A Panegyric for Christopher Hitchens
Written in 2008, this article was published in the now-defunct nth Word magazine in 2011. Christopher Hitchens was still alive then, and the New Atheism movement — which seemed so irrefutable at the time — was all the rage.
Because I’m presently less than a year away from the age of thirty — an age that, according to Nick Carraway, a man I trust immensely, is five years too old to lie to oneself and call it honor — I’m going to confess something that, for some reason, I have strong reservations about confessing. It’s not that this confession is in any way incriminating, at least not in most circles. Nor is it all that embarrassing really. And I don’t believe I’ve ever lied to myself about this subject either, though I do feign a certain coolness and distance whenever it — he — is brought up in conversation with others, hiding my true feelings. It really is an exercise in restraint. Like not singing along to Lady Gaga when in the presence of the snooty. Or not cheering a Mets run in Yankee territory. Or last month’s quiet acquiescence to my wife’s choice of Iron Man 2 over Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? And, no, I wouldn’t call any of this, no matter how you slice it, honor.
But honor is a mere scutcheon. Yeah, that’s right. A mere scutcheon. On top of that, I have a faint suspicion that a man achieves honor only after he ceases to care about achieving it. Did not Iron Man relinquish any semblance of honor when the palladium came within a hairsbreadth from claiming his life? And only after he stopped caring about saving face, did he not end up saving the entire — SPOILER ALERT — world? So my confession, which is really a declaration of an unfathomable love and admiration that borders on idolatry, is hereby expressed in that contrarian spirit: I don’t care what anybody says, I love him.
“Him” refers to the man who once said on Fox News that if you gave Falwell an enema — Jerry Falwell, who had just died the day prior, and whose pious tributes were being aired continuously on that station and on many others — he said that if you gave Falwell’s still warm corpse an enema, it could be buried in a matchbox.
I’ve come to refer to such comments as “Hitch slaps,” named after the man who inflicts them, the object of my affection, Mr. Christopher Hitchens, who would probably denounce this modest appreciation, or would at any rate cringe while deigning to read it. It seems he is of that rare breed whose offshoots are more at ease being attacked than exalted. So when I say that I love him, it’s with hesitation, and with a self-consciousness brought about by the unrelenting notion that if he were a pop star, I’d be one of those teary-eyed tweens fainting at his concert.
Of course rhetorical style, both oral and written, is extremely contagious — perhaps the deepest reason as to why I hesitate to confess my fanaticism — and having immersed myself in the speech and writing of Mr. Hitchens, I feel I’ve become prone to more than a few of his rhetorical propensities: hyperbole, not the least of these. I say this not to compare myself to Mr. Hitchens — I wouldn’t dream of doing that — but only to make the, for some reason, crucial point that I wouldn’t really transmogrify into a bumbling adolescent collapsing in his presence. It’s very important to me that you understand this. As a matter of fact, one of the most memorable nights of my life was spent watching Mr. Hitchens debate live here in Richmond, Virginia, and although I can’t deny being profoundly — nay, orgastically — captivated, I’m very proud to report that I didn’t leave on a stretcher. And, my god, was this debate a slaughter. An absolute slaughter. I watched awestruck as several Hitch slaps landed square. One in particular, during a discussion about Hume’s position on miracles, left the face of Frank Turek, the poor bastard drafted into battle, red with humiliation:
FRANK TUREK
(emphatically)
… if Hume was here today, he wouldn’t even believe in the Big Bang because it only happened once! It’s not a regular event. It only happened once. He wouldn’t believe in the spontaneous generation of life, which is what a materialist must believe, because it only happened once. He wouldn’t believe in his own birth because it only happened once. In fact, he wouldn’t be able to believe in the whole history of our solar system because it only happened once! You don’t need regular events to know whether or not something happened. Singular events happen all the time! This debate will never happen again, yet [pointing at the audience] you’re here to witness it!(Long silent pause. A distant cough or two.)
HITCH
(softly)
I’m just gonna repose my trust in the audience … there’s an obvious difference between a singularity and a miracle. I mean, I think it would be embarrassing to try to explain it. It would be patronizing.(Laughter.)
That’s my favorite kind of Hitch slap, not the hyperbolic kind, but the kind whose sting is not simultaneous with a blow but a reprieve: what you said was so ridiculous, so self-discrediting, that it requires no more comment from me. A lesser speaker in this situation might be unable to resist harping on an already obvious, already embarrassing misinterpretation, hammer that baby home, but not Hitch. That would be too easy for him, too expected. You can never really anticipate his next move. I once heard him quote Blaise Pascal moments after quoting Brian Griffin. I once read an essay he wrote for Poetry the same month I read him in National Review. He’ll slip in an arcane Shakespearean allusion during a conversation about human genetics. He’s laconic precisely when you’d expect him to be verbose. He won’t shut up when all the conventional social cues call for silence:
JOE SCARBOROUGH
(flustered by the crosstalk between him, HITCH, and someone named MAT)
Guys, stop! GOD BLESS US ALL! Just stop! And let’s have a meaningful conversation! Instead of people talking on top of each other —HITCH
(smirking)
Well don’t invite me on and tell me to keep quiet.JOE SCARBOROUGH
Well, Christopher, why don’t —HITCH
Don’t do that.JOE SCARBOROUGH
Why don’t you let other people talk for a second, okay? So, anyway, Mat —HITCH
You invited me on to give my opinion, not to listen to yours.JOE SCARBOROUGH
Well, you know what, Christopher? I’ll never make that mistake again. Mat …HITCH
Fair enough.JOE SCARBOROUGH
… Mat. Here’s, here’s the question —HITCH
Merry Christmas.JOE SCARBOROUGH
Merry Christmas and good night!
Scarborough then allowed Mat to go on stridently for several uninterrupted moments about what was being called the “War on Christmas,” about how God and Christmas are the victims of an “onslaught” exacted by those of us who are evil and glum, who desire the eradication of all things holy and merry. Mat may have never stopped talking if it wasn’t for Mr. Hitchens, who we all thought was booted off the program, his booming but soothing voice reemerging from the depths to rescue us at last: “So this is just a broadcast for Jerry Falwell now, right?”
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My god, I love this man.
This man who bribed his way into North Korea so as to witness firsthand a true totalitarian slave state. This man who had himself waterboarded to judge for himself whether or not waterboarding should be considered torture. This man who stood — and still stands — proudly beside his friend Salman Rushdie when a preposterous fatwa was issued against him. This man whose every breath is practically a defense of the first amendment.
“So I’m supposed to just sit and listen to a broadcast for Jerry Falwell from Lynchburg,” Hitchens reiterated. “Is that right?” And with a hard-won modicum of airtime, Hitchens reminded Scarborough and Mat of one of our nation’s first and most important principles, the separation of church and state, and still had time enough to attack the absurd idea — backed by this Mat guy, apparently — of teaching “intelligent” design to schoolchildren: “This guy from Lynchburg (Mat) defines progress as teaching junk science to our children, and leaving us a mockery of the world by pretending that we did not evolve.” He then proceeded to dismiss Mat as a “front man for the fat-faced reverend who applauded the destruction of the World Trade Center” before being booted off for real, shouting out other Falwellian travesties as his microphone faded quickly to silence. “I’m sorry,” an appalled Joe Scarborough said to his audience, “I’m sorry for what you just saw.”
Unlike Mr. Hitchens, I myself have never been accused of being too confrontational, of loving “the smell of cordite,” and I’m well aware that even the slightest whisper of this man’s name might be misinterpreted as an invitation to effect some very forward, very explosive diatribes. It is partly in avoidance of these potential displays of passion and reproach — which, in empty rooms with solitary mirrors, I imagine confuting with my own display of cerebral coolness and wit — that I’ve waited an unbearable eternity to express my love.
Liberals, you see, comprise the better part of my small circle of friends, most of whom could never forgive Hitchens for his unpopular but, I believe, courageous stance regarding the war in Iraq. And Christians make up my entire family, several members of which attempt to exorcise the Hitch — er, the demon — inside of me every time they see me. In fact, at the Turek-slaughter, I espied a pack of cousins who no doubt were on the other, more religious side of what was a packed house unevenly divided in their favor. When Turek’s towel was eventually tossed in, and all the crowd dispersing, I made sure my cousins didn’t see me abscond alone into the night. I slept soundly on the hopeful reflection that at least retreat is a touch better than denial — but somewhere, far off in the distance, a cock still crowed.
And it crowed the next day, too.
And the next day, too.
And every godforsaken day since.
It’s a kind of caustic exhortation, this cock crow, that tells me he who lies late will never be wise. And, as I regretfully admitted before, I regretfully repeat: I’m almost thirty. Which means it’s getting late early. This cock crow of mine reaches unbearable decibels during those dreadful moments of dreadful silence that follow acts of pure fear and, as it were, entire cowardice: No ma’am, I actually like my steak overdone and rubbery just like it is, thank you. No, I don’t mind being transferred for the twenty-eighth time to the right department. Yes, Hitchens was way off base and out of line when he said that. Absolutely, dear, Iron Man 2 is a wonderful choice! — maybe it’ll be as good as What Happens in Vegas and The Holiday!
But not today, folks. Not today, not tomorrow, not again — ever. The cock stops here. No legitimate Son of a Hitch would consent to overdone steak. He would get it bloody as hell with a glass of cab sav to toast the extirpation of his enemies and the prosperous lives of his comrades.
Well, today, I’m sending back the steak. I’m being transferred directly to the manager. I’m logging into our Netflix account and bumping Collision (starring Mr. Hitchens) up to the top of the queue. Here’s to the one Christopher Hitchens, paragon of courage, hero and inspiration and forefather to the latest generation of freethinkers. And who cares that Mr. Hitchens would advise against keeping role models, let alone beings to worship? — my What-Would-Hitchens-Do? approach to life is intact and at work, as it shall be always. As Hitchens does what Hitchens wants, I shall do what I want, regardless of what even he thinks.
That means I won’t apologize for adoring him. That means that if I’d rather not write a commissioned review of Hitch-22 (an extraordinary book, by the way) and would rather write a panegyric for its author, a piece so groveling as to be contemptible, then I shall, without apology — to my commissioner or to Mr. Hitchens himself — write the latter. And it also means that if I’d rather not think or write about Mr. Hitchens’s recent relocation to the “land of malady” because it makes me inconsolably depressed, then fine: let my actions, for once, reflect my will. If I’m lucky, I might actually, for the first time ever, piss someone off! Then I can use a few of the Hitch slaps I’ve kept in reserve: If you gave yourself a lobotomy, you’d have to use toilet paper to clean off the instruments! (Because, you know, you’ve got shit for brains.) If I concentrate hard enough, I can already hear the laughter from the crowd that I’ve captivated and dazzled. I can see them watching in awe as I proceed to save the day.
