Christopher Hitchens – in memoriam

”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.”
The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer

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:

Christopher Hitchens, finest orator of our time, fellow horseman, valiant fighter against all tyrants including God
Richard Dawkins

Goodbye, my beloved friend. A great voice falls silent. A great heart stops. Christopher Hitchens, April 13, 1949-December 15, 2011.
Salmand Rushdie

Goodbye, Christopher Hitchens. You were envied, feared, adored, reviled and loved. Never ignored. Never bested. A great and marvellous man
Stephen Fry

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:

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.”
Mommie Dearest

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.”
God Is Not Great

”I became a journalist partly so that I wouldn’t ever have to rely on the press for my information.”
Hitch-22

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”

“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.”
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

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.