How Christopher Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment

[basquebromance]

Christopher Hitchens was for many years considered one of the fiercest and most eloquent left-wing polemicists in the world. But on much of today's left, he's remembered as a defector, a warmonger, and a sellout—a supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who traded his left-wing principles for neoconservatism after the September 11 attacks

this easy narrative gets Hitchens exactly wrong. Hitchens was a lifelong champion of free inquiry, humanism, and universal liberal values. He was an internationalist who believed all people should have the liberty to speak and write openly, to be free of authoritarian domination, and to escape the arbitrary constraints of tribe, faith, and nation. He was a figure of the Enlightenment and a man of the left until the very end, and his example has never been more important

 

[pknopp]

The reason he was saddled with the poor choice on Iraq is because even after it was clear we were lied to and the reasons for attacks were lies, he still refused to acknowledge that.

 

[lennypartiv]

Hitchens will be remembered for endorsing the Kenyan.