Friday, 16 December 2011

Christopher HitchensClass left and right capitalism socialism marxism

Orwell, in all his complexity and contradictions, was his particular passion. 
Hitchens said he “decided to write as if people could be addressed as if they were humane and intelligent and democratic” – which defined Hitchens himself, at his best.
“I have found out … that the separation between the public and the private is not so neat,” he wrote.
Influences John Wilkes The Levellers David Hume George Orwell Thomas Paine Thomas Jefferson
Daily beast Christopher Hitchens Dies: His Best Writing, Photos, and More
"He rained his righteous wit on figures such as Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, and even God, but always with a rush of wrathful passion for justice and the truth"
A polemicist  compare with Dialectic Rhetoric debate
Trotskyism  This is an idealistic view - Surely the working class is a dynamic category - Dropping into , leaving, Remaining, so surely Democracy through enfranchisement is the route to idealistic utopia, 
Is any force wrong (what did rousseau Thomas Paine say)  
Orthodox Marxism  Socialism  I can't see how prescriptive system can be better than a system which defends Freedom to succeed and fail letting social morality and fairness be the judge, Private ownership, self development, and the free mass market Adam Smith it seems that capital formation is similar to the "like button" but with an attached bet  for an enterprise - then you work towards the goal.
Maybe the Chinese have cracked it - their activity  does not seem to be an idealogical experiment , changes will emerge according to the market as it changes.
Left and right politics    the materialist conception of history Iconoclasm
For left and right to exist you have to believe in US and THEM - how is this proposition tested? Should  history, its results, its symbolism be destroyed, what would each new human birth have to refer to (no escape from family and community) who would teach and what should be taught? political centre seems to allow for free aggregation and association.
Everyone is born with talents and propensities which can be traded.
Charlie Rose interviews Christopher Hitchens
Voltaire  Voltaire concludes with Candide, if not rejecting optimism outright, advocating an enigmatic precept, "we must cultivate our garden", in lieu of the Leibnizian mantra of Pangloss, "all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds".
Candide  It begins with a young man, Candide, who is living a sheltered life in an Edenic paradise and being indoctrinated with Leibnizian optimism (or simplyOptimism) by his mentor, Pangloss. The work describes the abrupt cessation of this lifestyle, followed by Candide's slow, painful disillusionment as he witnesses and experiences great hardships in the world.
Heart on fire and brain on ice - Lenin (sounds like a businessman)
Christopher Hitchens on the Daily Show
"The only reason I want to meet Shakespeare or might even want to is 'cause I can meet him any time because he is immortal in the works he's left behind." Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens on the Daily Show on God
Noam Chomsky
The Immortal Rejoinders of Christopher Hitchens Vanity Fair
We Are Not All Created Equal you have no chance Class still counts






1 comment:

Derrick said...

See also Thomas Paine, George Orwell