This isn't the way I imagined my first post to come about. Nor would this morbid topic parade anywhere near the top choices list. But true to its cynical love for the unexpected, life has thrown something worthy of discussion my way this morning. Something which jolted me into action in the most unpleasant of ways. I was awoken to the terrible news of the passing of one of the most influential atheist intellectuals to ever walk this planet.
Harsh at times, always unapologetic, Christopher Hitchens died the same way he lived. Giving absurdity the much deserved middle finger a lot have contemplated but few had the guts to deliver.
Christopher Hitchens did not change my worldview. Far from it, for me it was more of a case of preaching to the choir. In fact, every so often, his tireless polemic and charming arrogance made me wonder whether the overtly militant – if I may use the term even though in the light of recent events in our globe it is blatantly wrong and could be misleading – confrontational rhetoric, the superficial cruelty concealed the very same bitter truth it sought to reveal (at least from the eyes of those not yet too familiar with the process we call thinking).
“You can catch more flies with honey rather than with vinegar”, used to say my late great grandmother. She was a simple woman growing up in impossible times, enduring inconceivable hardships, gathering tons of that abstract stuff we like to refer to as 'experience' only in times of real lack and danger. But did she have a point?
As expected, Hitchen's death made me ponder upon his personality. He inspired me more than anyone else to soberly look at the world as the imperfect system that it is and still wish to change it, to detest mental slavery and to desire for fellow human beings a swift escape from the chains a they imposed on themselves as a matter of priority. At times I wish the amount of people touched by his fierce logical arguments was the maximum possible. But as I look at Hitchens as a person instead of an idea I have to wonder. Was it really flies Hitchens was after?
Hitchens could be twice as unpleasant as he could be charming. Mincing words was not the quality that led him to become one of the four horsemen of atheism. But where did subtlety really get anyone?
I found myself disagreeing with him equally passionately as I agreed with him at times. I often tried to decode my own fury over extreme positions which not only were diametrically opposite to mine, but also bizarrely inappropriate, unfitting, it seemed, to the image I had of him. How is it even possible for such a brilliant brain to come up with any plausible justification for violent war? How could those specific patterns of thought lead to such blatant disregard of the notion of sovereignty and the fallacy of justice – surely as easy to determine as other fellow fallacies he was so keen to point out? Dressing his arguments with the urgency of emotion (which he so passionately claimed to despise) seemed redundant and the ideology of a superhero country never went down that well with me in the first place.
I am of course guilty of fallacious reasoning myself. Having literally devoured each piece of writing this brilliant thinker has produced that I could get my hands on, I became victim to my own thinking process. It has been so often said about Christopher Hitchens that his deeply personal, almost conversational style of writing, has created a bond between him and his readers, in the context of which one may almost believe that they know the man. But in reality none of us knew Christopher Hitchens. Not unless we belonged to his close circle of friends or his family. We simply knew what the guy thought about a restricted number of topics (which is of course not to suggest that his contribution was negligible – far from it, the man tackled issues ranging in diversity from Mother Theresa to women and humor, to drinking advice. But a man's personality is comprised as much by what he chooses to conceal as it does by what becomes public domain.)
So who was Christopher Hitchens? And did he catch any flies?
He was a man capable of provoking passion. He was either loved or hated with passion. The mild, diplomatic middle way and my great grandmother's advice were of no interest to him and this is precisely why I feel so compelled to write about him. Even beyond the grave Hitchens has not ceased to provoke. And as for the flies... I happen to be convinced that nothing Hitchens or Dawkins or God himself for that matter can say will ever be enough to shake anyone out of a position of absolute conviction. The devout pride themselves in their inflexibility as if it was an asset. When asked if there is a single piece of evidence that may convince them their position is erroneous they would probably spit in your face. Both honey and vinegar would certainly prove highly ineffective for those allergic to thought.
Hitchens was clearly not addressing them.
Nor was he interested in catching any flies or converting anyone at all for that matter. He was merely advocating away from the illusion that the truth may hide in numbers or that facts may give a donkey's behind for people's feelings. He was fighting an invisible, yet very real war, against those seeking to oppose their questionable morality – as filtered through centuries of rigid oppression to conveniently fit their own convictions – upon everyone. He objected as people justified bigotry as part of doctrine and defied those who tried to keep these issues immune from criticism.
Perhaps the time was already ripe and perhaps if Hitchens had not chosen or bothered to go down that frustrating path (anyone who has ever debated on the subject of religion knows what I mean) someone else would have, but the fact still remains that he did. And because he challenged dusty ancient nonsense still affecting our lives and littering our conscious and unconscious with useless garbage and misplaced guilt, (subjects previously considered taboo) the path has now opened for the rest of us to live by his example and fight for mental freedom as if our lives depend upon it.
Pragmatic ethics is not a novel concept. In fact some argue that it has been around as early as ancient Athens, with Socrates assuming the role of the annoying gadfly Athenian society (likened to an idle and lazy horse) badly needed in order to be provoked into taking action. His servitude to the human intellect didn't earn Socrates any friends among those he criticized either and the only flies he managed to get were to be born millenia later. Instead he received a 'thank you and goodbye' shot of hemlock for his trouble, a fate that no doubt would have awaited Christopher Hitchens and the likes of him had he dared to be himself in a less tolerant century or a less tolerant 'republic'.
But this time around things were different. Society was ripe and the man was allowed to slip away surrounded by friends and family, prompting snide remarks and perverse, albeit void satisfaction at the completely ludicrous assumption that he is now rotting in an imaginary place called hell, thus proving his point on morality.
The venomous post-mortem insults, the war on trending titles on twitter, the endless streams dominating social media pages and blogs, it looks like the flies have indeed been caught. But those are a different kind of flies, the kind that are now joining in the fun to be had stinging idle horses out of apathy. One fly is easy to get squashed but when the flies become an army there is no ignoring them.
To credit Christopher Hitchens with the revolution against absurdity may be unfair to the overall picture. He is one of many loud voices. Social evolution was achieved painfully and gradually on the toils, blood and ashes of universal great thinkers such as Galileo, John Huss, Socrates, Spinoza and many more silent heroes, whose names we will never learn and many more who are still as we speak suffering, being mutilated, beheaded and otherwise silenced for 'crimes' against an invisible oppressor who supposedly created a faulty world and yet demands for it to repair the irreparable. Hitchens is a part of the bigger picture.
So, on the aftermath of the death of the one persona who has managed to challenge, infuriate and inspire me, all at the same time, I am led to the conclusion that as far as Christopher Hitchens is concerned I wouldn't change a damn thing. It was about time we had a Hitchens in our world. He may be forever gone but the closest to an afterlife that he did manage to secure for himself is the legacy he has left behind.
And we have a responsibility to learn from the life and times of this cheekily irreverent, magnificently bright human being. We have to appreciate the rare glimpse we have been privileged to witness inside a beautiful mind. We have to learn to love our species and to accept the responsibility that comes along with a functioning brain. I will be having a double scotch on the rocks tonight in order to celebrate the life of a bona fide gadfly who used neither honey, nor vinegar to catch anyone at all for it had a powerful sting and that's all he needed to get this lazy horse moving.
No comments:
Post a Comment