Was Hitchens always an opportunist hack?

[RadioRaheem84]

Or was he once really a Marxist? I mean I am going back and reading his stuff pre-Iraq War and it never seemed like he was all that good at defending Marxism. His debate with Dinesh D'Souza on socialism was over all pretty weak. Some of his stuff is really good and the other stuff is OK.

In one clip I saw of him he was appalled that a woman called him a liberal because that was considered an insult to him but now he uses the American political spectrum too, hailing the liberal establishment as the "left".

Now he's been using the last of his career to say that George Bush and Tony Blair are somehow more leftist than anti-war leftists. :confused:

I just don't know if he always just an opportunist who went where there would be the most opposition or if he really was once a great polemicist. He just seems like a radial liberal bourgeois now.

Any thoughts?

[scarletghoul]

I think he was a Trotskyist, which suggests he was indeed an opportunist even then.

[RadioRaheem84]

What a zing. Damn, son.

[The Vegan Marxist]

If he went pro-bush & pro-war then, in my eyes, he was never a true Communist, Marxist or not.

[RadioRaheem84]

Now that I read back to a lot of his stuff, he was always just an opportunist snob that was contrarian for the mere thrill of it.

[The Idler]

A secularist who knew a little bit of Trotskyism who now writes books attacking popular powerful figures.

[RadioRaheem84]

Yes, very much so.

[anticap]

I don't actually care about his politics. His tirades against religion kept me in stitches while he was (opportunistically) riding the peak of that most recent wave (which I allowed myself to get swept up by for a while, just for the fun of it), and for that I'd buy him a drink (and try to steer the conversation away from politics). I enjoy his conversational style and humor.

At any rate, he has said that he used to write articles and pamphlets in his formative years as a socialist, and that he was passionate about them then but wouldn't want to read them now. Make of that what you will.

Then again there's this quote, as recalled by his brother Peter: "I don't care if the Red Army waters its horses at Hendon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hendon)."

You might also glean something of his views from this (http://www.pbs.org/heavenonearth/interviews_hitchens.html) (or you might not; I haven't read it in a few years).

The most recent thing I've seen from him in this regard was as co-interviewee with the author (whose name escapes me at the moment) of a (supposedly definitive) book on Trotsky, on a terrible show hosted by a transparent anti-communist who I constantly wanted to punch, where Hitchens was basically expected to play the role of apologist. He didn't even bother trying, really.

[Sir Comradical]

I think he was a Trotskyist, which suggests he was indeed an opportunist even then.

That's such an ML thing to say.

Hitchens picks on religious figures because being morons, they're easy to debate. When he argues with people of his intellectual size, he get's annihilated.

Case in point.

7ZGTFxIiVkI

[RadioRaheem84]

Back during the days of the Iraq War, Hitchens was said to have won this debate. This debate sparked his career as a US Imperial apologist.

[bailey_187]

tbh, it seems like he just likes a good argument.

[Devrim]

If he went pro-bush & pro-war then, in my eyes, he was never a true Communist, Marxist or not.

What do you mean by 'true communist'? Do you think that Mussolini was a 'true communist' before he changed?

Devrim

[Red Commissar]

The problem with Hitchens to me is this- where are his interests? It's always seemed to me he was a Marxist more out of convenience (odd saying that) than anything.

It is hard to say where his loyalties lie, whether he was concerned with class struggle or simply religious extremism. I can't speak much for his past, but like many intellectuals he was probably a socialist because it simply made sense to him, and allowed him to take a position of a critic.

Now jump ahead to the War on Terror. In between his early and later years I'd definitely say he was becoming more and more obsessed with the issue of Islamic radicalism. With the misunderstandings that some Europeans have towards immigrants from Muslim countries, I don't find it surprising that he would play to those fears that Europeans, and later Americans, would have.

So he takes the role of the supporter for the War on Terror because he saw it as addressing what he saw was the greatest threat to "society"- Islamic radicalism- which he could justify with some half-hearted atheist views.

Nearly everything I see with him nowadays is tied to the question of religion, particularly Islamic radicalism. He feels the "left" is weak in addressing this and acts as apologists for Islamic radicalism, which again he feels as a threat.

I suppose it also helps by using Islamic radicalism as a punching bag, to try and gain rep with the right who would ordinarily not give him the time of day- opportunism. He reminds me of liberal hawks of the past too. And like Comradical said, debating with bigoted religious types is easier to do.

[LibPornQuig]

The Hitch detractors definitely make a strong case when they say beating up on religious figures is easy. But I do think it's necessary.

While Hitch hardly has to flex any intellectual muscle to go on Fox News and debate the existence of god with Hannity, Hitch at least has gotten a platform that can reach people who are on the fence about the religion in America (especially in regards to how destructive it can be).

[Barry Lyndon]

Hitchens seems to have seen Marxism as some sort of intellectual hobby. Once he got bored with it and/or it was an impediment to his career he flung it aside and became a liberal secularist. I doubt Hitchens really believes in anything, beyond what is good for Hitchens at the moment. Exhibit A is the way he acted like Edward Said's friend for years and then proceeded to smear Said as soon as he was on his deathbed. To quote Alexander Cockburn, he's a 'sack of shit'.

[brigadista]

hitchens is now a member of the chattering class

[ed miliband]

He's a drunk, that's it. I don't like George Galloway but I agree with his description of Hitchens as "a drink-soaked former Trotskyist popinjay". Another thing about Hitchens' is I feel his secularism is really just an excuse for him to take the piss out of people he feels intellectually superior. His secularism seems to owe more to misanthropy than it does to any hostility to organised religion or the concept of God/gods.

[NGNM85]

I am appalled by his defense of the Iraq War, however "Trials of Henry Kissinger" is an excellent book on Kissinger, Vietnam, and US imperialism.

[GPDP]

I am appalled by his defense of the Iraq War, however "Trials of Henry Kissinger" is an excellent book on Kissinger, Vietnam, and US imperialism.

Agreed. Hard to believe the author of such a damning account of the masterminds responsible for about half the deaths during the Vietnam war can then turn around and support the travesty in Iraq. Hitchens has no principles.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Here's an excellent series of 'take-downs' of Hitchens:

http://leninology.blogspot.com/2005/01/christopher-hitchens-dossier.html

He was a genuine Trotskyist back in the early 1970s, along with his brother, Peter. The latter back-sassed and drifted to the far right soon after, and the former followed suit after 9/11, having abandoned Trotskyism back in the late 1970s.

[HamishFTW]

There was recently an article on the Guardian website by Decca Aitkenhead that is quite an interesting read. It seems he is just a boring drunk who loves to tell people how he's right.

[Sean]

There was recently an article on the Guardian website by Decca Aitkenhead that is quite an interesting read. It seems he is just a boring drunk who loves to tell people how he's right.
In fairness that description could apply to many, many writers. Here's a link (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/may/22/christopher-hitchens-decca-aitkenhead)to the article Hamish mentioned.

The fact that Hitchens spends so much time filling the position of nasty godless lefty to fairly balance the reasonable christian conservative of the day on Fox news should speak volumes for him. He's certainly the most disagreeable "big atheist" I've ever read, but I'll make a point of reading his memoirs too to see what his own justifications are -smug ones at that I'm sure.

[LimitedIdeology]

He's a shrill. His arguments against religion are simple and childlike, and his support for the War in Iraq is nothing more than an extension against his anti-religious sentiment.

His hypocrisy in his support for the Iraq venture and his opposition to the Vietnam War is evidence. He's just an idiot.

[Barry Lyndon]

He's a shrill. His arguments against religion are simple and childlike, and his support for the War in Iraq is nothing more than an extension against his anti-religious sentiment.

His hypocrisy in his support for the Iraq venture and his opposition to the Vietnam War is evidence. He's just an idiot.

No. It's classic American liberalism. Liberals love denouncing the sins of US foreign policy as long as they are far in the past and absolutely nothing can be done about them. It's like when Obama admitted that the US government helped topple the democratically elected government of Iran...56 years after the fact. And their always couched as 'mistakes' not real crimes, or at the very worst the results of bad/incompetent specific people in charge, not the nature of the capitalist-imperialist system.
It's a way that liberal 'intellectuals' can pose as critics why incurring no actual risk or damage to their careers. So Hitchens can denounce what was done in Vietnam and Central America all he wants, as long as he goes along with the empire's current plans, thats ok.
It shows that he's not an idiot, but actually a liar, because he knows better.