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Originally Posted by peter12
He wasn't rigorous, and was actually quite a sloppy thinker. Good writer, great speaker, but also highlighted his strengths by taking ugly dates to prom.
All told, I really liked Hitchens, but I can't stand the cult of celebrity that continues to surround him. He was North America's exposure to a public intellectual personality type that is actually very common in England.
Personally, I think he was more of a courageous thinker, than a good one, and I really appreciated his willingness to stick it to those who needed it the most. If it had been accompanied with some humility, I think he would have been more effective.
His brother, Peter, is entirely the same.
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Naw, what made Hitchens somewhat unique was his willingness to cross partisan lines. He came across as a voice of reason, because he didn't subscribe to one set of party beliefs. That remains today, a pretty unique characteristic for a public or academic figure. The vast majority of intellectuals overly define themselves.
Even if they define themselves a Trosksyist, a liberal, a conservative, etc... they'll take on positions that are, at their heart, contradictory to those definitions, but instead are part of the bundle of positions that go along with a certain political affiliation. For example Hitchens being willing to say one middle east war was justified while another was not. Most academics would stick to the more dogmatic approach and say all wars are justified or all aren't.