Is Christopher Hitchens' Life A Cautionary Tale For The Left?

Current Affairs

Comedy, Government, News, Culture, Politics

4.4 • 645 Ratings

🗓️ 9 December 2021

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ben Burgis is the author of the upcoming book: Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters, as well as the host of "Give Them An Argument" on YouTube. His previous book Give Them An Argument: Logic for the Left was covered in Current Affairs and he and Nathan have co-written before. In today's episode, Ben and Nathan discuss Hitchens' career, writings, and beliefs, including: - The enduring value of Hitchens' leftist polemics against Henry Kissinger and Bill Clinton - The roots of Hitchens' repugnant and despicable views on Islam and the Iraq War - The question of how useful his strident "anti-theism" was - The way the 80s and 90s neoliberal consensus caused certain socialists to lose their way - The need for the left to avoid Hitchens' worst tendencies while learning from his erudition, debating flair, and love of skewering overrated sacred figures The Trial of Henry Kissinger can be seen on YouTube. Ben's book on Hitchens is now available for pre-order. Edited by Tim Gray

Transcript

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0:00.0	Michael wanted to do us sitting down, but I, it's the old demagogue in me.
0:06.1	I need the pulpit. I need the podium. And if I can't be erect, at least I can be upright.
0:11.3	Good evening in Current Affairs. Listeners. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-I'm the editor-chief of Current Affairs magazine.
0:16.1	And I'm here tonight with one of my dear friend, friend of current affairs, a sometime contributor to current affairs,
0:21.9	the author of a number of books, including Give Them an Argument, Counseling Comed Comedians,
0:26.7	While the World Burns, and the author of the upcoming book, Christopher Hitchens, What He got
0:33.3	Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters. Hello, Ben. It's nice to see you.
0:38.7	It's great to see you, Nathan.
0:40.8	The book you've written now is an interesting, is on an unusual, perhaps,
0:46.7	choice of subject because it's on a public intellectual who has been dead for a decade
0:51.9	and whose sort of central contributions to the
0:57.9	discourse were made many years ago and whose legacy is I think quite unclear. It's on Christopher
1:05.5	Hitchens. And, you know, at first, when I saw you're writing a book about it, Christopher Hitchens,
1:09.6	I thought, why now? Why, why, why pick Christopher Hitchens of all people? And then, you know, at first, when I saw you writing a book about Christopher Hitchens, I thought, why now? Why, why pick Christopher Hitchens of all people?
1:14.4	And then, you know, as I thought about it, I thought, well, you know, it's actually quite
1:17.5	interesting that Ben's picked Hitchens because I think I and you probably have a similar
1:24.1	relationship to this guy and have to work through our thoughts on him. Because I remember
1:28.8	he was a huge influence on me intellectually. As little as I might like to admit it, there was a time
1:36.4	when, you know, he was kind of the model to me of what an sort of intelligent, well-read person
1:42.4	who could discourse on many subjects was like.
1:46.6	And that actually, I think it's interesting, when we first founded current affairs, it said on
1:52.7	the website, as if Christopher Hitchens and Willy Wonka edited a magazine together.
	...

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