Christopher Hitchens

Let me say that I have just read "Love, Poverty, and War" by Christopher Hitchens and my esteem for him as an essayist and thinker has risen quite a bit. Hitchens is so interesting precisely becuase he doesn't fit into any comfortable ideological category, as he started out as part of the radical left, and even now says that Trotsky is the inspiration for much of his thinking. Even in the time that he was part of the radical left, he refused to defend communist states as "worker's states" and believed that there should be a third way between capitalism and the communism as practiced by the Soviet Union. This is of course a radical left position as he believed in international socialism and considered the United States and the Soviet Union to be equal in many respects, but he did not believe that the Soviet Union was superior. I vociferously disagree with this opinion but it shows that even early on perhaps a break with the radical left was inevitable.

His early disagreements with the left were caused by Islamic fundamentalism, particularly when a fatwa was issued against one of his friends. I think that one of the most admirable things about Hitchens is that he is opposed to all religious fundamentalism, and his secular and atheist views (he would say antitheist) lead him to believe that we must oppose islamic fundamentalism.

What makes Hitchens really interesting is that he has convictions that lead him oftentimes to exactly the opposite conclusion as those who also hold, or profess to hold, the same convictions. During Bill Clinton's presidency, when most people on the left (and he was definately still on the left at that time) were zealous defenders, Hitchens saw the hypocrisy and wrote a book attacking Clinton, and even calling him a "covert ambassador from the enemy camp." He also believed that the intervention in Kosovo was necessary (despite having little admiration for Clinton himself) and thought that the hard left was wrong to oppose the intervention. Keep in mind that I disagree with him on a lot of things, its just that his willingness to stand up for what he believes in is quite good. You also know that when he speaks, and whatever point of view he takes, that you are going to hear the best arguments that point of view has to offer, and that whoever he is debating had better be prepared with a rebuttal.

All the while, Hitchens seems to have moved more neoconward, and after September 11th he has strongly supported both the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even so, he allies himself more with neocons like Paul Wolfowitz, the current chairman of the World bank than with many people currently in the administration. What makes him interesting here is that his support is not unconditional for the Iraq war, as he believes that the administration should not be shielding Henry Kissinger, and he also filed suit against the administration, alledging that he was being wiretapped under the domestic spying program. Why they would want to wiretap one of their strongest supporters on Iraq? I don't know. However, this has not changed his views on the Iraq war in the least. Its so interesting, I think, and if you like reading essays that are invariably good whether they are going to make you angry or make you nod your head in agreement, then you should definately read a copy of "Love, Poverty, and War."