. (He also [misrepresented](http://wysu.org/commentary.php?recnum=183) what many of them said and believed.) He also aggressively attacked any group or movement that opposed communism during most of his career or neo-conservative policy at the end of it, including the peace protestors who opposed the war in Iraq. In the 80’s, when the Polish people were trying hard to win their freedom from the Soviet Union, many people around the world supported them but Hitchens instead took the position that Poles sucked because they were Catholic. > > (If you’d like to debate this further I’d suggest a GD thread.) He argues that secularism is a more ethical way or doing good works, as it isn’t subject to agendas - Hamas being a major provider of aid in Palestine for instance, and we all know why. Ditto the good works of Mormon missionaries who do so with the aim of spreading a cult. There were no ‘sacred cows’ for Hitchens, he wasn’t afraid to take icons down a peg or two (his writing on Ghandi is pretty illuminating). Never heard of him attacking Polish independence? He seems pretty contemptuous of [Stalinism](http://lehmann.typepad.com/in_lehmanns_terms/2007/09/hitchens-on-sta.html) for the same reasons he’s contemptuous of religion. He also seems pretty admiring of Lech Walesa [to the point where it undermines his own arguments](http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2010/11/rather-interesting-but-they-all-missed-it/comments/page/4/). I’m not pretending he a saint, either. I disagreed with many of his writings and views (particularly re-electing Bush in '04), but he does have my respect for always having a point worth saying. He was one of those not content to sit back and accept things as they were told. Not worth creating a GD thread about it but I firmly believe his memory deserves celebrating for that if nothing else, history is replete with the warnings of blithely accepting anything. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/63 "2011-12-16T17:11:41Z")
Christopher Hitchens was one of the only genuinely unpredictable political commentators I can think of. Normally, if I know a commentator’s basic political orientation, I can predict very accurately where he’s going t ocome down on any given issue. But Hitchens truly fit no mold. No matter what you believe in, you’d find yourself cheering him AND cursing him regularly. Just when you thought he was hopeless, he’d say something inspiring, and just when you thought he was the perfect spokesman for your side, he’d commit blasphemy against one of your idols. LOTS of commentators like to fancy themselves bold iconoclasts, ready to poke fun at anyone and anything. Christopher Hitchens is one of the few who wasn’t kidding himself. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/64 "2011-12-16T17:11:43Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Fatuousness doesn’t really become you, **Marley**. Please refrain from personal insults, **Kimmy**. Thanks, **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/65 "2011-12-16T17:12:48Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > The only evidence I’ve ever seen offered for why I should hate Mother Teresa is that she was a Catholic and that all Catholics are evil. Then you obviously haven’t read the threads. Or completely lack reading comprehension. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/66 "2011-12-16T17:13:04Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Since the posts you just quoted don’t address what I said in any way, I’m not modifying my opinion. I’ve seen dumb comments about religion before, including in this thread. I’ve never seen an atheist say they hope a religious person recanted on his deathbed. Yeah, the notion is weird. On your deathbed it’s too late to improve your life. I guess you could wave away your priest and spend a few more moments with your family. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/67 "2011-12-16T17:14:31Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Since the posts you just quoted don’t address what I said in any way, I’m not modifying my opinion. I’ve seen dumb comments about religion before, including in this thread. I’ve never seen an atheist say they hope a religious person recanted on his deathbed. Oh, come on, **Marley**. You had it right the first time: It has to do with understanding motivations and realizing that other people are not quite so stupid as we sometimes like to suppose. Telling an atheist, “You better think twice. You’re going to die someday, and then what?” or telling a believer, “Well look at this, devastation in Haiti. Where’s your ‘God’ now?” as if the atheist may not have known about mortality or the believer may not have known about the existence of sorrow … this only reveals in what high regard we hold ourselves in comparison to others. It has nothing to do with the _timing_ of the exhortation to our favored belief system. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/68 "2011-12-16T17:17:55Z")
Could we please make an effort to keep the thread on the subject of Mr. Hitchens and his work? There’s a Pit thread about the reactions of some believers to his death, and of course GD is the appropriate place to debate larger issues of belief vs. unbelief. Thanks, **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/69 "2011-12-16T17:19:42Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Please refrain from personal insults, **Kimmy**. > > Thanks, > > **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator I know this is a not a warning, but just to clarify: I was calling the contention silly, and did not mean to suggest that it was characteristic of **Marley** himself. Indeed, had I thought the latter, I would not even have bothered raising my objection! (Also, I think I’ve said my piece on what, I agree, is a bit of a collateral topic.) ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/70 "2011-12-16T17:22:26Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > The only evidence I’ve ever seen offered for why I should hate Mother Teresa is that she was a Catholic and that all Catholics are evil. [I’m not seeing it.](http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2003/10/mommie_dearest.html) I don’t see him arguing that anyone should hate her, just that she’s not deserving of the universal accolades she received. The “attacks” also started before she died. > [@](#): > > I don’t see what you’re trying to accomplish by mentioning details from the life of Cesar Romero. Is that supposed to be funny? By Jove, **Eve** , he saw right through you! > [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > Oh, come on, **Marley**. You had it right the first time: It has to do with understanding motivations and realizing that other people are not quite so stupid as we sometimes like to suppose. I think that speaks to a broader issue about understanding people’s beliefs and opinions, not to the specific point about hoping somebody changed his mind right before he died. ---
**Author:** ![gravitycrash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gravitycrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gravitycrash)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/71 "2011-12-16T17:30:50Z")
One of the few people who often caused me to laugh out loud either through his writing or in a debate setting. I liked that he could be equally viscous to the far left and to the far right and make both ideologies look ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/72 "2011-12-16T17:36:03Z")
Hitch and his brother Peter spent much of the last 50 years in various states of estrangement and contention. Here is Peter’s beautiful and moving eulogy to his brother. Well worth a read. > **[In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011 - Mail Online - Peter Hitchens blog](https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/2011/12/in-memoriam-christopher-hitchens-1949-2011.html)** > > In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011 ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/73 "2011-12-16T17:36:11Z")
> [@Eve](#): > > We have already had many threads on what a dangerous religious fanatic Mother Teresa was and how few people she actually helped . . . and as for Oscar Romero, I agree that he was \*great \*as the Joker and in all those Betty Grable musicals! I particularly enjoyed his turn in _Tales of Manhattan_ as the philandering fiance who enlisted Henry Fonda to claim the incriminating tailcoat (and ends up claiming Ginger Rogers as well). ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/74 "2011-12-16T17:52:45Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Christopher Hitchens was one of the only genuinely unpredictable political commentators I can think of. Normally, if I know a commentator’s basic political orientation, I can predict very accurately where he’s going t ocome down on any given issue. > > But Hitchens truly fit no mold. No matter what you believe in, you’d find yourself cheering him AND cursing him regularly. Just when you thought he was hopeless, he’d say something inspiring, and just when you thought he was the perfect spokesman for your side, he’d commit blasphemy against one of your idols. > > LOTS of commentators like to fancy themselves bold iconoclasts, ready to poke fun at anyone and anything. Christopher Hitchens is one of the few who wasn’t kidding himself. Couldn’t have said it better. No matter where you stand I’m sure there’s something he wrote that would piss you off. Also, his writings in The Atlantic about modern letters were always worth reading, even when I didn’t know a thing about the person he was writing about. He was a great writer and critic, albeit an acerbic and gossipy one. Always an enjoyable read. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/75 "2011-12-16T18:11:30Z")
> [@PandaBear77](#): > > I sincerely hope so. > > He certainly had plenty of warning that he was gonna die. I hope he reconsidered. Everybody has plenty of warning. Why should he have reconsidered? ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/76 "2011-12-16T18:13:16Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > The man himself responds “[Fuck that!](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R-SjC3lTWk&feature=related)” I didn’t agree with him on everything, but that is a classic example of why I admired the way that he could speak with eloquence and rationality. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/77 "2011-12-16T18:13:18Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > Everybody has plenty of warning. Why should he have reconsidered? Because smoking probably sped up his death. He really should have reconsidered his cigarette usage. Oh, he’s talking about some ficticious super-being, sorry, the answer to that would be “because that’s stupid”. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/78 "2011-12-16T18:27:05Z")
Hitchens was real literary figure, and one of our era’s truly great essayists. I think he was at his best writing about literary figures and intellectual life more generally. His work on Orwell, for example, is fantastic, and he’s written some fabulous book reviews for _The Atlantic_. As an atheist myself, i support many of the points he made about the place of religion in public life. As someone who spends a fair bit of his own time thinking about religion’s role in American history, i didn’t find too much of Hitchens’ writing on the subject to be especially new or surprising, but i think he performed a public service by bringing the debate more fully into the public consciousness. I found his sudden turn to the irrational right, at least on some issues, in the wake of 9/11 to be very frustrating. It wasn’t simply that he supported the chickenhawks in Washington, but that he was so contemptuous and dismissive of those who disagreed with him. I recognize that those qualities were around in abundance during the debate over the war in Iraq, but Hitchens’ aggressive idiocy on the subject made me lose a lot of respect for him, even while i continued to read some of his excellent writing that was unrelated to the war issue. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/79 "2011-12-16T18:29:46Z")
Apparently a couple of people didn’t see my mod note, so let me run it again. > [@twickster](#): > > Could we please make an effort to keep the thread on the subject of Mr. Hitchens and his work? There’s a Pit thread about the reactions of some believers to his death, and of course GD is the appropriate place to debate larger issues of belief vs. unbelief. > > Thanks, > > **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator This is an official instruction to \*all \*participants in this thread. Ignore it at your peril. Thanks, **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384/80 "2011-12-16T18:30:11Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > He’s with Jesus now. Very true. They’re both decomposing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christopher-hitchens-just-died/606384.md?page=5)