Letters to a Young Contrarian (Art of Mentoring (Paperback))

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But what made me personally allergic, each roseate dawn, was the large sign posted at the point where footwear had to be discarded. But I'm back in Saturnine dude's asteroid belt, the not-always-yes-man of a gravity-fed, dissent-spouting, impossibly well-read Oxbridge wit.

You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. One minute I was baffled, the next minute a light bulb (or fire, so as not to be anachronistic) went on and the cave was illuminated. Letters to a Young Contrarian is Christopher Hitchens' contribution, released in 2001, to the Art of Mentoring series published by Basic Books. First, there's reading it as an inspirational tract on living a life of contrariness and dissent and all the baggage that comes with such a life. From a way of being radical it very swiftly became a way of being reactionary; the Clarence Thomas hearings demonstrated this to all but the most dense and boring and selfish, but then, it was the dense and boring and selfish who had always seen identity politics as their big chance.In short, here's a guy who has seen more than you or your most well traveled friend ever will and has everything to say about it. I was particularly taken by the self-reflective and often humble tone of the book, as well as the beautiful simplicity and inescapable logic of the advice Hitchens offers on the subject o

And while this was by no means a chore to read, there were instances where I wished Hitchens would drop his academic facade and simply explain what the hell he was talking about. Such cultural debasement would have appalled the man, as we can tell from his book of letters which contains the following advice to young people: "Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. The protagonist Jimmy Porter is going through one of his self-regarding soliloquies when he exclaims, rather tellingly for once, that there are "no more good, brave causes left". Force them to say what they really mean, and deflate false gradations with the art of “simple… elementary principles”.Wrong for the Right Reasons might best sum up his position in these years, as perhaps it always did, even during his time as a Trotskyist agitator in the 60's. Hitchens was also a political observer, whose best-selling books — the most famous being God Is Not Great — made him a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits.

Inspired by his students in New York, and by hundreds of others on campuses where he spoke and lectured, Letters to a Young Contrarian reads like a commencement address to a graduating class at Berkley or NYU.

In my humble opinion, that is what the man would've desired to see in a young contrarian (feel free to disagree with me though). I imagine most readers of the canonical sheet have long ceased to notice this bannered and flaunted symbol of its mental furniture. As the great Eugene Debs used to tell his socialist voters in the 1912 election campaign, he would not lead them into a Promised Land even if he could, because if they were trusting enough to be led in, they would be trusting enough to be led out again. However, I promise you that if you take him at his word, at eye level, and come at it honestly, your thinking is going to be much richer for it.