Home Base for Hitchens

It is remarkable how many people such a combative, controversial  and often drunken atheist can inspire. When I woke last week to hear that Christopher Hitchens had died it meant something to me, but I was soon to learn that I was not alone. To be a contrarian isn’t always in contradiction to popularity it would seem. For a man who (like me coincidentally) bashed Mother Theresa, Henry Kissinger and God on a regular basis, his rise to meteoric status as an intellectual with clout was unique in a time when a USA Today poll stated that Atheists are less trusted by the American people than are rapists. So where is the self identification with Hitchens for so many people Americans included? I think I get it a bit because of my own experiences. The obvious shared experiences are esophageal cancer and a love of Scotch, but that is not really what I am talking about.

I had read Hitchens for years, mostly his journalism, and his best seller God is Not Great, and found that he made me laugh with his intelligence and wit, and made me want to be stronger, as he was fearless. I had, like so many people I know, not understood why he sided with Bush and Blair on Iraq, but also remember a certain respect I had for the boldness of his conviction when he gave the finger to the Bill Mahar audience as they booed his justification of that support. So I thought that I must agree with him on most things, just not that particular war. It turns out though that I did not. I read Hitch-22, his a memoirs, as soon as they came out and found that I barely agreed with him on anything. Yes he still disliked Mother Theresa and the Pope, but besides that we were not the same at all. So in my confusion I went to YouTube and watched old interviews and countless debates that he so eloquently won, even when three sheets to the wind. When I listened to him I found I almost always agreed with him, or at least more times than when reading his latest book. Then I figured out why despite not agreeing with so many of his political views I still admired and was inspired by him. It was that ability to embrace humanities unknowns, and disregard silly superstition. The reason that his views were different is that he changed them throughout his life, which is not only admirable, but also brave. We must change as the evidence, or even our opinions change, and to have expressed  that is what made him rather unique. He went where his mind lead him, not fashion, or even his own beliefs of the past.

There was one constant that is significant, and is the one that I think remains the reason why Hitchens was not hypocritical even if he flip flopped so often. That was his rationality. His atheism was not meant as a contrarian view in the way some of his other views were. It was constant, because I think he saw a great harm in leaps of faith. A leap of faith by its very nature involves a time when searching is not occurring. The leap is a void of intellectualism, and that void is one that he could never accept. He was rooted only in skepticism and rationality, and with that home base he could explore the many enthralling facets of existence, from literature to history. So like so many of the tributes I have read, I add this to the mountain of respect for a man dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, and spreading of views which were often unpopular, often wise, and sometimes not, but always well written and well thought out. I will miss him.

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