[quote]”The only position that leaves me with no cognitive dissonance is atheism. It is not a creed. Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.”
[i]The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer[/i][/quote]
Il 13 dicembre è morto Christopher Hitchens.
Intellettuale, scrittore, giornalista, uno dei miei personalissimi eroi.
I saluti di tre tra i suoi più cari amici:
[quote]Christopher Hitchens, finest orator of our time, fellow horseman, valiant fighter against all tyrants including God
[i]Richard Dawkins[/i][/quote]
[quote]Goodbye, my beloved friend. A great voice falls silent. A great heart stops. Christopher Hitchens, April 13, 1949-December 15, 2011.
[i]Salmand Rushdie[/i][/quote]
[quote]Goodbye, Christopher Hitchens. You were envied, feared, adored, reviled and loved. Never ignored. Never bested. A great and marvellous man
[i]Stephen Fry[/i][/quote]
Ha scritto molto, e bene, il suo Hitch-22 – a memoir è uno dei suoi libri più riusciti.
È controverso, non classificabile, intelligente, spaventosamente colto, crudele, sarcastico, feroce, spietato.
Mai ignorato, amato dai molti (intelligenti) e odiato da moltissimi (idioti).
Un vero pensatore libero.
Nel video d’apertura la prima delle due ore della tavola rotonda “The Four Horsemen”, con Richard Dakins, Daniel Dennett e Sam Harris.
Ecco la seconda parte:
Un buon modo per ricordarlo è citare alcune sue frasi deliziosamente feroci:
[quote]On Mother Teresa:
“(Mother Theresa) was a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud, and a church that officially protects those who violate the innocent has given us another clear sign of where it truly stands on moral and ethical questions.”
[i]Mommie Dearest[/i]
[/quote]
[quote]On homosexuality and adultery, etc:
“Nothing optional – from homosexuality to adultery – is ever made punishable unless those who do the prohibiting (and exact the fierce punishment) have a repressed desire to participate.”
[i]God Is Not Great[/i][/quote]
[quote]”I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information.”
[i]Hitch-22[/i][/quote]
[quote]“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”[/quote]
[quote]“Organised religion is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children.”
[i]God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything[/i][/quote]
Si è spenta la sua voce, ma non le sue idee.
Letture consigliate (tutte, ma specialmente):
1988 Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports. Hill and Wang (US)/Chatto and Windus (UK).
1990 The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain’s Favorite Fetish. Chatto & Windus, 1990.
1995 The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice. Verso.
2001 The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Verso.
2001 Letters to a Young Contrarian. Basic Books.
2002 Why Orwell Matters, Basic Books (US)/UK edition as Orwell’s Victory, Allen Lane/The Penguin Press.
2005 Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. Eminent Lives/Atlas Books/HarperCollins Publishers, ISBN 0-06-059896-4
2006 Thomas Paine’s “Rights of Man”: A Biography. Books That Shook the World/Atlantic Books, ISBN 1-84354-513-6
2007 God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA/Warner Books, ISBN 0446579807 / Published in the UK as God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion. Atlantic Books, ISBN 978-1-84354-586-6
2010 Hitch-22 Some Confessions and Contradictions: A Memoir . Hachette Book Group. ISBN 9780446540339 (published by Allen and Unwin in Australia in May 2010 with the shorter title: Hitch-22. A Memoir.) ISBN 978-1-74175-962-4
2011 Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens. Twelve. UK edition as Arguably: Selected Prose. Atlantic.
