In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

[Warpy]

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2011/12/In-Memoriam-Christopher-Hitchens-19492011

Christopher Hitchens—the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant—died today at the age of 62. Hitchens was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in the spring of 2010, just after the publication of his memoir, Hitch-22, and began chemotherapy soon after. His matchless prose has appeared in Vanity Fair since 1992, when he was named contributing editor.

“Cancer victimhood contains a permanent temptation to be self-centered and even solipsistic,” Hitchens wrote nearly a year ago in Vanity Fair, but his own final labors were anything but: in the last 12 months, he produced for this magazine a piece on U.S.-Pakistani relations in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, a portrait of Joan Didion, an essay on the Private Eye retrospective at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a prediction about the future of democracy in Egypt, a meditation on the legacy of progressivism in Wisconsin, and a series of frank, graceful, and exquisitely written essays in which he chronicled the physical and spiritual effects of his disease. At the end, Hitchens was more engaged, relentless, hilarious, observant, and intelligent than just about everyone else—just as he had been for the last four decades.

“My chief consolation in this year of living dyingly has been the presence of friends,” he wrote in the June 2011 issue. He died in their presence, too, at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. May his 62 years of living, well, so livingly console the many of us who will miss him dearly.

[Lost-in-FL]

1. So sad.

[LiberalAndProud]

2. ...

Trial of the Will

Reviewing familiar principles and maxims in the face of mortal illness, Christopher Hitchens has found one of them increasingly ridiculous: “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Oh, really? Take the case of the philosopher to whom that line is usually attributed, Friedrich Nietzsche, who lost his mind to what was probably syphilis. Or America’s homegrown philosopher Sidney Hook, who survived a stroke and wished he hadn’t. Or, indeed, the author, viciously weakened by the very medicine that is keeping him alive.
By Christopher Hitchens

...

Before I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a year and a half ago, I rather jauntily told the readers of my memoirs that when faced with extinction I wanted to be fully conscious and awake, in order to “do” death in the active and not the passive sense. And I do, still, try to nurture that little flame of curiosity and defiance: willing to play out the string to the end and wishing to be spared nothing that properly belongs to a life span. However, one thing that grave illness does is to make you examine familiar principles and seemingly reliable sayings. And there’s one that I find I am not saying with quite the same conviction as I once used to: In particular, I have slightly stopped issuing the announcement that “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

In fact, I now sometimes wonder why I ever thought it profound. It is usually attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche: Was mich nicht umbringt macht mich stärker. In German it reads and sounds more like poetry, which is why it seems probable to me that Nietzsche borrowed it from Goethe, who was writing a century earlier. But does the rhyme suggest a reason? Perhaps it does, or can, in matters of the emotions. I can remember thinking, of testing moments involving love and hate, that I had, so to speak, come out of them ahead, with some strength accrued from the experience that I couldn’t have acquired any other way. And then once or twice, walking away from a car wreck or a close encounter with mayhem while doing foreign reporting, I experienced a rather fatuous feeling of having been toughened by the encounter. But really, that’s to say no more than “There but for the grace of god go I,” which in turn is to say no more than “The grace of god has happily embraced me and skipped that unfortunate other man.”
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/01/hitchens-201201#

[MarkCharles]

19. Excellent article by his brother Peter on Christopher's passing at this link

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2075133/Christopher-Hitchens-death-In-Memoriam-courageous-sibling-Peter-Hitchens.html

[LiberalAndProud]

21. So poignant.

[div class="exerpt"]But alas, it never happened. He never went home and now never will. Never, there it is, that inflexible word that trails close behind that other non-negotiable syllable, death. Even so, we did what we could in Houston, as the doctors, the nurses, the cleaners, and who knows who else, bustled in and out.

I forgot, till I left, that I was wearing a ludicrous surgical mask and gown, and surgical gloves (I am still not sure whose benefit this was for, but it was obligatory) all the time I was sitting there, and – this is extraordinary – time seemed to me to pass incredibly swiftly in that room. I was shocked when the moment came to leave for the airport, that it had come so soon.

Thanks for sharing, MarkCharles.

[iris27]

3. RIP Hitch

I didn't always agree with you, especially on the war and feminism, but you will be missed. Despite what some little coward on Wikipedia writes.

(Seriously, it's already gone, but about 10 minutes ago the last line of his WIki entry read, "Hitchens died on December 15, 2011 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. He was 62 years old. He will not be missed".)

Edited to remove an unintentional smiley arising from my punctuation.

[OswegoAtheist]

4. ...

Hitch was the writer who gave me the words and voice to express how I felt about religion and my own Atheism.

Oswego "You'll be missed, Mr. Hitchens" Atheist

[Odin2005]

5. RIP, Hitch!

[GliderGuider]

6. So Christopher is in heaven now...

[Ninjaneer]

7. Goodbye Hitchens.

May you be rememebered well by history and the countless minds you set free.

[Synnical]

22. I'll go with that sentiment

He isn't "resting in peace". He's dead. I did shed a tear today for him. Though I disagreed with some of his pro war sentiments, that man was an amazing writer and activist for atheism. I hope he will be remembered and have his place in immorality in our collective minds and written history.

-Cindy in Fort Lauderdale

[pokerfan]

8. RIP

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/39620_RIP-_Christopher_Hitchens_1949_-_2011
http://www.mediaite.com/online/christopher-hitchens-has-passed-away
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/644242-christopher-hitchens-author-and-television-personality-dies-at-62
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/12/15/christopher-hitchens-is-dead/

[laconicsax]

9. ...and the rumors that he 'renounced' his atheism have already started.

Thanks, GD.

[darkstar3]

10. You gotta be fucking kidding me!

Where, please?

ETA: nevermind...ugh

[skepticscott]

11. Rather than rumors

it would be more accurate to call them lies, initiated and repeated by those who knew they weren't true, until they reached people too stupid to know better.

[DissedByBush]

18. This despite the fact that he reiterated his stance on religion

Shortly before he died, very publicly.

Many of the religious just can't understand how a person can face death without the belief in an afterlife. They literally cannot conceive of it. Thus they think he must have had a deathbed conversion.

[Euromutt]

12. So long, Hitch; you will be missed

As iris27 noted above, you didn't have to agree with him on everything--or indeed, anything--to know his was a particularly keen mind, and if he did on occasion behave like an asshole, it was more often than not to someone who had it coming.

[knowledgeispwr]

13. I read Hitchens as I was coming into my own atheism.

Reading him, and a few other authors, really got me thinking about the religious beliefs I still held simply because I did not think about them. In that way, he helped me to think about my own beliefs and why I had them.

Hitchens will be missed.

[PassingFair]

14. Always entertaining. Always brilliant.

Not always right...

He will be missed.

http://www.vanityfair.com/video/2011/12/1329955421001

[FarCenter]

15. New York Times stops the presses for Hitchens obit

http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/156317/new-york-times-stops-the-presses-for-christopher-hitchens-obit/

[stuntcat]

16. Peace for him

Death being Peace and all... I'm so glad he was here.

[PassingFair]

17. Couple of DUers pissing on his obit in LBN.

Last edited Fri Dec 16, 2011, 03:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Nice.

[Mac1949]

20. Hitch and the incredible Stephen Fry dismembering religion in Intelligence Squared debate.

The way I like to remember him.

[awoke_in_2003]

23. a great mind (except for maybe the Iraq thing)...

who will be missed.

[redqueen]

24. ...

[MarkCharles]

25. In some ways, yes, he did ! n/t