Re:In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011
by chalst on Saturday December 17, 2011 @02:05AM
(#3363681)
I see "drink-soaked, former-Trotskyist popinjay" applied to Hitchens a lot.
Hitchens' 2002 review of Martin Amis Koba the Dread, "Lightness at Midnight", gives a good summary of his (i.e., Hitchens) attitude to Trotskyism and Marxism. He picks out a wonderful quote of Victor Serge:
> Have you forgotten the other bankruptcies? What was Christianity doing in the various catastrophes of society? What became of Liberalism? What has Conservatism produced, in either its enlightened or its reactionary form? ... If we are indeed honestly to weigh out the bankruptcies of ideology, we shall have a long task ahead of us.
(From http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/2002/09/hitchens... )
Something to think about today, with respect to our own politics.
My understand was that he was a Trotskyist rather than a Marxist. Emphasis on 'was' for either.
But if there was anyone to whom labels should not be applied surely it was Hitch.
Here's the best obit I've read: http://reason.com/archives/2011/12/16/christopher-hitchens-r...
edit - I should add that I am vehemently in agreement with your sentiments about why it is so much a tragedy.