Has Hitchens suffered any major life traumas like a serious medical problem death of a parent or a spouse (or a kid) in the last few years? I do not have the patience to go look in the Nation archives, but I thought I remembered either some condolences or Hitch himself writing about somethine like this in the last 2-3 years.
It's probably not as if one can write "Hitchens' bogus idiotic opinions about X or Y all relate to his grief over thus and so," but if one can take into account circumstances like that, it might still be possible to hold some compassion for him as a person...
DoreneC
In a message dated 3/8/2003 8:02:27 AM Pacific Standard Time, dhenwood at panix.com writes:
> Subj:Re: Hitch-Turk
> Date:3/8/2003 8:02:27 AM Pacific Standard Time
> From:<A HREF="mailto:dhenwood at panix.com">dhenwood at panix.com</A>
> Reply-to:<A HREF="mailto:lbo-talk at lists.panix.com">lbo-talk at lists.panix.com</A>
> To:<A HREF="mailto:lbo-talk at lists.panix.com">lbo-talk at lists.panix.com</A>
> Sent from the Internet
>
>
>
> Reed Tryte wrote:
>
> >So, why is Hitchens so incredibly vituperative (and I
> >would say, intellectually dishonest) about people with
> >whom he used to agree about most things?
>
> I don't know. It's part of what's depressing about his whole turn. He
> can be - or could, at least in my past experience - very warm and
> generous. The dishonesty and vituperativeness suggest that the
> explanation lies more in the realm of psychology than ideology (or
> that portion of ideology that can be separated from psychology).
>
> Lots of people find this gossipy, tedious, and politically
> irrelevant. And I suppose it is in some respects. But he was also a
> pretty important figure on the English-speaking intellectual left
> who, in pretty short time, became an apologist for the most brutal
> wing of American imperial interests. Our bench isn't so deep that we
> can afford to lose even one.
>
> Doug
>
-------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20030310/6b41ddcf/attachment.htm>