A few weeks back, Margaret Atwood received The Hitchens Prize. Her acceptance speech was a fine and humorous one and these portions of it are worth providing to those who appreciate Hitchens-like thoughts.
Ms. Atwood describes being at a literary event at Hay-on-Wye which Hitchens attended and she argued with him, but,
“At least he didn’t accuse me of hurting his feelings, nor did I accuse him of hurting mine. Having feelings was not a thing back then. We would not have admitted to owning such marshmallow-like appendages, and if we did have any feelings, we’d have considered them irrelevant as arguments. Feelings are real—people do have them, I have observed—and they can certainly be plausible explanations for all kinds of behavior. But they are not excuses or justifications. If they were, men who murder their wives because they’re feeling cranky that day would never get convicted….
Hitch and I were both of an archaic generation that endorsed the basic principles of logic. We knew an ad hominem when we fell over one. We didn’t consider the factual truth of any given matter to be dispensable—or worse, to be some scoundrelly piece of propaganda cooked up by the opposing party. We both believed in a healthy society’s need for public debate, with testable evidence presented…
I expect Hitch would join me in a distinction I have been making lately: that between belief and truth. It’s a comment on our special times that I’d even feel I have to make this distinction. A belief cannot be either proved or disproved. If you wish to believe that invisible flower spirits are causing your string beans to grow, there is no point in my trying to dissuade you, because these entities are invisible and immaterial. Something proposed as a truth can, however, be put to the test. In recent years, people have confused beliefs with truths. From this confusion have come ideologies and dogmas—the characteristic of a dogma being that it’s proposed as an absolute truth and cannot be disputed, and if you try disputing it, you’ll be burned as a heretic.
The conclusion:
But, more immediately, there’s another important question the times we live in are asking us. That question is: What sort of political system should we choose? If it’s open democracy, we’ve got some work ahead of us. We must roll up our proverbial sleeves, grab our arrows of desire, sharpen the paring knives of our wits, dedicate our swords to the pursuit of truth, strengthen our resolve, resist the serpents of false argument, hop into our chariots of fire, and … Oh dear (or slightly stronger exclamation), cries the ghost of Christopher Hitchens. What a sack of mixed metaphors!
Yes, I know. But desperate times require desperate remedies, and our times are desperate. However, instead of all these chariots and swords, I’ll propose something simpler. Don’t panic. Think carefully. Write clearly. Act in good faith. Repeat.
From: "Your Feelings Are No Excuse: Emotions May Explain Why People Overreact, but They Don’t Justify It”, Margaret Atwood, Atlantic, April 1, 2022.
About The Hitchens Prize
Although I am a fan of Hitchens, I was unaware of The Hitchens Prize which was established in 2015 and awards $50,000 to ”the author or journalist whose work reflects a commitment to free expression and inquiry, a range and depth of intellect, and a willingness to pursue the truth without regard to personal or professional consequence".
The previous winners are:
2019 - George Packer, Journalist and Author
2018 - Masha Gessen, Journalist and Author
2017 - Graydon Carter, Editor
2016 - Marty Baron, Executive Editor of The Washington Post
2015 - Alex Gibney, Documentary Filmmaker
[the prize was not awarded during the ‘pandemic years’.]
The generous creators of the Hitchens Prize are the lawyer Dennis Ross and Victoria Ross, a writer and art historian, who founded The Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation. A portion of the “Mission” of the foundation is provided here:
“The Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation (DVRF) is a non-profit foundation organized and operated for educational purposes, including support for public debate and discussion on topics of current or historical importance, and the promotion of emerging artists working in the theater, film, music, and visual arts.
The Foundation is committed to the value of an educated and engaged public, and to that end plans to sponsor events featuring the work of authors or journalists whose work reflects open, honest, and critical inquiry, and a willingness to challenge or expand conventional wisdom. “
About Christopher Hitchens
I have already dedicated three posts to Hitchens and if you read them you will know that the use of "Resurrection" was an ironic one. He remains dead, but the ideas he exemplified can still be honoured and promoted. What it is about Hitchens that needs to be remembered is put well in this paragraph taken from The Dennis & Victoria Ross Foundation:
"Christopher Hitchens defied easy categorization, with interests that spanned the whole landscape of cultural and political topics, and views that crossed conventional fault lines and left him with no firm anchor to the left or right. The Prize, in any event, is not intended, if it were even possible, to identify writers who align closely with Christopher Hitchens, nor to celebrate his views in every particular. Rather, the Prize seeks to advance what he was dedicated to throughout his life: vigorous, honest, and open public debate and discussion, with no tolerance of orthodoxy, no reverence for authority, and a belief in reasoned dialogue as the best path to the truth."
Post Script:
For a current example of a case where Hitchen's analytical abilities and bravery could be useful, consider the word "Islamophobia." Earlier this month the government here in Ontario failed to pass Our London Family Act which was written by Muslim community leaders in reaction to a terrible event that occurred in London, Ontario. The subtitle of Bill 86 is "Working Together to Combat Islamophobia and Hatred." While the event was a horrible one and it is likely to be proved to have been motivated by hatred of Muslims or the Islamic faith, not all criticisms of Muslims or Islam need to be regarded as signs of "Islamophobia."
Also during this month an Angus Reid survey relating to religions was released and one of the headlines about it is: "Canadians Consider Religions More Damaging Than Beneficial." It revealed that all religious groups surveyed viewed evangelical Christianity as more damaging to society than beneficial, while Islam was also perceived in a largely negative light."
As far as I know, we don't talk about "Pentecostalphobia" and we should talk less about "Islamophobia." We should be allowed to be critical of any religion without being labelled "phobic."
Here is what Hitchens wrote fifteen years ago and I doubt if he would now change it:
"All over the non-Muslim world, we hear incessant demands that those who believe in the literal truth of the Quran be granted “respect.” We are supposed to watch what we say about Islam, lest by any chance we be considered “offensive.” A fair number of authors and academics in the West now have to live under police protection or endure prosecution in the courts for not observing this taboo with sufficient care. A stupid term—Islamophobia—has been put into circulation to try and suggest that a foul prejudice lurks behind any misgivings about Islam’s infallible “message.”
Sources:
The source for Atwood's speech is provided. See also: "Hitchens Remembered: On the Occasion of This Year's Hitchens Prize, A Look Back at Tributes to Christopher Hitchens by Atlantic Writers at the Time of His Death," by Cullen Murphy and Annika Neklason, Atlantic, Jan. 21, 2022.
My earlier posts about Hitchens are here: "The One and Only Hitch," "Christopher Hitchens" and "Mother Teresa." (A warning about the latter. To put it gently, Hitchens was not a fan.)
Hitchen's remark about "Islamophobia" is found in: "The War Within Islam: The Growing Danger of the Sunni-Shiite Rivalry," Slate, Feb. 19, 2007. Hitchens is not the only one critical of the term. See the entry for "Islamophobia" in Wikipedia where this is found: Atheist author and professor Richard Dawkins has criticised the term Islamophobia. He has argued that while hatred of Muslims is "unequivocally reprehensible" the term Islamophobia itself is an "otiose word which doesn't deserve definition. In 2015, along with the National Secular Society, he expressed opposition to a proposal by then Labour Party leader Ed Miliband to make Islamophobia an "aggravated crime". Dawkins stated that the proposed law was based on a term that is too vague, puts religion above scrutiny and questioned if such a law under the term Islamophobia hypothetically could be used to prosecute Charlie Hebdo or if he could be jailed for quoting violent passages from Islamic scripture on Twitter."
The Bonus:
Masha Gessen won The Hitchens Prize in 2018 and it was noted that her work is an urgent warning against authoritarian impulses, including in democratic countries. Her life testifies to the power of the written and spoken word as a force for justice and human rights, and as a bulwark against those who would constrain them."
She is a critic of Putin and the author of this recent article in The New Yorker. It is about Kyiv and more particularly, Babyn Yar, the spot where 33,000 Jews were executed in 1941. "Letter From Kyiv: The Memorial: A Holocaust Atrocity Was About to be Commemorated. Then Came Another War," April 18, 2022. The writing continues as do the atrocities.
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