tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2991343547887142385.post5725644043947361719..comments2024-02-24T20:29:17.083-05:00Comments on MINDFUL PLEASURES: UNACKNOWLEDGED LEGISLATION: WRITERS IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE by Christopher HitchensBRIAN OARDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00695622618831825498noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2991343547887142385.post-28994612506127418842009-10-24T13:36:56.092-04:002009-10-24T13:36:56.092-04:00Hitchens is a jackass. I once felt some ambivalenc...Hitchens is a jackass. I once felt some ambivalence towards him, but as I've grown to understand what he's really about, I've lost all respect for the man.<br /><br />There are, as you say, some decent pieces in this collection, but it's telling that the book's "greatest joys come (as one would expect) when Hitchens unloads mercilessly on a more or less deserving target of his wrath". His mode is one of superiority and when he's right, which is rarely if ever these days (including on Afghanistan, where he's just as wrong as on Iraq, just as he was wrong on Serbia, and for all the same reasons), there's no risk to the position. (Who is he talking to when he reviews a Tom Clancy novel? How brave is it to go after Henry Kissinger 30 years after the fact? His work on Kissinger is fine, but looks odd set alongside his concurrent warmongering elsewhere.)<br /><br />And, atheist that I am, I find his religious polemics deeply embarrassing, poorly argued and badly written (as I argue <a href="http://yolacrary.blogspot.com/2008/02/god-is-not-great-christopher-hitchens.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>, against his awful book)...Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08014014605639738887noreply@blogger.com