The Death of a Contrarian

Christopher Hitchens passed away today at the age of 62 from a complication from esophageal cancer.  Hitchens, one of the great writers and linguists of the twentieth century, focused his biting wit and sharp insight on anyone who displayed a hypocritical bent in their character or actions.  A former Trotskyite, and later, a defender of the George W. Bush after 9/11, Hitchens was a man of the Left, but he displayed no qualms about taking down with his pen the evils he saw perpetrated in the world by tyrants in power.

He also became famous earlier in this decade for reasons other than his politics:  he was a die-in-the-wool atheist--an interesting amalgamation with the morality that he so often displayed in his writing.

The following is from Christopher Buckley's eulogy of Hitchens in The New Yorker:

We were friends for more than thirty years, which is a long time but, now that he is gone, seems not nearly long enough. I was rather nervous when I first met him, one night in London in 1977, along with his great friend Martin Amis. I had read his journalism and was already in awe of his brilliance and wit and couldn’t think what on earth I could bring to his table. I don’t know if he sensed the diffidence on my part—no, of course he did; he never missed anything—but he set me instantly at ease, and so began one of the great friendships and benisons of my life. It occurs to me that “benison” is a word I first learned from Christopher, along with so much else.

Here is Hitchens at his best in a devastating critique of Frank Rich of The New York Times in the Claremont Review:

Mr. Frank Rich began his career as a theater critic: Broadway is his milieu. It comes naturally to him, perhaps, to conflate a world-historical calamity with a catchy tune from a subsequent smash-hit, and then to cleverly re-deploy the idea to ridicule "Shock and Awe." The problem is that his book is supposed to be a critique of showbiz values in public life. But, with its Hollywood-echo title, it is instead an example of how universal those very values have now become.

Here is a link to most of Hitchens more recent essays at Slate.com.  Although some his opinions were ultimately misguided, he brought discussion and debate to a much higher level.  His writing and mind will most certainly be missed.