A review of Hitch-22 by Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens joins Phillip Pullman and Richard Dawkins at the forefront of the New Atheism. Which presents me a problem in reviewing this book…
There will be many Christian sites that will talk about Hitchens' description of behaviour the Bible would see as immoral, including sexual promiscuity with men as well as women, his lack of attention to family, his excesses with alcohol and his rampant blasphemy.
However, why do we expect biblical standards from someone who is not defined as a Christian nor has the resources of the Holy Spirit?
So, I can judge this book from its literary standards, and it measures up quite well. He is knowledgeable and witty, and has been to many of the world's hotspots, with a wealth of interesting insights. There is a little too much name-dropping about people I do not know, and a little too over-valuing of his own importance, with this book perhaps aimed at the English intelligensia.
Secondly, I feel comfortable judging Hitchens by his own standards. For example when challenged by Christians to define a moral code he says "self-respect and the desire for the respect of others" (p.331). Obviously that code does not include respect for others, because he verges on defamation of almost every well-known Christian he can possibly insult. John Wesley is an "admitted maniac and demagogue" (p.64), Martin Buber is a "pious old hypocrite" (p.70), CS Lewis' Narnia series is "puerile yet toilsome" (p.78). Perhaps most shockingly he refers to the "frightful faults and crimes of the departed fanatic", in reference to Mother Teresa (p.337).
Christianity as a faith cops the biggest bashing among the religions. On p.10 he comments that "Everything about Christianity is contained in the pathetic image of the flock". At school he is "compelled to sit through lessons in the sinister fairy tales of Christianity" (p.52). He sees all religions as "man-made phenomenon", used to control people (p.269).
However, Hitchens is inconsistent. He can't pretend that he didn't enjoy singing hymns and reading from the lectern while at school (p.52). He quotes from Christian Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, admires Solzhenitsyn, loves Dostoyevsky, is influenced by Bunyan's A Pilgrim's Progress.
Thank goodness he is able to employ humour and irony, even quoting his friend Salman Rushdie's comment that the problem with the title of his book god is Not Great was that "it lacked economy: that it was in other words exactly one word too long" (p.9).
One wonders how different his life and philosophy might have been if most of his encounters with Christianity during his formative years had not been so negative. The Christian school he was sent to was very strict and include copious amounts of corporal punishment; his grandfather was a "mirthless Calvinist patriarch with a dim view of everything from music to television" (p.33). His Mother ran off with an ex-Church of England Minister and then tragically committed suicide with him in a secret pact. When Hitchens went to Athens to identify her body and arrange her burial in an Anglican cemetery he had to bribe the priest because the latter refused to bury one who had taken their own life.
In the end Hitchens admits to many periods on his life when he emulates Bunyan's "Mr Facing-Both-Ways" (p.148), and this is the recurrent theme of the book. Hitchens is two-faced: he will dine in splendour as "Christopher" with the genteel set at Oxford then rush off as "Chris" to join a demo against oppression of the workers (p.102), he will obtain a scholarship under false pretences to travel to Cuba to investigate its form of socialism (p.111), he will woo a Nazi-sympathiser for a TV interview yet speak out for anti-fascism (p.142), he would write for mainstream papers and TV stations churning out what was required and then "sneak down to the East End" and edit the Socialist Worker.
In a sarcastic review in the Brisbane Times, author Peter Temple points out that all Hitchens' heroes eventually disappoint him; in the end, even friends become enemies. So, Hitchens has turned his sights on God:
The supreme being is, of course, Hitchens' ultimate assassination target. He appears to see him as a sort of cosmic public-school headmaster, the shadowy figure glimpsed at his study window who capriciously summons victims for canings, issues irrational commandments and promises the gullible boys a better life after school.
Like Hitchens' beloved Salman Rushdie, God will probably survive this fatwa. But he will know he has been in a fight.
In one of those moments which proves God has a sense of humour, the renowned atheist Hitchens discovers as an adult that he is a Jew. Even more ironic is the fact that his younger brother Peter is a right-wing Christian, who has written a book: The Moral Compass which made Christopher feel he should be wearing a necklace of garlic (p.405)!
I am not sure whether to recommend reading this book, except to understand how others evolve in their thinking.
