Hitch Review

I tried responding to Myk in the comments, but I was again thwarted by Blogger's comment word limit. Maybe that's a sign I should be more concise.

I enjoyed that review too. My one tiny quibble is actually with that specific paragraph you excerpted because it parrots many the too-vague criticisms of Hitchens (invariably regarding Iraq and Islamism). I've been reading a ton of reviews about his memoir, and it seems that no critic can write an article about the guy without using the following boilerplate construction: "Hitchens is a smart dude and has some trenchant things to say about most things, but then something snapped in his brain after 2001 and he went crazy and became a Republican warmongerer." Buruma's paragragh almost suggests that Hitchens has turned into a frothing, reactinary conservative. It's like reading a lament about a smart friend who got addicted to drugs, or a loved one descending into senility.

But I really believe that labelling him a "neo-con" or a "strident patriot" actually simplifies him at exactly the point which demands the most complexity. And it's often used to dismiss his arguments before engaging them.

For instance, he mentions specifically the idea of patriotism (and group identity) in his memoir:

"It used to be a slight hallmark of being English or British that one didn't make a big thing out of patriotic allegiance and was indeed brimful of sarcastic and critical in remarks about the old country, but would pull oneself together and say a word or two if it was attacked or criticized in any nasty or stupid manner by anybody else. It's family in other words, and friends are family to me. I feel rather the same way about being an American and also about being of partly Jewish descent. To be any one of these things is to be no better than anyone else, but no worse. [emphasis his]. When confronted by certain enemies, it is increasingly the "most definitely not worse" half of this unspoken agreement on which I tend to lay the most emphasis. (As with Camus's famous "neither victim nor executioner," one hastens to assent but more and more to say "definitely not victim.")

It seems to me that this measured, considered take on what exactly national identity entails is anything but the words of "a strident American patriot." Keep in mind this is the same guy who wants Kissinger indicted for war crimes, supported the VC during Vietnam, and dearly hates Clinton. In fact, his take seems to me the precise opposite of American patriotic stridency: a consistently self-critical attitude built over time and experience, based on evidence and history, and always tempered by the understanding that one is not granted special allowances based on place of birth.

Another great review for those interested, which addresses many of his contradictions.