Christopher Hitchens: Contrarian or Douchebag?

Is Christopher Hitchens a contrarian or a douchebag? This is a more complex question than you might think.

Lately, I have been feeling a strong ambivalence toward this intellectual and man of letters. An AV Club Blog post takes him to task for a column in Vanity Fair ("Why Women Aren't Funny") in which he discusses women's inferiority as comedians just to be "a douchebag" and get a reaction. Then I came across this piece in Slate condemning the life of the infamous former dictator of Chile Augusto Pinoche that I fully endorse.

That being said, I found most of his pre-9/11 contrarian attacks thought-provoking (i.e. attacks on Mother Teresa and Princess Di for example-but come on, did he really need to write a whole book castigating Mother Teresa-The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice-there are other more worthy targets). Then he went rabid against Clinton (No One Left To Lie To-however, Bush's lies didn't seem to bother him as much for some reason), and I started to questions some of his stances. Granted he wanted intervention in Bosnia, which is something I could stand behind.

However, I think I was ready to completely dismiss him like Dennis Miller (an intelligent liberal comic who is no longer funny or liberal) a couple of years ago when he defected to the right and became a hawk supporting the Bush administration's decision to go to invade Iraq post 9/11. I could barely finish pieces that he wrote for Slate attacking Michael Moore and in support of the war.

I have to say that many of Hitchens' villains are also my villains: Henry Kissinger (he also wrote a book condemning him-The Trial of Henry Kissinger), Ronald Reagan, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, theocratic fascists. And many of his heroes are my heroes as well: Thomas Paine (who he wrote about in Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man": A Biography, Thomas Jefferson (on whom he wrote a book-Thomas Jefferson: Author of America), George Orwell (the subject of another book, recently purchased-Why Orwell Matters), Vladmir Nabokov.

Generally speaking, I think I have been mostly in agreement with his attitudes toward global politics and literary appraisals. it just seems that being right isn't enough-he needs to goad people to get a reaction. Just like that guy in college who would take the opposite side of an argument just for the chance to argue. I guess I'll have to remain content with being ambivalent about Hitchens until there's nothing that he writes that I can support.

Comments

[phatrick]

Good post. You've read much more Hitchens than I have, so I'll take your word for it. But based on my limited exposure to the guy and his writing, I'd say you could get your answer by taking the "or" out of your question.

[Edward]

There are very few female comedians that don't make me want to cringe - so regardless of why he wrote the "women aren't funny' article, I'm afraid that I tend to agree with the basic point that men are the funnier gender (...and doesn't it seem obvious that the males of all species are expected to 'perform' - just look at the birds). Anyway, on HC himself, I do think that he serves a purpose by at least not sheepishly subscribing to the accepted view. How dangerous the world would be without someone to challenge the majority, even if the underlying purpose is to attract attention. I must admit that I hardly know anything about the guy, but he did come across in a recent interview as someone unlikely to compromise his opinion at least.

[Bob the Chef]

An intellectual? What a crock. He's fodder for the masses who respond to irreverence as it it were no-bullshit erudition. "I'm not afraid to challenge the establishment!" He's a fraud. You're write, in that he's a contrarian, but he's also a douchebag. If we didn't have someone to rail against, he wouldn't have a purpose. In the internet world, one would call him a troll.