For some time I have considered Vanity Fair my favorite magazine. Excluding the excessively lengthy exposure of the Bernie Madoff scandal, the magazine provides an excellent blend of coverage on the issues of both politics and pop culture, topics that interest me greatly. As I flip through my issue every month, I find myself most enthralled with the writings of contributing editor Christopher Hitchens. As I set out to establish my identity on the blogosphere, I can only hope to emulate the work of this fifth best “public intellectual” so that one day, I too may earn the title.
Born in 1949 in Portsmouth, England, Christopher Hitchens attended Oxford University, where he earned a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. He started his career as a staff writer for The New Statesmen and soon began writing for London’s Evening Standard. After emigrating to the Unites States in 1981, Hitchens launched into 20 years of writing bi-weekly posts for The Nation. By 1992 he acquired the role of contributing editor for Vanity Fair. He continues to write a variety of articles for the Atlantic Monthly, Slate, The London Review of Books, Granta, Harper’s, New Left Review, Vogue, and many other publications. Hitchens also composed a number of critically acclaimed books including The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001), Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001), Why Orwell Matters (2002), and most recently God is Not Great (2007). His memoir, Hitch-22 Some Confessions and Contradictions, is due for publication in June of this year. Additionally, Hitchens also taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkley, the New School of Social of Social Research, and the University of Pittsburg.
Throughout his career, Hitchens has established himself as an especially witty, at times crude, polemicist. As his writing indicates, he has little fear of proposing contrarian positions to those held by the majority within Western society, whether it be his distaste for Henry Kissinger or organized religion. Although he writes with sophistication, it remains clear and simple to comprehend, unlike some of his philosophical contemporaries. He has accumulated a variety of recognitions, some of which he likely holds in higher regards than others.
For example, in January of 2009, Forbes magazine compiled a list of The 25 Most Influential Liberals in the U.S. Media. Alongside Andrew Sullivan, Matthew Yglesias , Fareed Zakaria, Thomas Friedman, and Paul Krugman Hitchens was ranked number 14:
Vociferously atheistic, Hitchens, who styles himself a “radical,” will likely be aghast to find himself on this list. This prolific, but never less than eye-catching, author has supported the war on terror as enthusiastically as he has excoriated Sarah Palin.
A ranking Hitchens likely prefers is one conducted by Prospect magazine and Foreign Policy for the Top 100 Public Intellectuals, where, as mentioned previously, Hitchens was ranked number 5. Given Hitchens penchant for oppositional commentary, esteemed University of Southern California Professor Stephen Mack would agree with Hitchens’ ranking as well. In a recently reposted blogpost, Mack expresses his belief that public intellectuals garner their title:
Only because learning the processes of criticism and practicing them with some regularity are requisites for intellectual employment. It’s what we [public intellectuals] do at our day jobs.
Look up again at Hitchens’ many publications. Being a public intellectual is clearly his day job. Mack’s article concludes with an insightful suggestion to the role and importance of a public intellectual:
The measure of a public intellectual work is not whether people are listening, but whether they’re hearing things worth talking about.
In a Vanity Fair web exclusive piece, Hitchens assesses the dangers of society overusing “The Other L-Word” (“like”). In this albeit more colloquial article, he addresses a fairly disconcerting shift in linguistics that is, in my opinion, “worth talking about.” Having taken a number of classes involving public speaking in college, I am shocked by the relentless use of filler words, such as “like” that impede the strength of any argument. Despite holding the distinguished title of “public intellectual,” Hitchens addresses this issue with every-day ease:
The actual grammatical battle was probably lost as far back as 1954, when Winston announced that its latest smoke “tasted good, like a cigarette should.” Complaints from sticklers that this should have been “as a cigarette should” (or, in my view, “as a cigarette ought to do”) were met by a second ad in which a gray-bunned schoolmarm type was taunted by cheery consumers asking, “What do you want, good grammar or good taste?” Usage of “like” has now almost completely replaced “as,” except in the case of that other quite infectious youth expression “as if,” which would now be in danger of being rendered “Like, as if.”
Here Hitchens does an excellent job of pulling together a seemingly obscure instance in history to form a broad template for understanding the current linguistic dilemma, a skill Hitchens masters time and time again in his work. The fluidity of Hitchens’ writing is certainly something to strive to emulate. In the end, I cannot help but want to be like (note the correct use) Christopher Hitchens.
Projections 