Christopher Hitchens Quote
A note on language. Be even more suspicious than I was just telling you to be, of all those who employ the term we or us without your permission. This is another form of surreptitious conscription, designed to suggest that we are all agreed on our interests and identity. Populist authoritarians try to slip it past you; so do some kinds of literary critics (our sensibilities are enraged...) Always ask who this we is; as often as not it's an attempt to smuggle tribalism through the customs. An absurd but sinister figure named Ron Maulana Karenga—the man who gave us Ebonics and Kwanzaa and much folkloric nationalist piffle—once ran a political cult called US. Its slogan—oddly catchy as well as illiterate—was Wherever US is, We are. It turned out to be covertly financed by the FBI, though that's not the whole point of the story. Joseph Heller knew how the need to belong, and the need for security, can make people accept lethal and stupid conditions, and then act as if they had imposed them on themselves.
A note on language. Be even more suspicious than I was just telling you to be, of all those who employ the term we or us without your permission. This is another form of surreptitious conscription, designed to suggest that we are all agreed on our interests and identity. Populist authoritarians try to slip it past you; so do some kinds of literary critics (our sensibilities are enraged...) Always ask who this we is; as often as not it's an attempt to smuggle tribalism through the customs. An absurd but sinister figure named Ron Maulana Karenga—the man who gave us Ebonics and Kwanzaa and much folkloric nationalist piffle—once ran a political cult called US. Its slogan—oddly catchy as well as illiterate—was Wherever US is, We are. It turned out to be covertly financed by the FBI, though that's not the whole point of the story. Joseph Heller knew how the need to belong, and the need for security, can make people accept lethal and stupid conditions, and then act as if they had imposed them on themselves.
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About Christopher Hitchens
Hitchens's political views evolved greatly throughout his life. Originally describing himself as a democratic socialist, he was a member of various socialist organisations in his early life, including the Trotskyist International Socialists. He was critical of aspects of American foreign policy, including its involvement in Vietnam, Chile and East Timor. However, he also supported the United States in the Kosovo War. Hitchens emphasised the centrality of the American Revolution and Constitution to his political philosophy. Hitchens held complex views on abortion; being ethically opposed to it in most instances, and believing that a foetus was entitled to personhood, while holding ambiguous, changing views on its legality. He allegedly supported gun rights and supported same-sex marriage, while opposing the war on drugs. Beginning in the 1990s, and particularly after 9/11, his politics were widely viewed as drifting to the right, but Hitchens objected to being called conservative. During the 2000s, he argued for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, endorsed the re-election campaign of US President George W. Bush in 2004, and viewed Islamism as the principal threat to the Western world.
Hitchens described himself as an anti-theist and saw all religions as false, harmful, and authoritarian. He argued for free expression, scientific discovery, and the separation of church and state, arguing that they were superior to religion as an ethical code of conduct for human civilisation. Hitchens notably wrote critical biographies of Catholic nun Mother Teresa in The Missionary Position, President Bill Clinton in No One Left To Lie To, and American diplomat Henry Kissinger in The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Hitchens died from complications related to oesophageal cancer in December 2011, at the age of 62.