113 - Christoper Hitchens - A Tribute

Two for Tea Podcast

Ben’s website: https://benburgis.com/ Follow Ben on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BenBurgis Buy ‘Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters’ by Ben Burgis: https://redemmas.org/titles/36536-christopher-hitchens--what-he-got-right--how-he-went-wrong--and-why-he-still-matters Follow Matt on Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattjj89 Daniel’s LinkTree (contains links to his website, Substack, and more): https://linktr.ee/DanielJamesSharp Follow Daniel on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DJtotheS Daniel’s article ‘Naming the Unnameable: Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and the Defence of Free Speech’ in Areo Magazine: https://areomagazine.com/2021/05/17/naming-the-unnameable-salman-rushdie-christopher-hitchens-and-the-defence-of-free-speech/ References Christopher Hitchens bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hitchens_bibliography Channel 4 News report on Hitchens’s death, December 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4yvPSZN5ZQ Hitchens’s Vanity Fair essay on J.G. Ballard and sci-fi, ‘The Catastrophist’, 2010: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/the-catastrophist/307820/ The Brothers Hitchens debate God and Iraq, 2008: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngjQs_QjSwc The New Philosophers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Philosophers Hitchens’s Vanity Fair essay on ‘Why Women Aren’t Funny’, 2007: https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2007/01/hitchens200701 Timestamps 1:07 Introductions 4:34 Daniel reads from his Areo article ‘Naming the Unnameable: Salman Rushdie, Christopher Hitchens and the Defence of Free Speech’. 10:29 Matt reads from his forthcoming book ‘How Hitchens Can Save The Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment’. 13:34 Ben reads from his forthcoming book ‘Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters’. 18:40 Ben discusses why he was attracted to Hitchens in the first place and why he decided to write a book about him: rehabilitation of what Ben believes to be Hitchens’ best parts. 28:15 Matt answers the same question. Hitchens as a “first principles thinker”. 34:02 Daniel answers the same question. His seduction by Hitchens and subsequent maturation as an admirer. Some of Hitchens’s flaws from Daniel’s point of view. 39:29 A discussion of Hitchens the literary critic and how his literary views relate to his political and moral views. Iona’s disappointment in Hitchens’s dismissal of the sci-fi genre. 44:49 Ben talks about how Hitchens was and remains a figure who needs to be written about and argued with and the reason for writing a book about him: the story of someone who goes badly wrong is more interesting than someone who was right. 46:49 Matt on the irreconcilability of and tensions within some of Hitchens’s positions. 43:04 Daniel asks Ben and Matt their views on what Hitchens got right and what he got wrong/how he went wrong and an ensuing discussion on Hitchens’s politics, especially on Afghanistan, Iraq, and interventionism (and a comparison of Peter Hitchens’s views on the same). 1:05:57 Matt discusses Hitchens on the New Philosophers and the evolution of liberal interventionism. 1:09:14 Iona discusses the feasibility of communism some of Hitchens’s foundational (and consistent) values: universalism, liberalism, humanism, anti-authoritarianism, and the defence of free speech (and freedom in general). Hitchens’s “trollish” side: uncowed by political correctness or consensus. 1:14:14 Daniel talks about Hitchens on the civil war within Islam. An ensuing discussion on the relevance of this today: arguments over the hijab and the concept of ‘Islamophobia’. Ben compares the misuse of ‘Islamophobia’ with the misuse of ‘anti-Semitism’. Hitchens and Israel/Palestine. Plus: Ben discusses his upcoming book defending the radical left economic view in response to Iona’s points above. and more.