95: Ben Burgis | The Life & Legacy Of Christopher Hitchens

🎙️: https://atlasgeographica.com/ben-burgis-christopher-hitchens/

The following is a conversation with Ben Burgis and this podcast is about the life of one of the most influential people on my life… Christopher Hitchens. 

Hitchens’s politics was enormously divisive, and his position as one of the most prominent new atheists was so controversial, but my interest in this great man actually lies elsewhere.

Because what makes Hitchens someone who is so fascinating to me, and makes him someone who had such an outsized impact on the way I think, the way I talk and even to a degree my values as well… is everything else about Hitch.

It is his attitude, his eclectic range of curiosities, his friendships, his writing, his erudition,  his anecdotes and his delivery. Hitchens was the greatest speaker I’ve ever seen, anywhere. The voice. The language. The emotion. The irony. Hitchens had the sort of timing comedians are envious of. He really must be one of the most charismatic and forceful speakers who ever lived.

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• 00:00 – Introduction.
• 04:34 – Speaking In Prose. Peter Hitchens & The Current Media Landscape.
• 30:14 – Burning The Candle At Both Ends.
• 35:14 – Audiobooks & How Much Money Do Authors Make?
• 46:37 – Hitchens Is More Than Just Iraq & Atheism.
• 1:01:26 – Hitchens Upbringing, Mother, Father, Oxford & Mortality.
• 1:43:05 – What Hitchens Would Think About: Ukraine, Trump, Brexit, Wokeism & Political Extremes.
• 2:07:44 – Hitchens Legacy.
• 2:11:24 – What Was The Joe Rogan Experience Like?
• 2:22:14 – Conversation Between Christopher Hitchens & Someone Else.
• 2:23:47 – Afterthoughts – Hitchens Quotes, Hitchens Proust Quiostionaire & Ambition For The Podcast.

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Articles I Have Written Regarding Christopher Hitchens.

• Mortality & Christopher Hitchens.
• Christopher Hitchens Proust Questionnaire.
• Myself Answering The Proust Questionnaire.
• Quotes Of Christopher Hitchens.

Links To Ben Burgis

• Ben Burgis Twitter
• Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The following is a conversation with Ben Burgess, who, among many other things, has written a book about a man who holds a very outsized influence on my life. This man is, of course, Christopher Hitchens. And the book Ben wrote is called Christopher Hitchens, What He Got Wrong and What He Got Right. And the absolute last thing that I wanted to do was get into an argument with Ben about the merits of Hitchens' particular politics as they changed throughout his life. Largely just because I don't know enough, but secondly because Ben is a professional debater and I want to do my best to avoid uh embarrassment. But the truth is, in response to this question, I don't have any sophistication or opinion when arguing why Hitchens was wrong on X or why he was right on Y. Because if you know Ben Burgess, then you would expect that a more argumentative style of conversation would be natural here. Especially since that's how the rest of his interviews about this book have gone. But instead this chat is simply a celebration of the life of Christopher Hitchens. Because at the end of the day, both Burgess and I are just big Hitchens fanboys. Even though Ben might have some chasm deep differences on some of his politics. In this podcast, instead, we just speak about who Christopher Hitchens was, what he did, and then hopefully as well, a little bit about what informed his changing political views one way or another throughout his life. And if you are a Hitch fanboy like me, then I'm sure, and I really, really do hope that you will like this chat. I remember when um Alexander O'Connor, the cosmic skeptic, saying in a video criticizing Hitchens of sophistry, that he has surely watched every minute of Hitch on YouTube. And I remember saying to myself at that time, wow, there's another one out there who loves Hitchens just as much as me because I thought I had watched every single recorded minute that Hitchens had ever been have participated in. And to even top that off, for some more flavor, uh many of my favourite clips, debates, speeches, and interviews of Hitchens I've consumed multiple times. I'm such a degenerate of Hitchens content that I've even watched his C-SPAN appearances multiple times because some of them are just so good at expressing what is the absolute best about Hitch. So ever since I started this podcast, I've been on the keen lookout uh for someone to speak with about Hitch. I in fact initially tried to reach out to Alexander O'Connor because I thought he might be someone very interesting to speak directly about Hitchens with. But I'm very happy uh that I found Ben in this case. And even though Hitchens' politics was enormously divisive and his position as one of the most prominent new atheists was so controversial, my interest in this great man actually lies elsewhere. Because what makes Hitchens someone who is so fascinating to me, and someone who has had such an outsized impact on my life, truly, he's impacted the way I think, the way that I talk, and even I think to a degree my values. It's Hitchens' attitude, his enormously eclectic range of curiosities, his friendships, his writing, his erudition, his anecdotes, and his delivery. Hitchens was the greatest speaker I've ever seen anywhere. And granted, that's not saying much since I don't necessarily have uh a recall of great speakers that I have seen or anything, but the voice, the language, the emotion, the irony, Hitchens had the sort of timing that comedians are envious of. I'm sure that I am not wrong in asserting that he really must be one of the most charismatic and forceful speakers who ever lived. So in this conversation uh about the life of Christopher Hitchens, we cover burning the candle at both ends, Hitchens being much more than just Iraq and religion, Hitchens' family, his brother, the famous Peter Hitchens, his mother and his father, and also finally what Hitchens would make of some of the political issues of our day. And apparently there are a few Hitchens biographies cooking around there at the moment, so hopefully I'll be able to get those authors on the podcast and in due time get to celebrate Hitch again. Now, uh please hang around to the end because I'm actually going to read out my favourite Hitchens quotes and also directly put in from his self-narrated autobiography uh an amazing um part of it, just for your for your own consumption. So also as well, hang around to the end to hear me explain my ambition for this podcast. And now, with absolutely no further ado, here is the shaggy and wonderful Ben Burgess. Mr. Burgess, thank you so much for joining me, mate. Um, I'm thrilled to be able to borrow some of your time and to speak about Christopher Hitchens.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

So the first question comes at the end of the book. Um in the acknowledgement section, you inter you speak about the people that you interviewed, you know, friends of Hitchens, contemporaries of Hitchens, um, people that critiqued him, but then also people that, you know, just sympathized with him and liked him. What did you learn about him through these conversations with people that knew him directly that maybe surprised you or at least reaffirmed things you thought before?

SPEAKER_02 5:11

Yeah, I mean, I I think that out of conversations that I've had with people who actually knew the man, I think the uh the most striking thing that I heard, which was uh, you know, I guess it's not new information because it's consistent with what he said, but it's it's just kind of funny, was his brother Peter, uh, who was describing uh his uh militant atheism and saying that uh he thought that that was actually Christopher's most consistent position over the course of his life, he estimated from about the age of 11.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

So that was that was from the mouth of Peter.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yeah, that was from the mouth of Peter, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Okay. Well, what do you make of Peter Hitchens? I mean, he's clearly like the antithesis to your politics, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 5:55

Well, yeah, I I he's he's an interested person. Um I I think uh so I read his book uh The Rage Against God, which is sort of in a weird way is sort of his anti-like new atheism book. You know, it's it's in in a in a sense it's kind of his response to God is not great, but it's really more of a you know personal memoir than it is anything else uh about his own relationship to religion. And and his you know, his view of the world is like extraordinarily alien to me. Like he he sort of um like he comes very close to just saying like, well, who knows really, you know, like like we can't know for sure, but you should you should believe because it's like good for social order or something. That's that's might be a little bit of a caricature, but I don't think very much. Uh so his view of the world is extraordinarily alien to me, but I will say that uh I I do you know try to make myself sit down and read the occasional conservative book just to just to kind of keep myself honest and and get a sense of you know what the uh opposition you know saying and thinking, and uh and and he he is a much better writer than most of his people are, and uh and it was it was just more fun to read on that level than uh than they are. But there's also something very funny about the fact that he's Christopher Hitchens' brother, because um, you know, you said he was the um opposite of what I think, and I think you know, of course, there are incredibly deep uh differences between what I think and what he thinks, certainly, but like I think he's like really the the exact opposite of what Christopher Hitchens thought. Like, exactly, like uh because um, you know, Christopher was of course uh you know atheist, which which has took up increasingly more of his time and energy in the last several years of his life. Uh, and he's somebody who came out of the far left and in an ambiguous way, you know, at the end of his life, still stayed true to some of those commitments, uh, while having you know very pro-interventionist foreign policy views. Peter is devoutly religious and uh and is a uh like right-wing, like paleocon isolationist, uh, so uh who opposed the Iraq war. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, like he could not he he could not possibly be more different than what Christopher thought.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

I don't know um uh really anything about Peter Hitchens apart from what is anecdotally mentioned through Christopher Hitchens' appearances and work, and obviously the debate they did together, uh which you covered both of them in the book. Um, but I do remember Peter saying that he was a a Trotskyite. So I think, and then he was also the Moscow he he was a foreign correspondent in Moscow for the longest time. Um so I mean maybe he revealed it in his in his book that was kind of memoirish, but I mean he wasn't all it's not like from in the household, you know, Peter Hitchens was the commander, the the just pure Tory, and then Christopher Hitchens was Yvonne, the pure libertarian.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Um it was maybe No, their views were their views were I I guess pretty much the same uh at you know in like the early 70s, uh and and then they just dramatically diverged.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

So uh it's it's funny, I mean Christopher uh denied what's the word? He denied being called a contrarian. He he said that he's not a contrarian and he hates the word, which is in itself there's something contrarian to that as well, like a refusal to be labelled at all costs. But Peter Hitchens is that as well, but just on steroids, if you've been watching him recently, he's been deferred to quite a lot given of his his experience in Moscow um to comment on the Ukraine war. And I um, you know, I do like tuning into him uh because he sort of reminds me of Christopher a little bit, and I do really appreciate someone that's trying to speak with in prose almost. I really, even if it's and this is probably the largest reason I like Christopher Hitchens, it wasn't necessarily what he was saying, it was just how he was saying it. Um Peter Hitchens has a little bit of that as well. Unfortunately, he cannot live up to the standards of Christopher uh set, but there's just something where they have to be contrarian. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

Yeah, you do get that sense that both cases that uh this they speak in fully formed paragraphs, and um uh and there is this, you know, I mean, there is this like kind of wealth of historical and literary references, which is actually pretty funny if if you watch the uh Iraq debate that they did, that uh that there's like literally a moment in there where uh Peter's like quoted some poetry that I'm I'm uh I'm I'm like too much of a Philistine to like be familiar with, and uh and then uh and then Christopher like when he starts his his statement, he corrects him about the you know what the exact quote is. But uh but yeah, I mean I I think he's certainly I think as a rhetorician, Christopher you know was in a class by himself, uh, you know, and and and Peter's certainly not there, but I mean like there are there are some of the features that made it that made it fun to listen to to uh Christopher that are uh that are present in um in Peter. And I and I do think that they I do think that it's probably true. Um like even though I do think uh in both cases actually that the that like the positions are like you know deeply felt ones that like that this is that they are very sincere, but um, but I also do think that like both of them do just kind of enjoy pissing people off, also, right? You know, like that there is a you know like like I've always wondered if part of the explanation for why, even if Peter's correct, which again is consistent with what Christopher wrote, that um that you know Christopher's you know position on religion was pretty much the same from the age of 11 onward, uh it is really striking that if you if you listen to uh him talk and read his writing over the decades, it's like that position is always there, but it's it's it's relatively muted for like the vast majority of his career, right? It's it's he his his actual views on religion don't change. You know, you can find things in like 1982 where he substantially says what he says and uh God is not great, but uh it's a very, very small part of his output until very late, right? The last few years. And I think there are probably a few reasons for that, but I cannot help but wonder if part of the reason is that like at some level it just made him uncomfortable to be uh constantly agreeing with conservatives in the uh the war on terror era, and uh he enjoyed emphasizing the thing that he thought that was gonna make them the most angry.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

I mean that's that's perhaps a bit of psychology from afar. Maybe not maybe not fair. If it was something he held since he was uh an 11-year-old boy, and I don't think he was making up his views, certainly.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Like, you know, like like I I do I do wonder why he it suddenly became something he emphasized much more, and I think there's probably a much more charitable explanation of that in terms of some of what was going on culturally at the time. But uh but like again, I do wonder, again, from very distant time and place, you know, that they so of course there's no way to know, right? I I do wonder if he enjoyed that aspect of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

I I do like that take though, that you know he had spent too much time with people siding with him, and he needed to be in his own group, and therefore, well, all these new friends, watch this. Your entire belief structure is absolute BS, it's man-made. But I I think actually it's there's probably an easier explanation, which is this I think God is not great came after Dawkins, after Harris, after Bennett, and he really, really admired, particularly Harris and Dawkins, for being like hard scientists. Um, Hitchens says in several interviews, but uh most um directly in the uh interview that his publisher put on for the audiobook of his autobiography, Hitch 22. And he just says directly, you know, I wish I had uh a capacity for some technician and I had a hard science and I could make a a a difference there rather than just be this scribbler, you know, who's not necessarily making a difference. Um so but is this a bug oh sorry.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

Oh I I think that does help to explain his his affinity with those people given that um you know given that in a lot of ways um you know even though they sort of converged on the view about about religion, you know, like I think a lot of you know, I think there are a lot of things about the ways that you know they saw the world and politics and all of that that that that are are substantially different, right? And and I think that there there are um you know there are things about like what someone like Sam Harris thought, even back then, right? You know, that the that like when when Hitchens was still alive, uh that you know that I think are just are just very different, especially in terms of how he thought about morality, you know, that uh than than how than how Hitchens did. Um but I think that like both the fact that they were all spending their time on this target that he you know agreed was a good target, and also some of what you're some of what you're talking about about the the kind of um admiration for you know for hard science, you know, Harris's background in neuroscience, you know, Dawkins and biology, you know, that's interesting. I think that I think that probably does do a lot of explanatory work there and seeing, you know, how you know he ended up thinking as highly of those guys as he did.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Mm-hmm. And and he he very much you know wanted to be sort of in their company, and because he was just from all reports such a terrifically charismatic and fun person to be around, they very much wanted to be in his company as well. Um for sure. To return to the the the dialectic, uh you commented earlier that Peter Hitchens speaks very well, um Christopher Hitchens spoke very well. Is this just a bias of mine? Or do just people speak less good these days? And look at that sentence there is in itself an example.

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

You know, Gore Vidal, uh, you know, William Buckley, maybe I'm just cherry-picking, but has there been a decline in the way pre people present themselves?

SPEAKER_02 16:27

Yeah, I mean that's interesting because I think if at the very least, I think what is true is that Buckley, Vidal, Hitchens, uh that these are these are people who you know who did both, you know, write and speak um in this really impressive way, uh, and had this like kind of cultural providence while they did it, right? I mean, I think that's the I think that's in some ways the key point.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

What do you mean by cultural providence?

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Oh, yeah, sure. So like these are people who like you know, I mean, they were on TV all the time, right? I mean, just just to be that crude about it, right? You know, that they and and so I do think what is true at the very least is that it's hard to think of the equivalent right now. That in other words, um, you know, whatever you think about where the sort of average was, you know, in you know, whatever, 1990, you know, versus now, uh, it's it's certainly the case that I can't think off the top of my head, at least, of the the person who is on the level of those three that you just mentioned, uh, who is is quite as much. I mean, you know, I guess, you know, Peter Hitchens is uh is is gets the uh is is one, you know, very old, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

But he's also he's also a bit he's a bit weird. So it kind of cancels out the the the terrific delivery. Can you think of anyone?

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Like Yeah, no, I can't think of anybody who's uh who's who's in the of that caliber who is like who's doing like okay, think about like Hitchens in the last few years of his life. That he was uh he was regularly besides Vanity Fair, like he was also like he he wrote for Slate regularly, right? You know, he had he had a call with Slate. Uh he was on, he would go on um you know on Fox News to uh to have uh uh in in this sort of weird dual-double role, right? Because they liked his uh they liked his foreign policy views, but you know, he would also kind of be the atheist whipping boy, you know, for uh, you know, for Sean Hannity or Greg Gutfield to uh you know to um uh to argue with uh in that capacity. And and I can't think of anybody who is that sort of uh of writer and and and speaker who is uh you know who who is doing the equivalent things now, right? You know, who's who's who's like regularly at slate and uh you know, or like whatever, I mean, you know, pick your you know, pick a roughly equivalent example and is is regularly on on cable news. So I I think there might be less of an appetite for it. I think it also might be the case that uh that social media, you know, I mean I I just said that Peter Hitchens is very old, this is gonna make me sound a little bit old, but like I think that social media is like terrible for people's attention spans. So the science is in.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

That's uh that's that's a fact, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Yeah, so um I I think that like you know, I think you have fewer people who have the patience to to read the sort of thing that all those guys were writing. Um, you know, I mean I I think like to a very great extent people just react to headlines, uh, which uh um you know which I think about all the time as a writer, because like you know, you've you put so much effort into what goes inside uh goes on in the piece, and then the headline, which is the part that you typically don't write, right, is uh is what people uh is what people get.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

That must be so disheartening.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Uh but uh but I think that's part of it. I also think that the uh I also think the economics of media have changed in ways that probably aren't good for uh for producing the kind of output that those guys produced where they they'd like you know write some interesting essay and then like go on you know video media to uh to talk about it. Um that I mean if if nothing else, like just this idea that you know you could have this sort of job where you like what are um you know Christopher Hitchens in like in say you know 1998, right? I mean, like what are like what are his weekly commitments? Right? Like he has to, you know, he you know he owes something to Vanity Fair, he owes something to the nation.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

And but he supposedly was extremely proli prolific and would write book reviews routinely and um you know more than just his committed columns.

SPEAKER_02 21:12

No, that's that's true, that's true. He did put out a tremendous amount of literary criticism also, but the the point the point just being that like I mean I actually think um I actually think Hitchens in particular, if he had beaten cancer in 2011, uh probably actually could have adapted okay, right? Like like like because he was just that prolific that like even as the actual and like whatever else was Christopher Hitchens, people would have paid him more, but you know, they have a but like he would have done more than fine, Ben.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

He would have one of the most subscribed podcasts out there, I would imagine.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Yeah, no, that's right. That's right. Even if even in the worst case scenario where he like none of the places that used to publish him would would touch him, which you know you can contrive scenario where you could see how that could happen. Uh the uh uh like I'm not sure that it would have, you know, uh in his case, but but I think, you know, even if you think it would have been gotten to the point where for various reasons, you know, he would have said things that were just so radioactive that, you know, that that he he didn't have his uh his normal media outlets. And so he just had like a substack. Well whatever. I mean it would be you know it would it would be updated five times a week. Uh it would be beautifully written because by all accounts he didn't require much editing and uh and and it would have a zillion it would have a zillion subscribers and he'd still be just fine, you know, but like in but I I think that so I think if we're talking about Hitchens as an individual, right, then I think that um then I think these have these changes might not have affected him adversely but I think if we're talking about like why there aren't more people like that then I think that these facts become relevant right that you could have I mean even though yes Hitchens is like putting out an insane amount of work all the time because you know because he likes it you know uh and he can and you know and all that right you uh I think there were people who you know I think a lot of people given the jobs at like Vanity Fair of the Nation would have just done that and you know they would have been okay just doing that. Right? And um and I think that that's really good for you know having you know for being able to like really take your time with things and think about them and um and and I think um and I think that that has I think that that's um you know I think that that's moved in a really bad direction because if nothing else most media outlets you know just pay most people very little uh and uh and so I think that disincentivizes that I think that uh it's also um I think also just the way that media has become so fragmented which is certainly a process that was like you know well underway you know by the time Hitchens died but um but I I I think that there's a lot more of an incentive to just sort of pander to like your particular audience uh in in just a different way than well without a doubt you get economically more economically rewarded to do that now than probably ever.

SPEAKER_01 24:23

Right exactly so I think so many great examples of that just in the last year. You know not not not to mention any any names.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

No but I I'm with you right so I think that like uh all of which I think might just be like structural changes in media that make it less likely to be the case that you're going to get a lot of you know Gorefinales and you know um like I don't know I mean I'm thinking like they I'm thinking like all of these people that you mentioned would like argue with like Norman Maylor on like TV and like you know like back when I'm just I'm just thinking about how unlikely it is that like somebody who is like a you know popular novelist with like you know intellectual errors you know that like I don't know like Jonathan Franzen is not going to you know is not gonna have quite that level of cultural prominence that they're gonna like you know bring him on whatever the 2022 equivalent is of the Dick Cavot show to like argue with political commentators that's just not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah yeah uh well what do you make of this I mean um you know you uh you have your own podcast you've appeared on the largest podcast in the world um you know do you think that podcasting generally is a medium and forgive me I know this is actually not about Hitchens so maybe it's the wrong question but do you think it it does give you that opportunity though um say for example if you appear on the equivalent of the you know Dick Haver Johnny Carson show now you can't or the the Bill Buckley show what was it called uh Fireline or something Fire and Light yeah yeah you can have that level on a podcast these days and it could be uh you know history is in cycles and we're coming back to this great you know audio medium where you have the longer form.

SPEAKER_02 26:08

Did like I don't know do that maybe runs a bit contrary to what you just said but do you think that that's possible or you're seeing that no I think I think there might be something to that I think that it's yeah I think how podcasts fit into the the sort of pessimistic picture I was just painted is a little bit complicated because I think some of those trends you know affect podcasts, right? I mean that the uh uh I mean you you kind of obliquely mentioned uh Joe Rogan who I who I actually think is an interesting example there because uh he's uh he's somebody who um you know because whatever his like flaws and virtues right uh and and I see no not want to be sidetracked onto that but like whatever those are right like I think that it's certainly the case that um that he's actually not doing that right that he's that he's that he's not just like you know pandering to like the the biases of a particular audience right I mean like whatever objections you might have to him that's not going to be one of them. I I don't think it can be you know that um uh you know I I think if there's anybody who is who is genuinely trying to to uh to call balls and strikes by his own sensibilities you know that that would be you know that would be it uh and and he will have like three hour in-depth conversations with like both you know Ben Shapiro and me right so sure yeah no he he he gets he gets a tremendously hard time but I guess that's what happens when you're at the top yeah but it's hard not to feel like a sincerity and genuineness from him. I mean you met the man i is he the same I mean yeah no I I the the impression I got from him from my limited interactions with him before and after the the interview itself was very consistent with that you know so um so yeah and I I I think yeah I think all of that stuff is true and that is as you said the most popular podcast in the world so maybe that is uh you know maybe that is a sign that I'm being too grim in a weird way you know but yeah you know uh yeah I I think so right so um you know I I think that uh now if you had um you know you know if you had that sort of um willingness to talk to a broad range of people with with an open mind which I think is like the great virtue of of of Rogan and like um you were also like you know and you also and you were also reading a lot of 3,000 word essays and like you know talking to you know and like sort of rewarding your you know uh your Vanal Hitchens you know Maylor you know Buckley kinds of people then um you know like that I think would be in really good shape. Uh but yeah I mean I think that there I think there are a lot of ways in which in which certain kinds of media have gotten really bad.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

I think podcasting is a mixed bag but I think that there are yeah there's some signs of hope and and I I would love to uh I guess it could have it could theoretically have happened you know since since they did overlap by uh uh you know I don't remember what year the show started but it was the 2000s sometime but that would have been really interesting if we got in the uh oh you mean Rogan Hitchens the Rogan Hitchens oh it would have been amazing mate it would have been amazing if you look at the popularity of Sam Harris's podcast um I think Hitchens would have done one very similarly and touches on cultural issues um you know heavy slice of um the left but also heavy slice of uh atheism and you just look at the popularity of Harris you know and you know Hitchens is ten Harris's no disrespect to Sam Harris he'd probably admit the same no but I I do agree I think that's right yeah yeah I think I think I I think so and I think he would have been interested in doing so I think like given the sort of range of things that the sort of range of media things that he did over the course of his life I see no reason to think that like if that was like presented to him and he had some sense of what the possibilities were I see no reason to think he wouldn't have gone for it. For sure for sure I mean Amos his best friend Martin Amos um echoes the same sentiments that many people gave Hitchens and himself self-describe but you know he sort of burnt the candle at both ends. You know he never turned down a job he took every job he possibly could and so of course the today on the the podcast circuit that any new author gets to do you know Douglas Meyer released a book a week or two ago I think I've seen him the thumbnail comes up on YouTube. You know like 15 20 different shows and that's just the ones that I'm seeing in my own echo chamber. It's like what the you know how many how many shows is a guy like this doing it's it's uh you can imagine that for the book promotion it would have been you know doubly so um yeah and on that point as well of his sort of would never turn burning the candle of both hands would would would never turn down the city.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

So what's what's the I think in in uh hitch 22 he quotes Gore Fidel tell it uh giving him a crucial piece of early advice which is never turned down the opportunity to have sex on Grand Television.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yes and I think Gorefidel also gave him the advice that um uh it's rude to only have sex with a person once or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 31:25

Yeah that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Um yeah to to finish off that point you know like of his burning the candle at both ends which you know obviously um for those who don't know I guess we've done a terrible job of introducing hitch but if you don't know you've probably dropped off by now but you know he um he died at 61 62 years old of cancer in 2011 a sotal cancer he smoked most of his life he you know from all reports was a very famous boozer so um you know really burnt the candle at both ends that great Blade Runner uh quote I don't know if that's actually originally from Blade Runner if he took that from someone but yeah the the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

So yeah at the end of a long night of drinking and eating you know Rushdie would be snoring in the corner Martin would be like struggling off to bed and Hitchens would just sit down at the typewriter and you know supposedly turn in unedited copy like that it's you know those sort of anecdotes really create this amazing character of a person that you just can't help but admire and also you know like uh uh yeah no trying to emulate yeah yeah no as as somebody who I think um is able to to write more and more quickly than most people uh you you I I I hear stories like that and I cannot wrap my mind around if it's possible but yeah no for sure um I and I think that that's like a lot of um you know and I I think that certainly for me you know I mean that's definitely some of the appeal just just kind of like uh you know Christopher Hitchens is uh you know as like yeah as like a literary character you know as uh like is is just it's just incredibly is just incredibly appealing right I mean like I I read uh I think I actually read this after I'd I'd read the book but it's just sort of like I saw it as like ah for the sake of completeness right you know I'll pick this up because I haven't read it there's this uh collection of of his interviews it's like the last interview and other interviews and in uh in one of them there's something that's like a a profile of him uh I do not remember who wrote it or for where but um but it's you know it's in the you know chemo ball hitchens era you know at the at the you know at the very end but you know he's he's not in the hospital he's uh still in his apartment and it's a very like atmospherically ridden thing uh you know talk about the two of the you know like watching the sunrise and stuff like that and uh but the there is this like very funny line in there about how you figured okay well you know I mean the man is has cancer he's you know he's in very bad shape so I mean like obvious you know obviously I assume he's not drinking the Johnny Walker anymore but maybe if I like bring over a bottle of wine like maybe he could have some of that and he and he you know and the uh profile writer says you know when he saw it you know Hitchens like thanked him very kindly because he said he was out of wine so he wouldn't have been able to offer him any other anywhere and then just like poured himself a slug of whiskey and claimed that like none of his doctors had specifically told him not to do that. Which is probably literally true.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Yeah for sure for sure there's a another anecdote like that um early in the morning the New Yorkers doing a profile of him and I think this is Martin is again telling this anecdote and um yeah very early in the morning 9 10am and Hitchens writes in Hitch 22 it's it's it's easy to get a reputation as a boozer in Washington if you have two white glasses of white wine at lunch you're an alcoholic you know obviously the standards are different in the United Kingdom but yeah he rocks up and he she knocks on the door she's like some dainty little woman and he's got this you know cigarette out of the mouth the whiskey in one hand and he goes I'm sorry I started without you comes up the door you know um but I I uh this again forgive me it's not directly about Hitchens but I I wrote it down as a question as you were speaking before I heard an anecdote recently of how much um Gore Vidal was paid to write books and the type of lifestyle he got to lead because of it and then I'm listening now as well to Stephen King's autobiography on writing and he says that for Carrie he actually got a $2000 um I don't know it's not in advance because the book was already written but he got paid that his first book fiction you know a nobody author and I just know that today that's completely impossible.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

This this ties into the anecdote that I heard and it was actually Doug Spark who pointed out with Gordon Gore Vidal you're someone who's firmly in the you know the knows about that world can you comment on that the the sort of the way that authors are compensated over time and maybe how that's going now yeah I mean for sure right I mean this is um I mean I think uh yeah I mean that $200,000 uh advance for uh for Carrie uh is is certainly uh unimaginable and and and and just kind of amazing to think about right because because this is like um yeah I mean I you know I think I think King had like published a couple of novels under his pen name you know like that like weren't very successful but like as far I think as far as publisher knew this is the first one right you know that uh and uh um as this yeah as as a like high school English teacher and he'd uh and rewritten that and and yeah I think that tells you something about uh probably just how much bigger the the you know the market was uh that they that they had that kind of money to uh so it is true that people buy less books I I I I think so I mean I think it's certainly true that the um that you know I mean I wouldn't I wouldn't claim to be an an expert on the logistics of um of publishing on that end right I mean like like I I you know not my department but I think that the but I I'd certainly it's certainly my impression and it would make sense right I mean because if you think about I don't know what year you know Carrie came out but that was what sometime in the 70s you know that's uh uh but you know you think about that time compared to to now right I mean like okay TV existed movies existed but you know like this was you know like a kind of uh Paul Poor novel like Carrie I mean that's that's like right in the top of like the sort of main forms of uh of fictional entertainment right that are that are out there and you know you just contrast that to um you know to right now and and I would be I mean just a priori I would be shocked if it weren't true that you know that that that like at least outside of you know I mean like Stephen King now maybe right you know but like you know but like somebody who's you know but even like a first a Jordan Peterson I could imagine maybe he'd get a $200,000 advance and then revenue cut even like someone who can guarantee a million books for example. Yeah I would think so right so um you know I mean I have you know I mean I I got uh I mean actually my you know upcoming book which is from Verso which is uh which is actually a place that Hitchens published a lot of books uh bring it back there but like uh I I know that the advance they paid me and my co-authors for that is like really big by the standards of their recent history and it certainly is nearly $200,000 right so so so yeah I mean I think that like unless there are other points in the sort of economics of this that I'm I'm I'm missing right I mean I think it I think it must be that like stuff that's not like crazy bestsellers you know that the that the actual numbers they're working with are much lower which would be consistent with uh I think a lot of other things that have happened and would at least mirror you know the reason why like you know some of what we were talking about with the the collapse of certain kinds of traditional media earlier that um you know like I mean I I think particularly like the the segmenting of it right I mean there's there's a really good book by uh about this by uh Matt Taibbi called Hate Inc where um you know essentially the the story tells in there is that you know the number of people watching like even like cable news like the no the the most successful stuff on cable news right you know your your Tucker Carlson's and Rachel Matthews whatever you know I mean this is like a tiny fraction of the number of people who like tuned in to watch Walter Cronkite talk about the Vietnam War or whatever, you know, because if nothing else there there are so many ways um you know it it's so you know instead of being like having like just like watching TV is watching TV and you've got a few channels, right? You know, and uh it's like which of these five am I gonna watch right you know you have uh you know I mean you've you've got um you know you have pay cable packages that you know that have a zillion channels uh you've you've got YouTube you've got you know podcasts uh you know you could be you can very successfully like just about anybody right like can if they want to they can this order this kind of media diet a la carte and they can just you know they can just like shroud themselves in nothing but media that agrees with them all day every day. And so you have all these bad incentives that are that are built into that you know that like um you know I mean certainly even in terms of like straight news media that uh you know there's there are a lot of incen you know I mean like I think it's why you get a lot of inaccuracy now because there are a lot of incentives to sort of um to jump the you know to like jump the gun when like you know in the sort of fog of war of something has just happened you know and and you and you know you're and there's stuff that happened there's stuff that's reported initially that matches your narrative and so there's tremendous incentive to just run with it initially and there are very few incentives to go back and correct the record later. And um and I think that with um and I think with with opinion and commentary, you know, which is what's relevant if we're talking about the difference between like the eras in which Christopher Hitchens was working and now it's you know I think it's it's bad in a different way, right? I mean I think even like Slate uh in 2010 or whatever, you know, is probably a slightly different beast than than than even like Slate now because I would imagine you know that the uh as the sort of media ecosystem has exploded the way that it has, right? I mean like I I would be surprised if it were not the case that it's it it's uh it's narrowed down to you know a particular slice of people by and large who are reading it and the opinion and commentary there is probably going to pander to to those people because because I mean that's that's where that's where all the uh the incentives are I mean which is which is what you know one of the reasons why you know I mean you know again this this gets into an area we can talk about with Hitchens but I mean like it's it's one of the you know because one of the reasons that I'm um one of the reasons that I find Hitchens interested is you know going back to what you said about him earlier as a speaker I think that he was um probably the best debater in the sort of era in which debates have been captured on YouTube. I mean I don't I don't know I'm actually not sure who the competition is there. And so um you know but it's like one of so that's definitely one of the reasons that I'm I'm interested in because I'm somebody who's interested in doing debates for many reasons, but one of which is that in this media landscape this is like the only chance you ever get to talk to somebody else's audience.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

One more on that what's your take on this I've heard that audiobook consumption can be as much as 5050 versus a physical book sale. I think with the this is just a total speculation I don't have any data to support it but with the with the rise of podcasting as a very popular medium I think audiobooks very neatly complements that because an audiobook is just a longer podcast m much more refined. This could maybe be people are reading more now or at least ingesting more um you know well crafted paragraphs now.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Yeah I think there are almost certainly reading more uh than um than they would without that. Right. I mean I don't I don't I don't I don't certainly don't have those numbers you know handy you know for like what the kind of total of printed audiobooks is now versus you know printed you know well I guess there were still audiobooks then because there were like books on CD and stuff but you know printed audiobooks in like 1995. I'm sure audiobooks are much higher now right with the what the combined numbers are higher now yeah yeah they're way higher now right you know but like what the combined number is then versus now I'm not I'm not entirely certain. I mean I certainly hoped I I certainly hope so.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

I mean I think that the Do you speak anecdotally your own sales how it's audio versus physical?

SPEAKER_02 44:42

Yeah well actually uh yeah actually I need to get some of those audio audio adaptations as we're talking I was just thinking about that that the that was like stalled for a long time and I need to I need to get on that but I have a but but yeah look I I think that that's um uh certainly you know so I can certainly speak like yeah Kindle versus physical but yeah look I I think uh but I I think that that is you know I'm sure a lot of people do and I think that could be you know that can be good and bad and and I actually think sometimes uh with the right reader an audiobook can you know can disguise not amazing pros you know uh sure yeah with the right reader that's a very good point yeah you know but um but yeah I mean I I I mean look I certainly I know anecdotally I mean I listen to a lot of audiobooks because I mean I I drive a lot and you know and it's and and I don't have as much time to read as I'd like and so that you know I end up doing plenty of that you know and also you know you there's only so much time you can spend listening to podcasts before you know before you you uh you want to do something else right it's like you do get a malaise of them you know it could be a little bit like you know I I uh at a certain point right yeah you could just feel like you're just eating cotton candy all the time you know so uh so yeah I I I think that's uh I think that's right you know and and um you know and and actually that is something you know that is something that uh uh you know that Hitchens managed to get in on uh a little bit you know I think that I believe so I know God is not great and I think also Hitch 22 you know there are um audiobook versions where where he read you know he read them which is uh in for you know for many authors would not be a selling you know a selling point that like I get to you know I get to hear the author read it you know but uh in his case certainly is absolutely is yeah yeah all right let's bring it back to the man of the hour then um yeah so Hitchens was much more than Iraq and religion um so some of his other books you know The Missionary Position one of the greatest book titles of all time about Mother Teresa uh The trial of Henry Kissinger um something about the monarchy I forget what it's called uh it's actually just called yeah so the main title is actually just the monarchy it's uh the monarchy uh a it's either a the monarchy Britain's favorite fetish or the monarchy a critique of Britain's favorite fetish but it was blood like blood and other something anyway so so so yeah I think that so there's a different Hitchens book that uh that's uh depending on which edition you're looking at I I think one of them may be US and one of them might be UK but it's either blood class and empire or blood class nostalgia and nostalgia exactly and then as well um the triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton No One Left to Lie to so he had a lot of work completely outside of religion and Iraq uh the reasons that he's remembered as yeah yeah no for sure and uh and I mean we kind of referred to this earlier but I should also say that whereas the kinds of books that you're mentioning are are the ones that you know I'm most familiar with and interested in and you know that I talk about in my book um I should also say that um you know I mean what he wrote more of than anything over the decades was essays of various kinds and um and as you know and of course again you know what I'm most familiar with is the political and then also religious ones but um I mean he almost had this whole other career as a literary critic you know that they like uh if you if you had um you know and some of that is anthologized there's a book called uh unacknowledged legislators uh which is from a quote from Shelley I think that you know poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world that's nothing but that's nothing but a uh uh a collection of of his literary criticism and there's also and you know some of the later anthologies there's quite a bit of that mixed in you know to uh to to some of them along with the political ones but um but yeah uh I I mean the the man was you know was absurdly prolific in in many different ways uh I did um you know when I was uh I I kind of my resolve didn't didn't really hold on this point but when I started to write the book you know like one of my original goals was to not even mention either Iraq or atheism until like a good way through the book you know because you know just because just because most people you know those are the things you know if you only know a little bit about Christopher Hitchens most likely you know what you know falls into those categories right so you know so um and then um and then some of the um you know which I I guess I'm more or less held to it on the Iraq part that that doesn't that sort of doesn't get mentioned at all until you know a few chapters into the book and and and then and then it sort of goes away again until later in the book.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

But it really deserves a lot of attention.

SPEAKER_02 49:55

Sure. I mean obviously it's an incredibly important part of the story right I mean you you you can't not talk about it but I also but I think that most people especially most people with my politics um you know they sort of uh if they're talking about Hitchens it's it's it's sort of uh all a rock all the time right you know and and I didn't want to do that right I thought all a rock all the time that's a good line you know you know it would be more interesting to I mean part of the reason I wrote the book in the first place is that my hope was that you know since you know at this point we're you know several months past the 10 year mark of uh of his death and uh and my hope was that that was enough time that's gone by a little over a decade that um that I think some of the immediate passions of how people felt about him you know when he was alive have have cooled down a little bit and and my hope was that a lot of people might be a little bit more open to a sort of more balanced assessment of um of what was you know what was good and bad about the the man and his ideas that you know that isn't just sort of you know I I mean I feel like we have um you know we've already heard quite a bit from uh in various forms not book form to be fair but like you know but in various forms from from people who who think he was just right about everything. And uh and we've um and then like you know and then we've we've already had for some time you know the the sort of views of people who um like what have you what a surpr like considering how prominent a figure he was at the end, right, there have been surprisingly few books uh entirely about him that have come out since then but like out of the ones that that have, right, I mean like the the one from like a lefty kind of perspective which was not long after he died like 2013 or something like that I believe you know was um the Richard Seymour's book uh uh unhitched you know which is which which is definitely very focused on the the late foreign policy positions and even though one of the things I wanted to do with the book was to try to uh understand a little bit more how he got there that uh because because I I my feeling was that a lot of the stories that you know would be told by people who like me really disagree with those late positions uh are maybe so tinted by like anger from you know from the heat of those debates that they that they just don't have anything very plausible to say about why he got how he got there, right? I wanted to I wanted to try to I wanted to try to sort of understand a little bit more without just sort of saying oh he sold out or oh you know it was it was just Islamophobia or whatever. Like I wanted to understand how he could have gotten himself to the point where he was he was taking those positions. That is definitely part of what I wanted to do with the book. But also part of what I wanted to do with the book is is just to um to talk about this whole body of work that that can't be uh that can't be reduced to that that the that like I that that I think does include a lot that rewards the engagement of people who who might uh who might really disagree as I do you know with some of those late positions.

SPEAKER_01 53:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Yeah the I think the Islamophobia slur is like quite unfair those who level it against him you know um he was he was he was he was committedly anti-religious and yeah yeah yeah yeah I mean it's it's the yeah I mean he I think that the things that you could say in criticism of of his comments about Islam you know are anything you could say about that that's like oh he's like lumping you know he's like lumping too much together into like one one big thing that you know that that is his sort of evaluated all at once that he's assigned it sort of too much importance and like causing bad things that might have more complicated historical explanations. Anything like that you could say you could also say about Christianity right I mean that the uh the way the way that he wrote about that. So uh I and I also think really specifically on the connection between the um you know real or alleged Islamophobia and the um you know and and the war positions um as much as it is true right I think that the thing that you could say in criticism of Hitchens along these lines that you know I would at least agree with is that I do think it's true that like in the aftermath of 9-11 I do think you dramatically overestimated the realistic threat that like Al-Qaeda style terrorism could pose to Western societies not exactly a unique Christopher Hitchens problem right I mean that was kind of everybody in that uh in that era but like you know if you want to um you know if you want to call that Islamophobia won't fight you on it but the reason I don't think Islamophobia goes very far as an explanation of the uh positions on Iraq and Afghanistan is that uh the first if you actually look at the history of of his evolution on foreign policy um a lot of this comes before the point where people who were only paying a little bit of attention to him sort of started to notice the shift which was 9-11 in the beginning of the you know so-called war on terror uh and you have to look back at the 90s so in the 90s you know it's this transitional period in his views about foreign policy he'd been spending the 80s you know writing about you know Reagan and the dirty wars in Latin America and all that um and even at the beginning of the nineties he was he was very much opposed to the first Gulf War the first Iraq War he's got that great interview with Charles Heston. Charles Heston yeah yeah yeah keeping yeah yeah he's and yeah that he uh at a certain point of the interview he demands that uh Heston tell him uh which uh to list off the countries that surround Iraq and uh and he can't do it like yeah which is a board of our end yeah yeah uh and um and he's and he's like you want to bomb it and you don't even know where it is you know so it's it's great Hitchin's contempt right so then like okay so what changes between then and 9-11 I mean it's not like the way sometimes you see people talk about this it's almost like you know I don't know he had some lost weekend in September 2001 and at the end he'd sobered up and realized that he'd said a bunch of pro-war things or something it's like no this is a long process of like the evolution of his views uh and uh and the first war where he um he's really starting to warm up to the possibility that in his view the United States military can be a force for good in the world is not actually one where the US is bombing Muslims. It's one where the US is intervening on the side of Bosnian uh Muslims against uh Serbian Christians uh and then another important you know and then that's reprised with Kosovo in 1999 and then another part of this evolution that's that's equally important I think in understanding where he ended up is that after the Folk Gulf War which as we said he opposed uh he spent time in Iraqi Kurdistan and uh and he you know he got to know you know Kurdish leaders there who some of whom had been you know 70s radicals themselves and could speak to Hitchens in his own language and uh and and could could be very convincing right and uh and and obviously you know those Kurdish leaders in in northern Iraq you know uh you know for for reasons that require no explanation you know when Saddam Hussein gone you know and and uh and so I think that that you know that like you know had an effect on his views and by the end of the decade before 9-11. Like if if you read the book you mentioned earlier, the anti-clinton book No One Left to Lie To um which is a book I love you know but uh in um uh in in some ways you know is yeah it's definitely one of my favorites of his uh but um you know for one thing because it's it's one of the few places where he's really talking in depth and with great passion about sort of uh domestic um like economic policy, you know healthcare and welfare and all that, you know, but um but there's an Iraq chapter in No One Left to Lie to that um you know where he's talking about Clinton's you know policies in Iraq and he does not say it like and a sort of normal leftist reader who's reading along with the book and likely agreed with everything up until that chapter will be very surprised by what he says there, right? Because he's not taking the sort of you know Chomsky position you might expect based on you know sort of the general tenor of everything he's said so far, which has been criticizing Clinton for the left. If anything, his his criticism of Clinton is like he's too soft on Saddam Hussein. And uh and so you you what you read that you wonder it's like okay well if there had been an invasion of Iraq four years earlier, you know, pre-9-11 would he have supported that he might have actually right and and I think that uh so I I all of which is just to say none of this leads me to think well he got this right right you know I I I agree with these these positions I don't but I also think that there's something much more complicated and much more interesting going on than just than just saying like oh well he hated Muslims and like that's why that's why he uh that's why he supported these wars. I mean you know I mean obviously the Kurdish population north of Iraq is you know even though it's you know like there's probably a higher proportion of secular people whatever but I mean it's a obviously overwhelmingly Muslim uh society.

SPEAKER_01 59:27

Yeah he wore the Kurdish flag on his lapel for like the last five years of his life yeah every moment every opportunity he could take he would mention them.

SPEAKER_02 59:36

Yeah no exactly so so I I I think and I think this this does tie in to some of what we were talking about earlier because I think that uh I think that a lot of my um uh contemporary comrades yeah yeah yeah yeah to use a Hitchensism uh comrades and friends right that's you know like always part of his his crowd work even if he was like amazing doing a got doing a god doesn't matter who it is it could be like a uh a god debate in some evangelical university in the deep south and he would still start you know ladies and gentlemen comrades and friends rather terse introduction I would say suspiciously terse he would always say like some of these things yeah exactly yeah so um and you know and I think yeah I think a lot of my friends and comrades on uh on the left I think have a bad habit of attributing um attributing disagreement and especially defection to uh to like just bad moral character right like that that's the that that's like the only acceptable explanation that you know that like and I think it I think it's unfortunate because I think it makes people stupider than they need to be because they they end up like sort of having this having this view of the world where it's like everybody secretly understands that we're right but like some of them are like taking money to like pretend you know to pretend that we're wrong or maybe they're just sincere but if so it must be because they're incredibly racist. And either way I just I just don't think that's helpful. I think that it's I think I don't think it's accurate and I I certainly don't think it it is a helpful way to think about this stuff if you're in the persuasion business because um because if you don't make any effort to think your way into other people's heads and see what motivates them and what you know what leads them to take the positions that you take then I mean you're just not going to be able to talk to people who to don't start out agreeing with you. So to add a little bit more context to hitch as the character beyond what I'm assuming a lot of the audience might certainly know the famous hitch slap videos and perhaps a minority of the audience read Hitch 22 um but you know he's an interesting guy he had a very interesting childhood just given his relationship with his mother versus his father uh so in hitch 22 you know his first memories are of a a perfect blue as he's sailing into Valleto this Maltese harbour can you talk about Portsmouth Yvonne the commander and then his early reputation at Oxford yeah so uh so just to maybe go into that you know that second to last item right you know uh the so his father you know the uh the commander um who uh was was this this very um you know old-fashioned conservative kind of military commander I think I I you know ironically enough I think I think his great moment in uh in World War II was actually as as part of a operation that was essentially British military assistance to uh to the Soviet Union you know in in uh in in the fight against Hitler. So uh really you know so yeah yeah so I I I think that he uh well sometimes he talks about it but depends on the uh depends on the occasion of the part of his life when he's talking about it but you know he um so uh so yeah this this this his uh old conservative military father you know was was was um you know his his his great moment of of glory was uh you know helping Stalin but uh in any case um sinking a Nazi warship yeah yeah exactly exactly yeah yeah uh which they would like celebrate the anniversary of every year and you know it's certainly uh I think earlier you know you gently and correctly sort of tap down on trying to do psychology from uh from a distance you know and um and so I I won't indulge that too much here but it is interesting to think about you know with with regard to his later shifts on foreign policy whether there is some part of him that um you know I don't think it's to make daddy happy it's not that's yeah yeah yeah that that it's I don't think it's uncommon that as people get older if they had if they find themselves if they find themselves like moving towards like what their parents thought that's not always not you know that's that's something that you know that there's a strange sort of satisfaction that could give that could give people and I I don't exempt myself from that you know but interesting very interesting yeah I mean um but uh you know I'm not I again as we discussed above I wouldn't put that much causal you know importance on that I just think it's interesting to think about but um but yeah so uh hitchin's uh so yeah his father is this naval commander I think that the I think the you know the uh the cities you mentioned I mean you know you could probably tell me more about than vice versa but I think that the but I think that the sort of existence of the family in the very early years I think you know upwardly mobile lower middle class you know is is probably fair right you know there's a moment in Hitch 22 where um you know Hitchens recalls uh listening to his parents argue about whether to send him to uh uh you know public or private school yeah yeah exactly you know what what uh what what you you would could confusionly call public school but you know yeah you know you know private boarding school and uh and and the commander is a little worried about money and and uh and uh his uh his mother uh who's ironically emerges later as as as as kind of this bohemian you know free spirit but you know his his mother a hippie maybe yes yes yes exactly right his mother is um uh insistent that they that they send him and and the line that that uh that very young Christopher remembers hearing is if this country is going to have a ruling class I want Christopher to be part of it. Great mind so he he goes off to uh uh you know he goes off to uh to boarding school and then afterwards uh he's at Oxford uh the um uh So the thing that's probably a little bit more so at the time it was published than it would be then in his 22 Salacious is is that you know is is basically his his you know talking about having sex with men, you know, at uh you know in boarding school in Oxford, uh uh which um uh you know, in fact, there's a very funny line later on where he he's talking about his, you know, the fact that you know his sex life after a certain point in his twenties or whatever is purely hetero, and you know, and he and he says, you know, by then I was so ugly that only women would fuck me. But then uh but I I think the thing that maybe is the most interesting point to come in on as far as those early that early time at Oxford, um, beyond mentioning that um I mean that you know, I think what his mother said about the ruling class, I mean, like does give you some sense of who he's going to school with, uh, which you know includes, you know, I I think um you know one of these anonymous men that you know he had affairs with as uh you know I think he cryptically refers to as having been like a Tory cabinet member later. Uh there's a um uh you know you can um you know he's you know there's a um uh Bill Clinton, you know, is at Oxford at the same time as him as a as a road scholar. Uh so so Hitchens reports that uh Clinton was technically telling the truth when he said he did not inhale. He said uh he uh uh young Bill preferred edibles. Uh but uh but I think the I think the most interesting thing tied into all this that you could say about the early time at Oxford maybe is that as he becomes political, which has happened by the time he's left, you know, boarding school, that uh that that he's sort of at the you know he's at the very least some kind of very left-wing social democrat, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:54

He's uh you know his friend James Fenton, I'm just trying to find the exact quote.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:00

But he basically described him as the revolutionary spirit at Oxford. I don't know how much of that is Oh, okay, sorry, you're not there yet. Forgive me.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no problem. So I mean, like he's he says so it's 1964. I think actually might be before he was a student at you know Balliol College at Oxford, but you know, but I think it was it was at Oxford is when it takes place, right? You know, he he was at some meeting and he'd be like, like politics enters his life. Yeah, exactly, right. You know, and and he's and he's already been like by this point, he's already been pretty centered on politics uh for a little while in this sort of way where he's a member of the Labour Party or possibly the Labour Party Youth Group, uh, and um and he's definitely on the left wing of it, you know. He's he's definitely going to to anti-war protests. Uh and then um but then he's recruited by an organization called the International Socialists, I think just before he actually starts up, you know, school at Oxford, um, which is um, you know, I I think that the sort of exact genealogy of splits and fusions of the British far left is probably something we don't need to get that far into, but I think Trotskyist is a good enough description uh that it's a but I I think the important thing about it, uh uh, you know, understanding this, this group and and what it says about what politics were then, is that it's a radical socialist group, certainly far to the left of the mainstream of the Labor Party, uh, and extremely anti-war, etc. But that it's equally critical of both sides of the Cold War. Uh, that um, you know, it's it's not at all, you know, uh your sort of Moscow apologist flavor of of uh of socialist revolutionary, uh, that the slogan of the group is neither Washington nor Moscow, but international socialism. Uh and so later on, skipping ahead a few years, and we'll go back, but you know, like later on in 1968, when almost simultaneously there is a general strike and student uprising in France that almost brings down the de Gaulle government, and uh there is a kind of reformist experiment in Czechoslovakia, the Prague Spring that's uh that's crushed, you know, crushed by Soviet tanks. Uh they're they're kind of equally all over both of those, right? You know, because they they see that as as uh as signs of you know revolutionary discontent from the world's working classes against against the establishment, both East and West, right? So that's where his politics are at. And the really interesting thing to tie into some of what I said earlier, I think, about his early time at Oxford, is that on the one hand, uh he he is this you know bright-eyed young Marxist revolutionary, you know. He's he's he's going to anti-war protests all the time. He's uh uh he he flies off to Cuba at one point during this period to be part of this internationalist youth conference, and uh while he's there, he uh he distributes some Spanish language leaflets uh you know uh denouncing the uh the the crush of the Prague Spring. Um so that's that's one Hitchens persona, but on the other hand, he's he's uh you know, he's partying with some pretty right-wing aristocrats because he just thinks they, you know, he just like like likes them better socially. You know. Isn't that hilarious?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:24

Yeah. Like having it both ways, uh like very champagne socialist. In fact, uh Martin Amos says um exactly on that point uh when you know he calls him out, like, come on, you're being a hypocrite here. He says, and Hitchens responds, Well, why should they have all the champagne? Yeah, no, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:51

So yeah. Um and you know, and I should say, so like this is, you know, I think there's this way that people who sort of know the a few of the Hitchens' greatest hits perceive his political evolution over the course of his life, where it's like it kind of skips straight from being the 1970s Trotsky to uh to to being you know, whatever you want to call him in the 2000s.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:16

A neocon.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:18

Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, which is which is sort of a um I mean it's kind of funny. I I mean I joke about this a little bit in the book, and then the review and quillette that you mentioned earlier sort of took this passage very literally uh that they that like you know, I I I sort of did this well, you know. I guess you could say he's a neocon accept blah, this and that, and then you know the other thing, all the positions that don't fit, you know. Well, how can you be a neocon if you oh okay uh but you know uh but yeah, uh you know, he has positions on Palestine, on torture, on surveillance that you know that that are are and you know, not you know that are very hard, you know, fits with the the neocon uh you know image, which which does tell me there's something more complicated and interesting going on there and that you know if he'd lived longer, I mean he might have continued to move. I mean, I'm sure he would not have stayed exactly where he was. You know, we can only speculate about where he might have moved politically in the in the remaining 10 years, but in between the International Socialist Period at Oxford and becoming um you know this this sort of very ambiguous kind of sort of neocon in the uh in the 2000s, you know, uh who also spent all of his time uh uh arguing about religion uh you know during the Bush administration. Uh the um, you know, in between, I think there's um you know there are decades of political evolution there. Uh and you know, certainly by some time in the seven mid-70s, you know, he's you know, he quits the IS sort of international socialists. Yeah, you know, he so he leaves that organization partially because of you know faction fighting that you know would not probably be worth it to try to figure out what they were even fighting about.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:59

He he even he even says uh why in Hitch-22 um that the old cliche was true, you know, too many meetings and too little action, basically.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:10

Yeah, and I think that's like the deeper reason that it's like, okay, so there's like some factual disputes that are going on at the time, but like I think at a on a bigger level, like I think this he's just kind of decided this is not for him.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:22

Uh but he also like he had just so much disappointment. I can only imagine because I'm not that ideologically bent. You know, I don't I don't I don't invest myself necessarily in a movement which Hitchens clearly did. You know, he was everything in in it, and to see it sort of crumble in front of him and and not turn out to be the revolutionary moment that he wished he would be a part of, um, perhaps it's you know like made him a bit resentful and jaded.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:50

Yeah, I think that's the thing, because like um by the mid-70s, I think he realized, I mean, I I think he says this in about as many words in Hitch 22 and other places, that you know, 1968 was really, you know, at least for the moment, the end of something. It wasn't the beginning of something like he'd thought for for years that it was, and that there was not going to be at any time in the foreseeable future, right, some some great revolutionary wave, right? You know, that that wasn't gonna happen, right? So uh, you know, he's he's kind of reconciled himself to the realities of that. He still has the uh which which is enough to you know mean that he just does not have the fire in his belly to like spend all of his time going to meetings and arguing, you know, that that's that's just not interesting to him anymore, right? But um, but you know, he does retain, you know, the basic uh at least political goals or ideals that he always had, even if he doesn't think that there's going to be some great revolutionary tumult in the near future that's gonna bring it all into being, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:48

So until the end, he admired Marx. Like he always spoke with him in in deferential terms.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:56

Yeah, definitely. Um, you know, I I mean there's sort of there are points in the last few years of his life where he sort of you know playfully says things like, you know, where what am I politically? Well, I'm a very conservative Marxist, you know, that uh by by which, you know, I I I think what he really meant more than anything was just that he had um, you know, he no longer identified with an ongoing, with like a socialist political project that he thought was a real historical possibility. Um and you know, clearly not, right? I mean, given some of his political positions in the last years, but uh he still thought that you know Marxism as a sort of way of understanding the world and his way of understanding history was like mostly correct, you know, and and and and a sort of useful prism for for understanding all of that. I mean I think that was his his combined position, and I think there's some real tensions there, you know, about like whether everything that he thought really fit that or not, right? You know, but I don't think that I don't think that means he was insincere. I think that just meant that like he had complicated feelings about this stuff that hadn't entirely resolved themselves, you know, in the post-trotskyist period, you know, he rejoins the Labour Party, uh, which he'd he'd been you know kicked out of, you know, for 60s revolutionary protest kinds of reasons, and um and he he does continue to think of himself as some kind of socialist and to you know say very radical things whenever he's describing the sort of long-term horizons of his politics up until you know about the end of the 1990s, and then I think that that, you know, I think that that his sort of like the other shoe kind of dropping as far as like um okay, this is really in his mind at this point just much more off the table historically than he thought than he even thought in like the 80s or you know early 90s, I think is also part of what helps you understand how he shifted later, because you know, I mean, again, like he he cares what happens to people like these Iraqi Kurds, he cares what happens to people who are living under despotic regimes, and if um you know, if if socialist revolution isn't on the table, you know, then then at least, you know, at least liberal democratic revolution is better than nothing, and uh uh and and you know, and then the sort of uh the real step over the abyss from a left-wing anti-war perspective is is thinking that they that like the United States can be a vehicle of you know spreading democratic revolution in into those countries. But you know, but I think whatever you think of the conclusion, I think it's a much more interesting story than just like you know um like Hitchens the Trotskyist uh like somehow, you know, uh like somehow overnight, you know, on September 12th, you know, uh decides to, you know, decides to change all of his political opinions.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:48

Um on to to to compliment, no, not to compliment. Yes, to compliment that theme-ish, uh, there is another great Martin Amos quote. And again, Martin Amos is his best friend. Um like they had such uh just speaking about it is um you know the type of friend who Martin says as well, you know, you could really say anything, you could reveal the deepest, weirdest parts of yourself and feel no shame. And um, you know, like good friendship type stuff, and maybe there was a little bit of but actually that's not important. So um Martin also described you know his greatest friend Christopher Hitchens as strongly ideological, and he was always looking for ideologies to hitch his wagon onto, and so and then he actually goes on to say, and this largely describes his peculiar stance on Iraq. And you know, you sort of just laid out how perhaps his revolutionary dream sort of fell apart, and then what's the next thing you're gonna do? Well, you know the the irony of writing the trial against Henry Kissinger or the case against Henry Kissinger, and then being you know, like America is actually the policeman of the world, and you know, they're gonna do a fine job. Uh it it you know, Martin describes it, someone who knew him better than anyone, perhaps Carol Blue knew him better, maybe his kids, but someone who knew really better than anyone it's just as simple as that. He needed an ideology to to to energize him, you know, to get behind. Um and that's like a personality trait, right? Like not everyone's necessarily like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:38

Yeah, I think that well, that last part is certainly true, yeah. I mean, I think that and I think that's right. I mean, I think that he could um like I I I mean I do think he was clearly somebody who was invigorated by connections to to great causes. Um and, you know, again, if if you want to um psychologize a little bit and you know, at least take uh you know, Marnus, you know, as as a good source on that, you know, like I I I think that that that is also perhaps an explanation of part of why he's uh latching as hard as he is to uh uh atheism in the in the final years, you know. I mean, I think that there is a partially ideological explanation of that in terms of what was some of what was going on in the world, but also I think that you know there's there's a if if he sort of needs to orient himself towards something that he could get morally excited about uh as a big part of how he you know he worked and you know wrote and spoke and related to the world, then you know, I think maybe especially as um that you know neocon uh you know project of uh of of supporting what he thought were gonna be Wards of Liberation in the Middle East, um you know, lost some of its luster, you know, uh after you know in um in the second half of the 2000s, you know, I mean it it makes you know I mean it makes sense on that level that you know that that he would I mean you know God if you want to if you want a grandiose target to uh uh you know to to get excited about crusading against, you know, then like God uh you know is a uh is a pretty good uh is a pretty good candidate for that, you know. So uh so you could, you know, you could you could see that, right? I mean, does he want to spend all of his time arguing about um you know Iraq, which you know he he certainly could never bring himself to say, no, that was a bad idea, we shouldn't have done that, you know, but he but he does um you know it it it does make a certain amount of sense to me that you know that he could he could find some some renewed excitement, you know, arguing about religion.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:50

We spoke about the commander and life up until Oxford and then after, but what about his relationship with his mother, Yvonne?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:02

Uh yeah. So yeah, so I mean this is does seem to be somebody who who may have been much more of a of an influence on him in an obvious way, certainly and you know, certainly for the first several decades of his life, you know, than than his father, you know, since since uh he's um you know, I may I remember you know in Hitch 22 he talks about having um uh you know with the you know Falklands are you know if the Falklands War is going on and and he's um and uh and he you know and this is like you know very very early preview, you know, of which there wouldn't be another one for for many years afterwards of his willingness to support uh you know to to compromise his usual anti-interventionism, you know, in in this case.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:00

And also a contrarian thing to do, to almost just intentionally piss people off.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:05

Yeah, yeah, fair. So uh he does uh uh and I mean his his argument in that case is it's is is that it would be um is that the uh you know the the military hunt to those running Argentina would be more likely to be brought down if they if they lost a war. Um and you know, that's uh which you know give credit where credit's due. I think probably held up better than most of his uh you know, most of his predictions about how uh how how you know foreign interventions would go. But I think um but like but I do remember he says that like I think he like made a point of like showing you know the commander the the articles he had written because I think he was probably happy that's like oh hey look for once I'm writing something you'll agree with, you know. You know, but uh um but yeah, I I think that uh but yeah, I mean I suspect that that Yvonne uh being a bit of a hippie uh and you know and ultimately um you know ultimately leaving his father and you know and and all that I mean was was probably you know probably more of a kindred spirit and and uh and and more of a more of an influence uh although you know she dies in this kind of ambiguous suicide, murder suicide, you know, it's it's uh um you know a little bit a little bit hard to you know to to know what happened there uh with with the uh with the man she'd you know she'd left uh she'd left commander for. Uh when Hitchens is still uh is still very young. I mean I think what what would that be? Like his early twenties.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:42

I want to say 25, but 25 sounds right.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:45

Yeah. That makes sense, because that would be the because that was around the time of the uh he was just cutting himself out as a figure in London, just out of Oxford. Yeah Yeah, uh which um you know, which which what exactly he you know he kind of made of that, you know, and and how uh how that you know might have influenced him going forward is a little bit you know, is a little bit hard to say. I mean, he writes about that in a very raw way in in Hitch 22, you know, but he doesn't um you know and and he you know, but like I think the way he's portrayed himself, which is actually I think part of what makes that a good book, that he has um you know, that I think he he has enough distance when he's writing about his his younger self that he can both sort of you know get excited again about some of the things that got him excited then, but like also I don't think he feels too much need to either like you know either defend or apologize for, you know, like like any of what he you know like any of what he was like at twenty-five. I mean I think I think he could just kind of appreciate it for what it is and you know and so I think he I think he could write about himself at that age, almost like he almost like he's writing about a character in a novel. Uh and so you know he he kind of talks about how he's he's going to um that is Lisbon, right? Where where Yvonne was when she when she died. Oh, it was, okay. Sorry. So uh No, Athens. Athens. Okay, sorry, there we go. There we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:22

Because he's overlooking the Parthenon.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:25

And there is mixing up my uh my revolutionary tumults of the yeah, I'm I'm mixing up my mid-70s uh European revolutions. Uh so that's there we go. Uh yeah, that's right, that's right. Which is which is also um, you know, we should also mention that um uh his uh his very first book uh was was about the uh the Parthenon uh the Parthenon marbles um uh you know and and and the sort of case for uh for for returning them to uh to Greece, um which uh which he you know um you know is you know is sort of I I think interested as like as as a first book that you know that it sort of both gets into the you know I mean it's it's both a sort of manifestation of the of the lefty anti-imperialism but it's also um you know but I think it's it's also just not a book most people would have written uh and it's it's got no commercial value at all but it's fascinating and it's interesting and it's like this is those sort of decisions uh I think personally why I just like him so much I sort of see that range of eclectic curiosities and uh and and commitment to like actually answer a question that could just be passing like yeah it's very admirable at least I don't know yeah that's just my projection but you know no no I I I'm with you but I also think that the okay so it is interesting that it's I I I mixed it up in my head and thought you know I was not like thank you Portugal but as you say that I'm actually remembering that in those in those scenes in a hitch 22 he has uh he recalls it's the the Greek you know generals are still very much in power because he recalls going to meetings where uh people are like like whispering you know the international you know like singing you know cause so so as not to be uh so as not to be overheard and he sort of has this little moment of self-consciousness as he's recounting this about the the fact that his you know his mother has just died you know that that that she's you know um and that he's sort of off doing this like leftist revolutionary stuff you know that that he's he's like combining that you know with with going to see see what had happened and um you know and I I think a very different person with a very different trajectory you know you can imagine that being a moment of like you know I don't know like political disillusionment like what am I doing here right you know that they um but uh and you know and it is interesting that this is the same you know this this is very shortly you know I think before he uh you know he leaves the International Socialists uh that you know I mean that is interesting to think about that you know maybe you know one last indulgence in you know in psychologizing from a distance but you know that that maybe there's a uh um you know I could imagine something traumatic on that level right I mean having your mother die in those circumstances you know while you're that age you know I mean could yeah make you reevaluate your life a little bit and how much of it you wanted to spend in meetings.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:30

An especially sad feature to that anecdote as well is that there were you know the line the phone was off the hook. Hitchens had missed calls you know this is back in the 70s so it it's not easy to make an international phone call. Hitchens had a really close relationship with his mother. You know she even presented this man to him before she went away to Athens you know sort of seeking out Christopher's approval.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:56

Like hey look I've got an interesting intelligent you know intellectual on my arm um you must like him and Christopher giving him the you know sort of nod of approval like alright then um you know it is i uh it's a very moving chat by far the most moving thing I've ever read from Hitchens but he it's not like he's writing for emotion most of the time but uh it really is moving like you know his relationship with his mother culminating in that fashion um well I will I will just say in general you know as you say he's generally not writing for for emotion at least not in that sense right I mean that the that like he for drama yeah yeah I mean usually he wants to you know maybe arouse your like moral passion about you know something that you know what what he's writing about but he he doesn't you know he's you know he's not really writing in the vein of of arousing personal uh emotions uh but when you know I mean when he does he's very good at it he uh he has uh like I mean I'm thinking here of like some of the last essays that he wrote before he died when uh that are collected and um there's a little thin book called mortality you know that's that's basically about uh his his experience with cancer and it's amazing it really is amazing yeah yeah it is and I think that he I think that because you know I I I think he has these kinds of aesthetic scruples about being you know sappy you know that uh that that he wouldn't you know he wouldn't do that uh so so it some of it ends up being kind of understated in a way that actually makes it much more powerful.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:35

100% yeah no he he didn't want to be uh he much in in fact this is an obscure connection but uh Norm McDonald who I'm not sure if you're familiar with him is a comedian Canadian comedian yeah you know he I was actually I was actually just thinking as I said that when I said experiences with cancer. Really okay I was I was I was thinking of Norm McDonald's bit about the phrase battling cancer you know like you know his struggle against cancer and and that's why I didn't use that phrase even though it like it rises to your tongue because it's like such a it's it's the way we always talk about it right I mean it's so it's so it's it's it's like oh after a long battle with cancer and he's like yeah no Uncle Phil and then like I guess you know he lost he wasn't strong enough exactly like the because Norm obviously passed away I think last year or the year before and it reminded me of mortality and the way Hitchin spoke about cancer a lot as well it's it's not this courageous battle you know you just try to poison yourself to try stop yourself from killing yourself and the like uh yeah like that I mean the way he speaks about it what is it fuck I can't remember what it is now but he he he refers to cancer as a specific thing and you know like one of the opening quotes is um in fact give me a minute I want to do you mind if I quickly look it up I've got it I've got it available quickly yep yep in fact that's actually the that is the book or the thing that I was introduced to Hitchens through uh I was in this very obscure book I was living in Tilburg in the Netherlands at the time and I walked into this like uh uh you know dark arts you know sort of black magic bookstore very interesting you know uh all these obscure books about Eastern philosophy and crystals and all sort of stuff and sitting on the table being promoted is mortality by Christopher Hitchens and I thought oh this looks like an interesting read and I just read it and thought what an amazing book and obviously then I discovered the YouTube and so what a compelling speaker and hitch 22. So I've more than once in my time woken up feeling like death but nothing prepared me for the early morning in June when I came to consciousness feeling as if I were actually shackled to my own corps yeah that is an amazing opening amid that like kind of shocked laugh line you know about the you know waking up feeling like death and then the that analogy yeah that's that is incredible. And on that day he was to feature on Jon Stewart he did. On that day he was to feature on stage with Salmon Rushdie to promote Hitch22 and Salman recalls the time Hitchens gave a terrific performance no sorry not on that day on a different day when Hitchens was given the terminal diagnosis. He performs with Rushdie goes to a long dinner is the you know most interesting man in the room and that day he got given the terminal diagnosis it's just so amazing you know and then this echoes Norm Macdonald a little bit you know I can't see myself whining about why it's all so unfair I've been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal that it even bores me.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:04

Yeah no that is yeah no exactly um and you know and I also I should say that like I I remember reading some of these essays Slate I guess in um as they were you know like some of the ones that were previously published you know I remember reading some of them at the at the time and and um and being really moved by them you know which which is is part of why uh even though um you know even though uh this is you know I'd I'd kind of gotten the idea for the book and I'd had the I'd had the contract approved before any of this happened you know I I mean I think I think it was like very much on my mind um you know when I was writing it because I had you know by the time that I was actually you know writing the book um you know the the the pandemic had happened uh everybody uh you know like I had you know whatever as as a as a good uh uh you know as a as a good member of my tribe and I'd I'd spent a good year you know driving myself crazy by man inside and I had uh I'd I'd um and also uh and also at that time a a very uh a very good friend and close collaborator of mine had died unexpectedly you know the the book is is to get dedicated to him and um and so the combination of those two things I mean I was probably thinking you know during the months when I was writing the book I was probably thinking more about about mortality than than than I have at any previous point as an adult you know that uh you know that that I uh that you know I mean the there is you know I mean short of the eloquence for Christopher Hitchins right it's very very hard to talk about this without being trite but I mean you have uh but you know but I mean it it uh it brought home the reality of that to me and you know in a way that it really had not been previously and um and so I think that was you know part of why you know I think that was I think that does factor into the fascination for for Hitchens with me both that he was somebody who had written so well about you know this time when he was dying about the process of dying and uh and also you know I mean okay you know we said that uh the the two topics people always think of when they think of Hitchens are Iraq and religion that you know when we we did Iraq and just to do religion very briefly right you know I think that the that um that is part you know like Hitchens in the final years you know even though I I had very deep political disagreements with where he was at that time right I made part of you know part of the fascination forms a figure for me besides that you know sort of Hitchens is a literary character and you know and and and uh and all that that we talked about before uh as this amazing writer and speaker and everything else uh is uh the way that he talked and wrote about religion which um you know which is something that I still find really interested that there's this way that I think some people have this um in my experience anecdotally I think that some people who are maybe interested in all that in the late 2000s the sort of heyday of of new atheism will sort of talk about it now in this this sort of too too cool for school way you know it's like oh they're just kind of bored by the whole subject now and um I don't get that right because I I I think whatever you can say and I think there is a lot to say about what was good and bad about you know the the sort of uh new atheism heyday um you know the the sort of core subject is one that I don't entirely understand how you can be a person and not be interested in because you know it it is just one of the basic facts about being a person that you're gonna die someday. And um and so this you know dispute about whether um you know that's it or not and if that is that if that is it, right, which unfortunately I think it is um you know what you kind of do with that you know and how you how you process with that and how you live and you know and sort of knowledge of that you know I I I just I I don't know I'm a simple man. I find that pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:37

It's incredibly compelling and it's uh it's the source of either tremendous inspiration or like fear or helplessness or complete nihilism. I I'm totally with you it it's completely fascinating to think about read about um funnily enough Norm Macdonald uh said that it was just by far the most important question and you know he said it in much funnier terms than that but like all science is stupid because they're not talking about the one question that actually matters you know nothing else matters until you understand like are we the creation of something else and what happens once we die and if nothing happens when we die it's like how arbitrary is it to be here in this generation at this time uh what's the difference between me and uh 10,000 years ago or 10,000 years in the future does anything I do now actually matter anyway they're gonna do it anyway. Yeah it it it's it's um I'm with you there. Very very fascinating and I suppose we got onto that because of Hitchens writing about immortality which um I'll leave an article I'll leave a link to the article I wrote about the book which features just a it's basically just you know highlighting passages from the book but people should also buy it and yeah you know it's uncompleted actually one of the you know one of the really sad parts about it is the last few chapters are just sort of sort of notes that are unconnected because these were the last things that the man wrote um and it's a shame he didn't get to finish it and uh but yeah I mean meditations on mortality are so fascinating. I mean the one of the this isn't necessarily meditat actually it is a meditation on mortality it's the final chapter of Norm Norm's book uh which I forget what it's called but he wrote one book so people can find it the final chapter is actually a remarkably moving uh piece of writing which you wouldn't expect from a book that is largely just taking the piss and it's Norm at the end just saying it goes really fast and people are only gonna remember him if they remember him at all for having been fired off SNL not even anything else and to construct that emotion with good words it's it's uh it's it's it's incredibly moving and it did remind me a lot of Hitch's mortality um I don't know yeah so if Hitchens you you you said before you know it's it's an unfair question and it's also pure speculation but if Hitchens did hard not to though you know win his fight against cancer then uh what do you suspect he would have made of the issues of the day? Now I have a list I'll save them quickly and then I'll just leave it with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:43:40

Sure sure fake news Trump Brexit Ukraine wokeness political extremes oh wow okay um well I guess we start with the easy ones uh which to my mind the easiest ones on that list are um are Brexit and Trump uh because um and part of what makes it easy is that um is the the sort of sum of the reasons that I think he would have been very you know anti-Trump and continued to be very anti-Brexit I mean he was he was opposed to the idea uh you know when it when people were arguing about it you know many years before it happened.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:25

And he identified as a European citizen.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:28

Right. Yep. So I think a lot of the reasons that he would have took up those positions, not all of them, but a lot of them I think represented things that were common threads uh between the different versions of Hitchens over the years. And so I have a very hard time imagining a version of Hitchens in which they didn't continue to be common threads. So um I think that you know I think the range of political positions I could imagine um Christopher Hitchens taking I mean there really is a range, right? Because I think that there are things that are sort of consistent with impulses that he had at one time or another that might have led him in different directions. You know like I don't I have a very hard time imagining him ever you know saying oh never mind I was wrong about all that stuff in the early 2000s just as a matter of personality if nothing else. You know like that that's and just the fact that it was such a sharp break you know with so many of his former comrades that like I I think just psychologically that would have been really hard. But but I I can imagine versions of Hitchens who might have in some complicated way it would be despite stuff like that you know have warmed back up to um uh have might have warmed back up to the left to some extent I think that it's I think that it's possible I speculate a little bit in the book. You know, like if you think I think in the British case it's a lot harder because uh you know I for better or for worse uh you know I I I I think you would have really hated Jeremy Corbyn but I think that in the um uh but I think in the American case I think it it is a little bit easier to imagine him maybe like I don't think it's totally out of the question that he could have you know he could have like ended up as like a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016 for example I think that you know I think there are some reasons I I get into in the book why he might have done that but that's like so that's like one end of the range another end of the range is like you know just become in in many ways what we would think of as like a resistance limb you know in the uh in the Trump in the Trump years you know that they I think that there there are many things about Hitchens that might have been consistent with you know that they and and then like you one of your questions was about Ukraine right I mean it's it's it does not stretch the imagination to imagine like Hitchens on TV like ranting about Vladimir Putin and you know and and uh you know uh in a way that's very consistent with uh you know with the sort of tenor of of of some of his his Bush era politics um and so and maybe even kind of on the you know Lincoln project kind of end of the sort of like you know like Republican neocon never Trumper types you know that like you know having some affinity to that crowd I mean some of those people are were his friends right so I mean like I I can imagine that too right so I think there's like a range of political positions that I could imagine him taking but I think one thing I absolutely can't imagine is him being friendly to Trump or Brexit for a lot of reasons. You know I think that the um so yeah I mean you were kind of alluding to it in the uh in the Brexit case uh in 1999 the uh the first you know debate that he did with uh with Peter was essentially about that you know that the uh about whether it was it was a good thing you know I mean Peter is such a you know delightfully strange crank that I think he said he didn't actually vote in the Brexit referendum because he didn't like the uh uh the people who were running the you know the leave campaign uh but like you know Peter was certainly advocating the position the UK being part of the EU was a bad thing and had you know Christopher certainly disagreed with him uh and but I think it's I think more generally than like the sort of specifics of that or the specifics of what he said about Trump, which you know he says um in 2000, this is sort of you know lost to history uh it's it's strange to remember that this happened but when Trump was sort of uh semi-candidate at least very publicly floating his candidacy for the uh reform party nomination for president uh which ultimately ended up going to Papuchanon uh but um in his column for the nation where he talks about that uh Hitchens refers to Trump as a nutball narcissistic tycoon uh and um he he says elsewhere uh that the as far as he could tell the only impressive thing about that man is that he found a way to cover uh 90% of his skull with 10% of his hair I might be getting the percentages wrong but it was along those lines uh and uh and so he certainly like pre- in that same clip where he talks about covering his hair he says uh you know like uh really the only good thing about him is that he convinced that Slovenian uh to be on his arm or something like that. Yeah which is uh which is funny by the way because uh because speaking of Slovenians he um uh he did teach at the new school at the same time as uh Slavoj Žizek did uh and um and I talked to s I talked to somebody who took classes from both of them and uh actually tried to arrange a debate between the two of them about Iraq which apparently both of them were up for but then the schedules never quite worked out and then Hitchens got sick and whatever which uh but that is some uh lost YouTube gold right there. But uh without a doubt yeah um but yeah so uh so he has uh so so he certainly disliked Trump as a person but I think there are deeper reasons than that that he would have virulently disliked uh you know Trump and and uh and also Brexit, you know, that like I think sh I think, okay, sort of somewhat staying with personality, but moving into politics, I think just like how aggressively and proudly just stupid like Trump's persona was uh would have uh you know would have been something he did not like and but also I think the political forces that Trump was appealing to. I mean he um Hitchens after 9-11 when he was already like advocating the invasion of Afghanistan uh did a public debate on uh reparations and also wrote an essay about it where he supported reparations for the descendants of slaves. He uh uh there's a column in uh was it I think 2009 uh when Obama had just come into office and uh Glenn Beck organized this rally at the Capitol uh and uh that uh Hitchens refers to that rally as the water world of white self-pity uh like it's you know I I I I I think he wouldn't have been able to stand these guys. I I think that that kind of the I think the anti-immigrant rhetoric, I think um you know kind of appeals to nativism. Um you know I mean he he says many times in many places that you know that like the as far as he's concerned like the two worst things are you know racism and religion uh and um you know I I think he wouldn't have been able to stand all that I think you know so I think he would have had like very good and honorable reasons for disliking all of that but also I think that if he'd if he'd had you know if his you know if his like interventionist foreign policy views had stayed in place you know which which obviously I'm not crazy about but I think that too would have led him to um to have uh to to to dislike Trump because even though I would argue there's a big disconnect between Trump's actual record on the stuff and his rhetoric uh you know I mean if like Trump was was at least sort of rhetorically appealing to kind of right wing isolationism of the kind that Hitchens particularly hated and and liked to use as a foil for what he thought uh and you know I mean he even like you know I mean Trump even like resuscitated the old Lindbergh slogan you know America first so uh so yeah I I think that I think I think on every level um I mean I think there's an interesting question about whether he could have like you know brought himself to hold his nose and vote for Hillary Clinton but the uh but like I I there's not a doubt in my mind that you know that that he would have uh he would have despised Trump and that he you know and that he would have thought that you know I mean he he did think that the EU was like a sort of civilizing liberal influence you know on on the UK and uh and and I think the idea that um and I I think the idea that it would withdraw from it in this campaign for you know like this very right wing campaign that's like very mixed up with you know with um um you know sentiment about uh about you know immigration and you know and and uh Eastern European workers and all of that you know I I I think he I think he would have hated everything about it. I know there's also some stuff about wokeness on on your list um I guess I guess I give a variation of the same answer. I think that there are I think that I don't think that there's any version of Hitchens that you could easily imagine who would have been you know describable as as woke right in in his is his affect I think he I think he would be uh you know I I I you know I think he kind of did hate the veganids of all that you know as as he was perceiving them in the late 2000s and I'm sure he would have continued to do so. I I think that like he has going back to the 90s uh there's an interview with the progressive that is in that collection I mentioned earlier the last interview and other interviews where I think he says some very you know from my perspective very good left-wing Adolf Reedish things you know criticizing identity politics uh and and I think he um you know and and then I think he also just like you know just on a level of just kind of personality and cultural sensibilities and and all that stuff I mean the idea of a version of of Hitchens who's like you know very very concerned with parsing people's statements to see if they said anything problematic you know I mean like like yeah he obviously would have hated all that and and and he would have you know he would have probably been cancelled numerous times at least some of them unfairly you know uh you know and and he was you know I mean we talked a little bit about you know his his issues with the word contrarian but like you know I mean look I don't yeah he did write an article called why women aren't funny and um and followed it up with a video followed it up with a video that's right you know and at no point did he do the I didn't write that headline right like you know he no he meant it sincerely yeah he loved whether he did or not he he he was he was gonna whether he did or not he was very happy about you know like like like he I he's he showed every sign of enjoying the controversy right so you know like the uh I mean actually I think the the content of the article is is um um is actually not even super incendiary but uh but but he also enjoyed the fact that it went out under that headline and that it pissed people off in the way that he did it did right so uh so so yeah I mean he certainly would have you know and I mean he was uh I mean you know he also had uh you know he he was also on record as as as disliking the absolute taboo about saying the Edward even while quoting people and you know and and uh yeah there's several recordings of him saying it by the current standards of cancellation he he would have been cancelled yeah no no doubt about it right so I think the more interesting question is what he would have thought about kind of the other end of the that version of the culture war you know and and um what's the other end what do you mean oh okay so um so in other words like okay so yes he would not have been particularly woke he would have been super cancelled I think all that stuff is pretty safe I think that the uh I think that uh I think the more interesting question is maybe what he would have thought about certain kinds of like anti-wokeness uh as they exist in you know in the last several years in the US right so um and you know elsewhere but you know we kind of tend to be the epicenter of you know the whole thing you know so uh so no one doesn't like the Americans so uh you know so I'm thinking both of like you know what was for a while called the intellectual dark web which was uh consisted of people like Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro but also of Hitchens's old friend Sam Harris.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:51

Um and Hitchens undoubtedly would have been roped in there had he still been around I think because him and Harris would have stayed very cozy I think had the same uh topics to be speaking about and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 1:57:02

Yeah I I think that it is you know right I think that it is entirely plausible that he would have stayed pretty cozy with Harris. I think that the I think that there are some specific views that Harris took that um I I think it'd be fascinating to see how Hitchens would have reacted to you know if if he'd if he'd remained alive right I think that the sort of like one of the big ones is uh Harris's defense of uh of Charles Murray and uh and and s and some of the commentary on IQ and all that stuff because Hitchens was at the very you know at the very least strongly on record as as disagreeing with all of that you know at the at the time. Yeah true that would have been I've never I haven't even thought about it's so funny how that was everything for a while and you know yeah no it's right it's all goes into the memory hole but yeah uh so so yeah I don't know uh so so I do I do think that like some of the things that might have moved Harris in that direction could easily have moved Hitchens also. On the other hand like you you get into some questions here though like what what would he have thought of some of the company that that would have put him in right I mean like you know what like I I think um you know I mean I'd love to see Hitchens on Peterson I think yeah exactly right you know like you know I I think it's not hard to imagine him uh him him strongly disliking Jordan Peterson uh and um yeah I mean I I would actually love to read that regardless of what he thought but they have a but uh but yeah it's it's not hard to imagine him hitting Jordan Peterson and then uh and then when you think about some of the stuff that's kind of happened in the last couple years in terms of anti-woke backlash I mean one example that I have got a record about I have an article about this in the uh the Daily Beast uh which uh um you know is is kind of funny timing right because I just had this book come out and in the last uh I I have this line at the end of the book where where I'm sort of saying that like you know love uh you know whatever you think about Hitchens uh it's um you gotta miss the fact that he was like all over the media as much as he was and and that he was like as as interested and eloquent as he was and uh and and I sort of contrast that to like a lot of um you know similar media that you know a lot of uh the way that the media is right now and um yeah what we started with. Yeah yeah exactly right and uh and so and in the course of of doing that uh I I mentioned a few publications by name and uh and and and one of those has since invited me to to start writing for them so uh that's uh you know so uh they haven't gotten around to it yet yeah they haven't gotten around to reading the book yet I guess uh but uh but yeah actually I think the first article I wrote for uh for the Daily Beast was about um uh which to be fair uh is is is under different management you know than it was then but uh is uh the editorial page anyway so um so yeah it's one of the first article I wrote for the Daily Beast uh was about what Christopher Hitchens would have thought about the anti-critical race theory laws. And and I make the case in there that uh he would have hated all of that, you know, because uh for a couple reasons, right? Some of which we've already gotten into but uh but you know I I think one uh that he was um you know I mean his sort of views you know I I think he was very strongly opposed to to uh to kind of ignoring the the bad racial history of the United States you know I think he I think he was pretty eloquent on that topic again you know he supported reparations uh and two you know I think uh you know he was very passionate you know about uh about free speech and he had uh and if you watch in particular I'm thinking if there's a this debate that he did at some university in Canada I do not remember which one uh in like 2006 or seven uh where you know you can find if you just type into the YouTube search bar Christopher Hitchens free speech this will be one of the first things that will come up and it's one of my all-time favorite Hitchens opening statements you know he he's you know he starts out by fire fire there you go I've said it the uh you know not in a crowded theater I'll grant you and then he makes a show of like looking around the room at this university where he is and he says apparently I've said it in the dining hall in all Hogwarts but uh and then it goes into the origins of the cliche about shouting fire in a crowded theater and how that was actually um how that was actually something that was um you know Oliver Wendell you know the greatly overpraised Oliver Wendell Holmes uh you know when he when he said that about fire in a crowded theater was actually upholding the conviction of a uh group of Jewish socialists who had been arrested for passing out uh uh Yiddish language anti-war and anti-conscription literature during World War I uh and um and his you know and his his his point essentially is that you you really shouldn't trust uh uh any sort of authority structure to tell you what counts as a real fire and what doesn't uh and um and so I I think when it comes to the sort of attempts to crack down you know whether it's framed in terms of critical race theory or gender ideology or whatever they but to crack down on uh basically the discussion of controversial ideas in classrooms, right? You know, I I think he would have hated that. You know so um so so I do think that he would have been I think there are at least certain kinds of manifestations of anti-woke backlash that he would have had a big problem with but um but that said um would he have uh uh you know that said I don't think that anybody who was very woke would have liked him uh and I I think he probably would have I think he probably would have reveled in that fact which would be consistent with you know with what he um uh you know which would have been consistent with how he acted in his lifetime uh and I guess finally I think the only one I I think that I didn't hit was Ukraine so I guess just very briefly on Ukraine. I think the most likely Hitchin's take would have been sort of waxing eloquent about the evils of Vladimir Putin and and being all in favor of everything you know that the US and the UK were doing uh to um uh to aid Ukraine and you know God knows I mean maybe US intervention maybe even US intervention right I mean like it's it's not out of it's not entirely out of the question that like you know it's like that doesn't you know that doesn't break the imagination to like imagine him saying something like that right uh on the other hand um the is it possible that you know even if he was never willing to quite say he was wrong about Iraq that you know his hands having been a little bit burned about how badly that went that like it did put him in a different place about some of this stuff and that he could have said something else it's possible I'm probably stretching but the one thing that's making me think this is that I'm just remembering um the some of what he's written about the uh the Cuban Missile Crisis uh which um which which I have to say has very much been on my mind uh since all this started uh and uh and he's got this very very funny line about how um like everybody else in my generation I can remember where I was and what I was doing on the day when uh President John F. Kennedy nearly killed me. So the who knows.

SPEAKER_01 2:04:50

The final one was uh political extremes. Uh you don't have to comment on it if you don't think it's worth saying but it's quite clear that a smaller and small well at least from my perspective smaller and smaller minority on both the left and right are dominating all political discussion.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:08

Well I think there's yeah I mean I think that there's a I think there's a sense in which that's true. I mean I think that there's I think it depends a little bit what you mean because um like I don't think um I mean you know look who's who's running you know I I don't I wouldn't uh you know who's running the Democratic Party in the US the Labour Party in the UK right I mean not not exactly uh anybody you can mistake for for being representatives of the radical left in both cases at this point. So I you know I I I think on certain kinds of like policy things I would maybe push a little bit back on that but I I think that's consistent with knowing what you mean right that in other words like I think some of this goes back to what we were talking about earlier about about media fragmentation right I mean that there there is I think um a lot of incentive to to use certain kinds of apocalyptic rhetoric in the culture war and um yeah what Hitchens would have made of all of that is tricky because um on the one hand you know he's uh I you know I I tend to you know I think in the last years you know he he enjoyed feeling unclassifiable uh and um and you know and and I think it's entirely possible he would have continued to have a weird mixture of positions and um uh and that you know that feels very plausible. So on the other on the other hand I mean to the extent that you think that Martin Davis is right that you know that that he he sort of drew his energy from from being you know from being like passionately attached to big causes I mean I think some of this depends on what it is that you think might be going on there that you know might have might have given him that charge you know so it's a little bit hard to tell. Look I I've been you've been very generous with your time uh and I do have more questions but I thinking that I'm not going to ask you I'd love to hear you speak about say Sam Harris because you uh in one of your interviews it seems like you have a a pretty visceral uh dislike of the man um but I won't ask you now because I'm afraid I'll derail it um there's one or two more about hitchens I guess and then some questions I try to ask as many guests as possible so how does that sound okay could we do um I as hilarious as it sounds that I would actually manage to stick to my end of this can we do these as kind of a lightning round thing because I I probably should get off absolutely for sure all right um all right I mean it's it's in your hands how quickly you may sure fair enough I'll do my best let's try it in response to the book what have you discovered about Hitchens's legacy that surprised you yeah um I think in certain ways uh I think what surprised me was both how strong the feelings were of those people who do continue to be not like you know uh ambivalent like me right you know uh but uh but but to to have um you know but to just but to just think that like you know 2007 Hitchens sort of you know got everything right and on the on the other hand I think what's maybe more interesting to me is the number of people who um have political views that are very very unlike late Hitchens uh who will who will uh you know with the subject to admire him and adore him yeah exactly yeah so so so I mean just just I I mean you know Bascar Sankara is the founder of Jacobin he blurred the book he's definitely you know he's definitely in that category you know and and and there were there were several people who were like that and I suppose that will then feed into this last uh question about Hitchens directly Charlie Rose um surmised Hitchens in and one year anniversary of his death interview that he did uh with the following love him or hate him you could not ignore him because he said things with such a brilliance and uh so I want to ask you if you agree with that and then also that maybe feeds into why there could be all these people that admire him despite the fact they don't agree with him necessarily politically at all. Yeah I yes and yes right I think that I think that that you know Charlie Rowe's quote is exactly right and I think that I think that definitely feeds into it that they are there is um I mean somebody who I think is like somebody who I think like on the surface has no trace whatsoever of of of Hitchens and her views uh is um uh Natalie Wynn who's a youtuber who's better known as Contra Points and and I remember um that um uh that she uh there's a profile of her by Eliza Featherstone in the nation uh where where Natalie says that some of her approach to like making video essays and stuff is influenced by her trying to replicate the feeling that she got reading Christopher Hitchens that like even when she didn't agree with what he was saying she still liked you know reading him saying it you know that she she she wanted to to try to cre try to recreate that you know for uh for other people and and it also definitely ties into what I was saying at the end of the book what I was saying earlier in the interview about how um you know I I I think a lot of the value of Hitchens for me is that he's such a he's such a good writer and and he has and he often has such a unique perspective that obviously when he's you know when you think he's right, right, he's the person who you sort of most want to make that case and when you think he's wrong you know he's the person that you you want to disagree with because it's it's going to be so much more interesting that you can that you know because he does have this way of you know like the the Hitchens things that I most disagree with right you know we'll still have these little moments of like oh shit that's actually a good point isn't it yeah go ahead exactly and maybe that's like an ultimate testament to uh to his legacy um finally Mr.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:37

Burgess uh forgive me you've probably been asked this a bazillion times in the last few weeks um but did you speak with Rogan about Hitchens off air?

SPEAKER_02 2:11:48

Oh no sadly that would have been really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:51

Uh yeah I was I was so disappointed that Joe never brought it up but any No no that's true.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:57

That's true, yeah. It's it's a very um Yeah, I mean it's like on the one hand, it's a three-hour interview that that's that sort of uh gets into you know, like like there's just this amazing range of things that we uh that we talked about. Um I guess I could have wedged it in because there was a minute when we were talking about religion, and I I I could have, if I'd had the presence of mind to do so at the time, I could have said something about Hitchens, and we and you know, he probably would have like you know, was like, oh yeah, you know, whatever. Like, and you know, he would have said something about that and we would have gotten off into a little Hitchens tangent. So that's on me. But um but no, we uh you know we didn't uh we didn't do that. The uh the the convert the conversation off air uh was um I'm trying to think how much I could reasonably say about this, but I have a uh but it was it was it was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:50

Uh does he like ask you to not share certain things?

SPEAKER_02 2:12:55

No, no, he didn't. I was that uh there's no there's no NDA here. I'm just I'm just trying to think what what what feels like uh what feels like a reasonable thing to pass on about that conversation. But uh but yeah, I mean I think he had uh I mean some of it was like preview what we talked about what we ended up talking about on air and you know and and uh you know some you know some of it was like COVID related because you know because because he's constantly surrounded by controversies about that and he had he had you know recent guests on you know about that. But I mean that's also not you know I mean that's also like as I'm sure you can tell from the interview itself, I mean that's all like also the last thing that I really wanted to engage with him on because like it's it's it's because I don't Yeah, you'd get into a disagreement to be awkward. Well, I don't and I mean there were things that we definitely disagreed about over the course of the interview, but I mean I think that the but I think that the uh I think it's less the fact that we disagree um than that like we disagree and I'm also much less interested in the topic than he is, you know, that like uh because because it's cause because it's like not that I'm not you know, not that I'm indifferent to the worldwide plague that's had all this cataclasmic, you know, consequences, you know, that's not interesting to me, but like just that like I I made a decision fairly early on that I wasn't gonna be like hyper aware of every twist and turn of what was going on about this. You know, I didn't really want thinking about COVID to like dominate my life during the COVID years, and and so it's like I'm kind of in the I mean I actually there's a conversation that Joe Rogan did have back in, I don't know, late 2020 with uh Bill Burr, that uh where where Burr definitely uh was the representative of how I feel about this, uh where um Burr, you know, like Rogan is like starting to bring up COVID stuff, and it's like kind of funny because they're like sitting there drinking, you know, like smoking cigars and you know, drinking and he and and Burr's like, Chubb, are we really gonna do this? You without a medical degree, me without a medical degree, and it's like I don't know anything about this. I I have a you know, I I I check the news like once a month to see whether I still need to wear a mask, you know. That's you know, that's how much I engage with this, you know, which is like, you know, maybe not quite to that level, but like I don't, you know, I mean there are people who spend all of their time like boated up on the details so they can like argue with conspiracy theorists and things like that, and that's that's just not you know, there is only so much time and energy you can have in your life to to you know for so many topics, and and that's just you know, not one that I gravitate to. So like I I sort of have a general sense that um, you know, I mean I I you know I I think I have a decent understanding of what the consensus medical view is, and I I'm prepared to sure sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:36

Yeah, no, you don't have to you don't have to justify yourself here. Um what about the what about the effect of Joe Rogan? Uh because it is very interesting that he genuinely has the biggest platform in the world for someone to appear on. Uh do you have any insight as to how many people downloaded that episode you featured on and stuff like that? No clue.

SPEAKER_02 2:15:56

Yeah, no clue. Sadly, spot.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:57

What about like book sales signals that you can get for how it affected your own?

SPEAKER_02 2:16:00

Yeah, I mean, it's your I mean there was there was definitely a little spike, you know, uh right out, you know, there was definitely a spike, uh especially the one we talked about right after I went on. But um, but yeah, I mean I think that however many people watch, I mean, there was a clip that was posted on YouTube that had like a million and some viewers. Uh, I would assume it's like whatever it is, I would assume that the actual Spotify numbers, because that's that's how most people are gonna access it, you know, are much higher than that. I mean, you see this, you see this number thrown around a lot that that allegedly like it gets like 11 million downloads. It's a little hard to track down where that number comes from, but like even if it's you know, even if it's like a quarter of that, right? I mean, that's that's still, you know, that's that's that's I yeah, probably should have. Uh that's still a uh that's still a ridiculous number of um uh I guess he did start following me on Twitter after this. I could I could send him a DM. But uh the uh but uh but yeah, look, as far as the influence goes, I think it's hard to I think it's I think it's really hard to quantify. And I think it's also part of what makes this tricky is that I think most of the episode, like I think the sort of most attention-grabbing controversial stuff that he does is is like a minority of the episode. Like I think the episode right after the one I was on was like I think it was like with somebody who's like uh who'd like ridden a book, like a who's like a uh a chef or nutrition guru or something, you know, that was uh you know, like it's it's very it's all over the place, right? I mean, like I think he's somebody who's who's interested in politics and and and you know has people on to talk about and has political opinions, but I think he's at least as interested in like you know, mixed martial arts and psychedelics and you know and comedy and half a dozen other things, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:50

I mean half the episodes are comedians, you know.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:52

Yeah, no, I think that's pretty yeah, more than anybody else, right? It's he's gonna have he's gonna have comedians on. So uh so how exactly the influence filters out is um is really hard to say. And I think especially gets complicated when you look at the fact that uh there are other countries where the podcast is also quite popular, you know, where uh you know the sort of local COVID politics are very different, you know, than they are in the uh in in the US. I mean, I think that I mean look, if I could if I could magically get him to, you know, to think what I think about that, you know, then then then I think that'd be better. You know, I think obviously that would be better. Uh I think that the but I also think that like if you want to talk about his overall influence, part of what makes that a little bit murkier to me is like that um he is somebody who really does politically, in the political episodes, have a pretty remarkable range of people on. And so there are people who, you know, there are people who like, and I'm I'm not even just talking about people whose politics are like my politics. Like I think there are people who, you know, I might disagree with about lots of things, but I can still appreciate the fact that they can like go on that show and say things that you don't hear very much in mainstream media sources, like uh like like Dave Smith can come on and and talk about you know the Saudi war in Yemen, which is which which is which is objectively like really one of the great like human rights catastrophes of our era and and is is just nowhere on the main on the radar of the of the mainstream media, you know. You can you know you can find people, you know, so uh and and even with the right wing guests, um I I also even think there is some value to the fact that even though, you know, look, I mean I think he's uh you know, you know, he's a lover, not a fighter. He does not by and large have people on to uh to to you know to argue with them. Well, he I think by and large he has them on to just kind of shoot the shit and chat with them. But um I think the fact that you know there is a big contingent of right-wingers who who listen to the show and and and respect him and all that stuff does make it valuable when he does have right-wing guests on who sometimes he will like really push back against pretty hard in some cases, you know, that they uh uh, you know, like the sort of you know, there there is from my perspective a pretty legendary episode where he had Dave Rubin on and and they're arguing about uh like safety regulations and the post office and a lot of things like that. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:22

I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:23

Yeah, yeah. I think it's fantastic. I think there are times when he's you know after uh you know Candace Owens. I think that there's uh I I would I would um there's a you know there was a time in the um in the political in um there was a time in like 2018 um you know when when he had an on-air rant about uh Trump's immigration policies. He said if you don't have a problem with like taking you know children away from their mothers, you're not on Team Human. Um there was uh on my episode, right? The episode that that was on, he he spends he spends time on there. Um you know, he spends time on there like making fun of uh of of Ben Shapiro for uh for his for his opposition to uh to same-sex marriage and you know gay rights. Uh so I I I think that there are actually you know, there are actually certain areas in which I think he's a he's actually a useful voice of of uh of compassion and and and rationality for you know for those followers, even if he obviously also says other things that I completely disagree with. And I mean I I I guess I guess I would think, and maybe this does get us back to Hitchens a little bit, that it's I I think that liberals spending all their time worrying about whether Joe Rogan is gonna influence people to believe bad things. I think maybe does show a troubling lack of confidence in what they think, you know, that they that um because I'm I'm much more concerned with the opposite, right? I mean, I'm much more concerned with like things that I agree with not getting enough of a hearing than things that I disagree with, you know, getting getting more of a hearing. And I mean, like, I I don't I I guess I guess I think that if if you're not kind of confident that if it if it's all out there, right, that you can persuade people that you're right, then I'm very confused about how you think you're gonna achieve any of your political objectives.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:19

Um don't hold it against me. That was a long answer. There's two more and they're one-word answers. So you can do it, uh you can do it quickly. Even though that was a perfectly natural place to end it, I just can't not ask you. I don't know if this was intentional or subconscious, but it seemed like when you were writing in opposition to Hitchens, you referred to him as either Hitchens or Christopher Hitchens, but then when you were writing in agreement, you referred to him as Hitch. Was this a conscious uh thing?

SPEAKER_02 2:22:49

It wasn't conscious, but it is interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:52

Okay, and finally, I would love to ask you the three that I ask everyone, but it'll take too much time. Perhaps someday in the future you might be interested in doing another one.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:01

Yeah, we can come back and do and do one where we talked about Sam Harris.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:05

Yeah. Um yes. So, final question, Mr. Virgis. Conversation between any two people of history, dead or alive, no language barrier, except in this scenario, one of them is Christopher Hitchens.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:22

Okay, all right. Who do I most want to see Christopher Hitchens uh talk to?

SPEAKER_01 2:23:29

Um Marx Karl Marx. Amazing, amazing. Ben, uh really uh sincerely thank you for being so generous with your time. Um I really enjoyed that, and uh you as you could probably tell, I could uh just talk about Hitchens for yeah, for ages. So thank you very much, mate.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:54

All right, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:56

Okay, cheers, Ben. Now, here is um some of my favorite quotes and also a passage from Hitch 22. It is uh Hitchens' own response to the famous Proust Questionnaire, which was a series of questions that Vanity Fair, a uh magazine that Hitchens had a monthly column with, that that they would feature with people that they were trying to profile. And supposedly with a Proust questionnaire, if these questions are answered in full, it reveals one's true nature. And because everything is better in Hitchens' voice.

SPEAKER_00 2:24:26

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Just to give you an idea, Proust's reply was to be separated from Mama. I think that the lowest depth of misery ought to be distinguished from the highest pitch of anguish. In the lower depths come enforced idleness, sexual boredom, andor impotence. At the highest pitch, the death of a friend, or even the fear of the death of a child. Where would you like to live? In a state of conflict or a conflicted state? What is your idea of earthly happiness? To be vindicated in my own lifetime. To what faults do you feel the most indulgent? To the ones that arise from urgent material needs. Who are your favourite heroes of fiction? Dennis Barlow, Humbert Humbert, Horatio Hornbruhr, Jeeves, Nicholas Salmanovich Rubashov, Funish the Memorius, Lucifer. Who are your favourite characters in history? Socrates, Spinazer, Thomas Paine, Rosa Luxemburg, Leon Trotsky, who are your favorite heroines in real life? The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, who risked their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy, Ayan Hashi Ali and Azan Afizi as their ideal feminine model. Who are your favorite heroines of fiction? Maggie Tolliver, Dorothea, Becky Sharp, Candy, O, Bertie's Aunt Delia. Your favorite painter? Goya, Otto Dix. Your favorite musician? J.S. Park? Bob Dylan. The quality you most admire in a man. Courage moral and physical. Anima. The ability to think like a woman. Also a sense of the absurd. The quality you most admire in a woman. Courage moral and physical. Anima. The ability to visualize the mind and need of a man. Also a sense of the absurd. Your favorite virtue? An appreciation for irony. Your least favorite virtue, or nominee for the most overrated one. Faith. Closely followed in view of the overall shortage of time by patience. Your proudest achievement, since I can't claim the children as solely mine, being the dedication of books by Salman Rushti and Martin Amos, and poems by James Fenton and Robert Conquest. Your favorite occupation? Travel in contested territory. Hard working, writing, and reading when safely home, in the knowledge that an amusing friend is later coming to dinner. Who would you have liked to be? Prometheus, Oscar Wild, Emile Zola. Your most marked characteristic? Insecurity. What do you most value in your friends? Their continued existence. What is your principal defect? Becoming bored too easily. What to your mind would be the greatest of misfortunes? Loss of memory. What would you like to be? One who understood music and chess and mathematics, or one who had the courage to bear arms? What is your favourite colour? Blue, sometimes red. What is your favourite flower? Garlic. What is your favourite bird? The owl. What word or expression do you most everuse? Rereading a collection of myself, I was rather startled to find that it was perhaps who are your favourite poets? Philip Larkin, Robert Conquest, W. H. Orden, James Fenton, W. B. Yates, Chileok Titchbourne, G. K. Chesterton, Wendy Cope. What are your favourite names? Alexander, Sophia, Antonia, Celeste, Liam, Hannah, Elizabeth, Wolfgang. What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition. Which historical figures do you most despise? Stanley Baldwin, the Artola Komeni, which contemporary figures do you most despise? Henry Kissinger, Osama bin Laden, Joseph Routzinger. Which events in military history do you most admire? Thermopylae, Le Panto, the defense of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, Mutinies in the German Army in 1918, and the German general staff in 1944, the Royal Navy's Arctic convoys, which natural gift would you most like to possess? The ability to master other languages, which would have hugely enhanced the scope of these answers. How would you like to die? Fully conscious, and either fighting or reciting, or fooling around. What do you most dislike about your appearance? The way in which it makes former admirers search for neutral words. What is your motto? Allons travailler. This more imperative version of Get On With It is annexed from Emile Zola, though Ian Forster somewhat overextended it by enjoining us to get on with your own work and behave as if you were immortal. Though this is only a party game, which is the form in which Proust was twice persuaded to play it, it can be revealing. Reviewing my own answers, I, at any rate, can see where I give away more of myself than might be obvious. Take the answer to the question about the principle defect. I used also to play the game of if you were an animal, what animal would you be? When others chose for me, I was quite frequently a fox. Lately, however, there have been quite a few nominations of badger. This is not merely a question of my becoming stouter and more grizzled. It is the downside of what I consider one of my happier skills as well. In other words, I would often rather have an argument or a quarrel than be bored. And, because I hate to lose an argument, I am often willing to protract one for its own sake rather than concede even a small point. Plainly, this unwillingness to give ground, even on unimportant disagreements, is the symptom of some deep-seated insecurity, as was my one-time fondness for making teasing remarks, which I amended when I read Anthony Pohl's matter-of-fact observation that teasing is an unfailing sign of misery within, and as is my very pronounced impatience. The struggle, therefore, is to try and cultivate the virtuous side of these shortcomings, to be a genial host, while only slightly wiffled, for example, or to be witty at the expense of one's own weaknesses instead of those of other people. I am often described to my irritation as a contrarian, and even had the title inflicted on me by the publisher of one of my early books. At least on that occasion, I lived up to the title by ridiculing the word in my introduction to the book's first chapter.

SPEAKER_01 2:31:36

And finally, some of my favorite quotes from Hitch. I keep these on my website when I find great quotes, I keep them organized there. So it's actually a maybe a 20, 30 pages document at this stage of just great characters in fiction, but also real people of history and uh some of their quotes written down. And I rip this directly from there. So I won't read them all. There's 19 in total, but I'll just pick as I go through the ones that stand out to me the most. Nationalism is most prominent at its periphery. Uh, that is such a great insight when you think about it just uh a little bit more, I think, in my understanding of it, is just that the extremist sides we see in our politics, both on the left and the right, are actually most prominent in their periphery, at the at the edges. And in fact, the center of whatever some extremism might be, um, is in fact less extreme than you might think. What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. One of Hitchin's great uh lines that he would often invoke when uh debating the religiosis of the world. The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks. High moral character is not a precondition for great moral accomplishments. You have to choose your future regrets. This is one quote of his that gained in prominence uh towards, well, at the end of his life after he had been diagnosed with cancer. Because there was so much made of how much of a bohemium and burning the candle to both ends uh Hechan's lifestyle was, smoking and drinking um in in heavy quantities. And you read this line now, you have to choose your future regrets a little bit differently because perhaps there's a very conscious awareness of how bad something might be for you, but in the short term it feels good. This is a funny one. Everybody does have a book in them, but it is in most cases that that's where it should stay. Cheap booze is a false economy. Now, that's obviously one that you have to learn through experience, but I remember trying to figure out what that meant. Basically, it just means if you buy the cheapest vodka on the shelf to try and save yourself, you know, 50% compared to the nice. vodka the hangover is gonna cost way more than that s slither of savings you made at the at the at the shelf. Hitchens famously drunk um Johnny Black, which you know is a very, very nice whiskey or scotch. Oh, this is an amazing one. He accused me of trying to assassinate his character and I had to remind him, no, I'm afraid your character committed suicide a long time ago. I most respect Jesus for being able to turn water into wine. I can only turn water into piss. He seems to be chewing far more than he bites off. Oh this was an this was also um th th this was also a quote that resonated quite deeply with me, and I think it can be um related to more artistic processes and then just writing um but I hate not to write, though I'm not sure I enjoy it. The real pleasure comes much later when you see it in print. You know, because there's so much made of uh follow your bliss and you know follow your dreams and do what you love and you know does one truly love labouring over an artistic task? Or is it just in the pure satisfaction you get once it's completed and good that you think maybe you you enjoy the labour of it. I certainly very rarely feel like I'm enjoying myself when I'm trying to write something. Instead, I'm just very happy when it's finished and I realize that there's a linear thought there. Ah this is a beautiful one. For me to remember friendship is to recall those conversations that it seemed a sin to break off. The ones that made the sacrifice of the following day a trivial one. And then finally a classic Hitchens quote the four most overrated things in life are champagne, lobster anal sex and picnics. Alright everyone I'm just gonna quickly describe my uh ambition for this podcast and if you still listen uh this far through then you're an absolute legend. But because it's Ben Burgess and he's got a big audience I'm sort of hoping that maybe there is going to be some uh fresh ears to this podcast. So welcome and thank you for tuning in if this is the first time you've ever listened to this podcast. What I'm trying to do with this podcast is corner the market for eclectic curiosities in whatever country it is you're listening in from. So what does eclectic curiosities mean in the podcast realm? Basically there isn't a genre for it but it just is a reflection of my own interests and week in week out I am managing to speak with people who are somehow experts or very very well refined people in some interests that I have at that moment. So this is clearly about Hitchens a very very long and and passionate strong interest of mine. But uh geothermal energy has been on my mind lately and so the last you know four or five episodes have been speaking to the CEOs of the largest geothermal technology companies in the world and then also someone in the venture capital of uh geothermal. There was a Stephen Hicks episode with uh Friedrich Nietzsche that came out quite recently um going forward next week Nicholas Shackson Treasure Islands trying to document the plumbing of the offshore world because financial secrecy and the the tools that offshore accountants rely on truly is the cancer of the world that allows for all the kleptocracy and it allows uh quite frankly for just the most egregious corruption that comes straight from the top so just uh taking a sample of the last few weeks these are where my interests have taken me and these are the podcasts that have been produced because of it. So welcome if you're new welcome back if you're old that's my hope. How can you make this podcast better? One by listening this far is is amazing but subscribe to the show and leave nice healthy juicy thick reviews so pump your juice into the algorithm five stars everywhere comments everywhere pull over people on the side of the road get them to leave reviews as well put as much energy into the various algorithms as possible and then hopefully that might translate into a little bit of show growth which means again I can actually approach more and more people they become more accessible. So that's all from me thank you so much for listening. You're all legends take it easy ciao