Quote:
Originally Posted by sayulita
So all the accolades and essays that abounded in magazines, newspapers, blogs and journals both before and after his death were about a "mediocre journalist"? Everybody else is wrong and you alone have sussed out the imposter? Kudos to you, sir. The world owes you for pulling back the curtain on this man.
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Let's not turn "magazines, newspapers, blogs and journals" into "Everybody" and "the world". That's a real big stretch and an over-generalization of the biggest sort!
I'm not pulling back a curtain and I'm certainly not trying to say "OO look what I found! A secret about Hitchens!" It's not secret, and it's certainly not revolutionary or surprising (well, except to SOME fans) - Hitchens himself talks about how he researched his 'original' ideas:
When accused of scientific plagiarism, of which he was quite probably guilty, Sir Isaac Newton made the guarded admission - which was itself plagiarized - that he had in his work had the advantage of "standing on the shoulders of giants." It would seem only minimally gracious, in the first decade of the twenty-first century, to concede the same. As and when I wish, I can use a simple laptop to acquaint myself with the life and work of Anaxagoras and Erasmus, Epicurus and Wittgenstein. Not for me the poring in the library by candlelight, the shortage of texts, or the difficulties of contact with like-minded persons in other ages or societies.
(Hitchens, God is Not Great, p. 270, New York: Twelve, 2009)
Hitchens does't claim to offer anything original - in fact, the vast majority of his ideas have already been put forth by better thinkers than he. He simply had the incredible wit to be able to present them in a new form, in a best-selling book, using the writing skills he learned from his career as a journalist. I've said it before in this thread: I think he's a fantastic writer. I really do. I enjoy his prose. But, his ideas are not revolutionary, and he doesn't claim them to be. It is only some of his fans who are claiming this enormous status for him.
It appears that he was able to use Wikipedia just as much as any other person who doesn't feel like investing the required amount of time to truly understand a subject before commenting on it, or even going to the extreme of condemning it. You may disagree, and that's fine. There's a reason we have institutions of higher learning.
What was Hitchens' educational degree in?
(As a minor point against his research style - I am sitting here, typing out the quote from Hitchens FROM his actual book, which is sitting before me. I have a rather large library, with Hitchens in it, along with other Atheist?/Agnostic writers. I am not afraid of spending time poring over texts and tomes.)
The point is - as I said, he was journalist, his ideas were not very original, and he did a lot more of "standing on the shoulders of giants" than is normal. Usually, when one stands on the shoulders of giants, it's to take their ideas and then refashion them, evolve them, contribute to them - take them even further. Hitchens did not really do this - he wrote a popular book confusing the contents of the Bible with God, and that is all. He was a great writer, and I love his prose and wit - but I cannot place him up there with the "giants" he stood upon. And neither can anyone who reads him honestly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wade52
... thanks for sharing.  |
You're welcome. I didn't pick my username JUST because a box of said-candy was the first thing I spotted when trying to come up with a name.....
Oh wait - that's exactly how I picked it.
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There are those who will continue to parrot him' not realizing who the truly great minds were he was parroting from.
That's a real whopper...
