The Political Beast

Alexander Linklater writes an interesting piece about Christopher Hitchens in Prospect. I found it interesting because it provides some biographical details that shed some light on Hitchen's views and evolution. Theorists say you should be "pure" and separate the art from the artist, or in this case the politics from the incendiarist, but I don't find that to be true. Insight into a person helps in understanding the person's work.

For most of his 40-year career, Christopher Hitchens's notoriety has been confined to highbrow journalistic, literary and political circles. In the last 15 years, he has been familiar to readers of Vanity Fair and the Atlantic, and to viewers of the American current affairs shows that invite him on to say outrageous things in stylish phrases. His aptitude for the iconoclastic flourish—describing Princess Diana and Mother Teresa at their deaths, for example, as, respectively, "a simpering Bambi narcissist and a thieving fanatical Albanian dwarf"—sustained his currency as an intellectual shock troop of the left. Then, with his support for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and for George W Bush's re-election in 2004, the left itself became a target of his polemics. But whichever side he took, he continued to file what were essentially minority reports to a specialist audience. Only God was able to promote him beyond such factional interests by providing the subject of a bestseller. While Hitchens has authored 16 books, including works on Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, the Elgin marbles, George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, his assault on religion in God is not Great was the first occasion for which a publisher had arranged a serious US book tour.

Marx as I Wish I had Known Him

Back in the early 1970s I had to TA a philosophy course and deal with a lecture on Marx. I only remember flailing around and mumbling some standard cant about Marx. I sure wish I had the insight that DeLong hands me with his three video blogs about Marx. Here is a 20 minute introduction to Marx that is a wonderful starting point to orient yourself toward this 19th century figure. It is a quick "what is important" and "what is bunk" intro to Marx. Oh, and you get an extra treat, DeLong's quirky humour, as an "added extra" with these videos:

The Relevance of Marx

Marx as Political Activist



Marx as Moralist-Prophet