Missing Christopher Hitchens

In 2010, I was living in San Francisco when I saw there would be a book signing for Christopher Hitchens. He would appear in two weeks at the Union Square Barnes and Noble to promote his memoir—Hitch-22. I had already bought a copy of the book. I had read God Is Not Great a few years back. Also, Letters to a Young Contrarian, his book on Thomas Jefferson, “Author of America”, and watched every debate I could find of his on the internet, of which there are hundreds. To this day I do this like a boxing fan might do, watching old reruns of grainy championship fights, waiting for Hitchens to deliver a knockout.

I even felt like I knew the man. Now, to actually introduce myself at his reading, I thought about writing him a small note, something kind. I even considered buying him a bottle of Scotch—Johnnie Walker Black, of course. Yes, I considered this, until I heard him comment about rabid fans coming to his signing table with bottles and bottles of Johnnie Walker.

Whatever the case, I would come up with something to distinguish myself from the throng. I would ask a clever question, or make a funny quip. What are you doing after? There is a bar down the way, I could be a pupil of sorts. Hell, maybe I would write to him and he would write back.

Alas—none of this would happen. Hitchens had just been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. He would go on to cancel the remainder of that tour and begin his cancer treatment, the prognosis of which was far from positive. Hitchens would later return to the ring, frail, bald from his treatment, and fiercer than ever.

In 2011, Hitchens died of Pneumonia. 

Over the years, I wonder what it would have been like to stroll down Powell Street, be among the buzz of Union Square, stand in line, shake his hand, thank him for his hard work or whatever—something like that. 

Anyway, the opportunity of that moment was taken away from me, but of course, of far greater consequence and import, Hitchens lost his battle with cancer and the world lost a thought leader who was so one-of-a-kind, that descriptions of singularity hardly do the man, or his life, any justice. 

For many of my generation, Hitchens might very well have been their first public intellectual. There were less of them just twenty or thirty years ago. I found Hitchens on Bill Maher’s old show, Politically Incorrect (a program title, by the way, that seems in retrospect, may have been taken for granted). 

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Present at the roundtable were also Whoopi Goldberg, Dennis Prager, and Gene Simmons. The topics were the Vietnam War, Democracy, and Communism. This was 2001 and I was more or less a kid. I don’t think I could truly comprehend the topics at hand. What mattered more was the style, the gravitas, and the mannerisms of a slightly rotund man with a heavy English accent, waving his cigarette in the air on national television, not giving an inch, not once sounding like a buffoon, and frankly, just not giving a damn for anything but the principals up for debate.

I think I saw what a new generation of others saw—a mélange of gusto, wit, raw knowledge, book knowledge, rebellion, and style that was at once inviting but dangerous—attractive, yet slightly irritable. These attributes brooded and came alive under plumes of cigarette smoke and the swirling of Scotch. 

It may have been several years before I saw Hitchens again. This time, on Bill Maher’s new show, Real Time. Or was it on Bill O’Reilly, or Hannity and Colmes? I honestly cannot recall. It all more or less blends in—Hitchens was all of a sudden everywhere, and wherever Hitchens went, Hitchens was Hitchens. 

Years later, he had become my favorite person—my first intellectual hero. After the release of his book, God Is Not Great, he went on a series of debate stages, taking on opponents of all kinds, taking on religion, taking on god himself. I cannot think of a moment where he floundered. It was these very debates where Christopher Hitchens elevated the debate to a sport, no, to an art form—no! To poetry!

And in retrospect, for some, Christopher Hitchens may have been the very last public intellectual. The very last of a generation who knew how to play with fire, who knew how to be angry and what they were angry about. Who had principals and fought for them who had some goddamn balls, I mean. 

But even so, nobody quite did it like Hitchens, who was not a rebel without a cause, but a rebel with several good causes; Courage; Intellect; Beauty; Humor; and above all—a big middle finger toward anything that stunk of tyranny. The bully, the despot, the charlatan, the fraudulent, the gangster, the pimp—all were called upon to answer in the career of Hitchens—a man whose words were so sharp, so inexplicably, yet simply composited, that they left no room for error, no room for ambiguities, no chance at misinterpretation. 

Was Christopher Hitchens the last public intellectual? Of course, the answer is no. We have dozens upon dozens of thinkers and writers who approach the public with their ideas, their solutions, and their considerations. But when Christopher Hitchens died, something was also created. A vacuum. A hole, I dare say, in all of thinking humanity that has yet to be filled. 

When we look upon our contemporary landscape, unto all our contemporary problems, there are those of us who cannot help but miss a certain voice. Cannot help but find ourselves typing “Hitchens” into our YouTube search bars to scour over old footage, old debates, old interviews. With Hitchens, you look at his past debates for clues on what he might say about the problems of today. But of course, he is not here with us anymore. 

And while we may be able to guess, we will never truly know what he would say today. That is a great loss. But what Hitchens does leave behind, among his many books, essays, live debate performances, and his family, is a template of sorts. Not a template that can be exactly replicated, but an attitudinal one, a kind of spirit, I mean. A spirit that says one man can still stand up to tyranny, still fight for and express the unpopular, can still wage wars through thought, can still say what one has to say, damn the consequences. 

It doesn’t matter whether you agree with Hitchen’s on everything. Or anything. He may sometimes be wrong; he may be right. Even his greatest detractors would feel obliged to compliment the man before they pounced. What matters is courage. Courage in private, courage in public. Courage in writing, courage in speaking——courage in thought. Not only do we miss Hitchens, but also that same courage that he displayed, still, to this day, like nobody else. Today, I am missing Hitchens. In fact, we all are. And look—I got through all that without even using the word atheist—ah well, fuck.

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