Interview with Matt Johnson on Christopher Hitchens
Decoding the Gurus
Christopher Kavanagh and Matthew Browne
4.2 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 9 May 2023
⏱️ 140 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We are back for an interview with the author and independent writer Matt Johnson discussing the New Atheist hero and legendary debater, Christopher Hitchens. The other Matt recently published a book called "How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment" and kindly agreed to come on and waffle with us about Hitchens and where he fits in comparison to the modern gurus.
We cover a range of topics including whether Hitchens would have been in the IDW, if he was an extremophile, how far did he rely on rhetoric over substance and to what extent different labels apply to him. Matt Johnson offers a surprisingly nuanced take and provides us with lots of interesting tidbits regarding Hitchens. This can also be listened to as Part 1 of our Hitchens coverage, as we have a full decoding of a debate of his coming shortly.
And what if you are not into Hitchens? Well, there are still some goodies for you! In this episode, we also cover:
Guru magnetism & depressing crossovers, Sam Harris' recent appearance with Maajid Nawaz, Scandinavian geopolitics, Chris' review of the Super Mario Bros Movie, and whether we are actually in the pocket of Big Harris!
So join us one and all! And don't forget to subscribe to Sam Harris' meditation app using the code 'GurusPodSentMe'.
Links
- Matt Johnson (2023) How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment
- Matt Johnson's Article at the Bulwark: What Christopher Hitchens Can Teach Us About Liberalism
- Maajid Nawaz & Sam Harris Reunite for the First Time Since Covid to Debate the Politics of Covid-Mandates
- Matt Johnson's articles at Quillette primarily about coverage of the Ukraine conflict
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The So, Hello, welcome to Dakota the Guru's the podcast, where an anthropologist and a psychologist |
| 0:29.0 | listen to the greatest minds the world has to often we try to understand what they talk about. I'm |
| 0:34.0 | staring right at the beautiful mug of Associate Professor Christopher Kavanaugh. |
| 0:39.7 | Good day Christopher. Welcome to this recording with you and me. |
| 0:43.9 | Together. |
| 0:44.9 | On most days in this online office that we have, |
| 0:49.8 | one of us looks slightly healthier than the other merely I think you know just the Australian |
| 0:55.2 | son that kind of effect and my appeal effervescence gives the inaccurate impression of impending death or something like that. |
| 1:07.0 | But now today I have a healthy springing my step, I slept well and you are recovering from an illness you look a little bit you know your bones look weary your mind looks weak your hair is tussled. You're like in Lord of the Rings when the old king is possessed by Soramon. |
| 1:29.1 | That's the... |
| 1:31.5 | After it, you do, you look well, you've got a rosy thing in your cheeks. Yeah yeah |
| 1:37.8 | I slept more than six hours that's why That's what did it. Yeah. Once you get to my edge |
| 1:45.6 | Chris it doesn't matter how long you sleep you just feel weary all the time. I don't |
| 1:50.4 | know what it is. Maybe it's not age. Maybe I just need to get some exercise, get some iron in my diet or something. I don't know. |
| 1:56.7 | Maybe you should go see the Mario movie. I went to see it with my son, I'll just say, Matt, if you don't like that if you're too cool for |
| 2:05.5 | school you know oh commercialism like go I think a long jump off a short pier because that was just pure fun and |
| 2:15.7 | escapism as somebody that's played Nintendo a lot I very much enjoyed it and |
| 2:20.8 | enjoyed my son enjoying it so screw you all I think most people like |
| 2:26.1 | it so I'm not really sure I well there are I've heard some like hipsterish |
| 2:30.2 | reviews about it but yeah I enjoy that. |
| 2:34.3 | Oh really. |
| 2:35.3 | So what the hips were criticizing saying, oh the totals weren't quite right and |
... |
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