What does /lit/ think of this man?
I bet you don't like him because you're degenerates.
I love P. Hitchens, he's one of the only people in the British media who is unafraid to speak the truth, he's one of the few truly conservative people in public life. I've got to admit I prefer Douglas Murray and Melanie Philips; I really can't stand Hitchens' stance on foreign policy, he often sounds like a lefty when talking about the matter. Also his opinions are often directed at a sort of irrational hatred at the government whatever they do, even if what they are doing at the time is good.
>>7897641
https://youtu.be/L8ZIguWXo7k?t=852
based
>>7897667
go to 14 min
Which of his books are worth reading?
He's a 19th century radical trapped in the 21st century. Rage against God is a nice personal story of a man that grows out of his edgy leftist fedora phase.
Roger Scruton is better reading than Hitchens. Both are still lame ducks compared to Jonathan Bowden who was the unGodly abortion of /lit/ and /pol/
>"Bowden on Ezra Pound"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOmuHs5-rJE
>"Wyndham Lewis-A British Modernist Life"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVx67nfFmAo
>"Bill Hopkins-An Anti-Humanist Life"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcMHMSDXoT0&nohtml5=False
>"George Orwell,1984 & Totalitarianism"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yaf1192EZfI
>>7897728
Bowden is too much of a nutter for me
I like him up until he talks about weed. Be anti-drug for all I care but he seems to think Reefer Madness was a real-life documentary.
I love p hitchens. Hes a true burkean conservative. The kind that was very common in Canada as well pre-1965 (socially conservative/fiscally liberal). They don't really exist anymore though since conservative = fiscally conservative/socially liberal now. Old red-torys weren't like that and started a lot of social/national programs.
>>7897665
>Melanie Phillips
Let's be serious here anon
>>7897678
To be honest he is a better orator than writer. Other Anon is right, read Roger Scruton instead.
>>7897789
U are an idiot do you know what liberal means? Hint it's not conservative. P Hitchens is fiscally and socially conservative you mong.
>>7897799
Hitchens is in favour of a welfare state: the national railway, the NHS, and other social programs. He supports all of these. He's fiscally liberal, socially conservative.
>>7897641
I like him.
I wonder why he became a conservative, considering his brother's beliefs.
>>7897793
No reason to dislike Philips unless you're a total moron indoctrinated by the left
>>7897809
He' very much anti-welfare and the NHS, do you even know what you're talking about? The only one he's been openly in favor of is nationalizing the railway.
>>7897931
As far as I'm aware, he's not against the NHS as a principle, but it's current form in modern Britain.
>>7897931
He has stated plainly and openly that he believes in having a welfare state. A safety net for every citizen. Plus all the social/national services. I don't know what Peter hitchens your thinking of lad
>>7897641
I think I compared him to Diomedes or Calchas, depending on what subject he's ruling on, and how triumphal he feels in that moment.
He can be very creepy indeed, but I don't mind him as a journalist.
>>7897925
This; I don't even agree with him that often, but his viewpoint's interesting to see
>>7897728
I love Bowden too
>>7897757
>[spree killing happens]
>I wonder how long it will be before we discover that the killer was a habitual user of the so-called "soft drug" cannabis?
>>7897757
>he smokes the herbal jew
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuOlNne_qs4
The last sane man on earth.
>>7899379
This could only be said by a man who is fairly unaware of what idea have been espoused
he's got a strange obsession with marijuana. not that i personally think its totally harmless either, but he attributes its use to just about every societal ill you could come up with. otherwise i think he's generally pretty well reasoned
He seems to be the only right wing figure that the left like; I would say he has a lot in common with the British left (terrorism is the result of our foreign policy, government is responsible for all ills in society etc.). Like someone else said he's socially conservative but fiscally liberal. I would call him a confused conservative (not a real conservative).
>>7897728
I could listen to Bowden all day even though I disagree with him on many things.
>>7899416
Slavoj Zizek says the same.
>>7897641
Realized he's a jew, don't trust him anymore.
>>7899485
No, that's actually how conservative ideology works, especially if you are a Christian, and even more if you are Catholic.
Fiscal liberalism (which is the capitalist, private approach of Locke, Hayek, Frech and American revolutions) isn't a part of being conservative.
>>7899379
Dan Savage is such a degenerate
>>7897728
Scruton has utterly horrible aesthetic taste, he completely rejects all the good things with the bad of modernism and postmodernism and in their place holds an idealised past, where no-one created anything ugly.
He is also too self regarding which causes him to be misinformed and uninclined to new ideas.
he's an entertaining and sometimes correct commentator but not really a serious philosopher
really hopes he goes postal on a panel show and just straight up turns Owen Jones' face into mush while Laurie Penny screams helplessly in the background
I somewhat like him but I think his desire for a return to the Victorian era is beyond stupid
I'm not straw-manning him I swear, he literally says at one point that he'd like a return of Victorian England
>>7899735
He doesn't want to return to the past. He had stated this repeatedly. He doesn't want it because it's an impossible fantasy to go back. Hence his eternal pessimism
>>7899555
Burke, literally *the* gold standard of conservatism, was a classical liberal. Carl Schmitt, so supported National Socialism to speed on the second coming of Christ because he was such a devout conservative Catholic, also endorsed market liberalism.
You >muh cathedral reactionary memesters need to fuck off and stop pretending you know what conservatism is.
>>7897809
he once has said that he's still a socialist as he was as a teen, only with the difference that he now believes in a christian god and therefore is socially conservative
>>7900501
Murrica
>>7899932
I mean victorian policy/morality/etc
>>7900501
Schmitt was not a Catholic, he lost his faith and was an atheist.
>>7900501
>Carl Schmitt, so supported National Socialism to speed on the second coming of Christ because he was such a devout conservative Catholic,
fucking hell, atheists will themselves anything
>>7901065
O look, a butthurt Catholic who knows absolutely nothing about Carl Schmitt. Thanks for dropping by!
>>7901065
Embarrassing
>>7897667
brought a tear to my eye
>>7899447
I feel like he's annoyed and skeptical at how everyone seems to have reached a consensus on marijuana being toooootally harmless. Which is a fair position, the wider and long term effects of a marijuana prevalent society is something that needs to be explored.
Once society changes, it's incredibly hard to reverse any harmful consequences, at least without appealing to authoritarianism.
>>7899735
He laments that morals have decayed in the modern world and sincerely hopes, even though he realises that it's impossible, that society returns to its former upstanding moral fidelity.
>>7899447
Marijuana is degenerate and the vast majority of people that use it regularly are huge fucking losers that society would be better off without.
>>7899379
>another one of those programs where a single conservative against a liberal panel and a liberal audience is brought out to maintain the laughable illusion of being impartial
props to Hitchens
>>7902419
does it cause people to become losers or is it more likely to be used by losers?
>>7897641
I share his pain, so there's that.
>>7902425
Both. Most recent studies haven't exactly been positive on the long term effects either.
>>7897667
16:35, dat babe.
>>7902425
could it not be both?
>>7897641
good speaker, bad writer.
pity he doesn't have his brother's keen instinct for polish
>>7902620
reading his articles is a chore, which is a shame because he is like you say a great speaker.
>>7902620
He stutters when he speaks. He isn't a good speaker. But he is a good BTFOer of left-wing degenerate nonsense, phony outrage, and cossetted TV stars like Matthew Perry and the Alleged Comedian in the Hat.
>>7902686
>it's a Peter is a leftist who wants the government to run the economy column
he listened a lot to his autistic little brother and realized islam is a cancer on Britain
if I like Peter Hitchens who else would I like? Roger Scruton is fine but I don't think modern art is that horrendous as he does, his view is limited to radio pop music and it just rubs me in the wrong way seeing how self assured he is in his ignorance of it.
>>7902777
peter is the younger brother.
>moderate-Whig meets the millennials
https://youtu.be/nSnNZ_SdLcY?t=48m20s
>"that's victim blaming"
>"installing rape culture"
>mfw
>>7897728
Bowden is great
>>7902797
David Starkey is great on Question Time. Douglas Murray and Rod Liddle are always worth a read in the Spectator. Across the pond I always keep an eye on Pat Buchanan and I love Gavin McInnes as a much younger and more transgressive kind of Tory Anarchist whose diagnosis of social decay is very amusing even if he is a drug-abusing alcoholic sexual deviant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OlmKXbMQfc
>>7899209
Co-relation and causation, matey. To your homework.
>>7902917
I'm from a 99.9% white country and racism is cool when you see bown people like this
>>7903137
where do you live and how can I move there
His brother was better.
>>7902917
God the white faggot is so obnoxious
>>7903155
Christopher hitchens, based god.
ironically, secular conservatives get regularly BTFO by him because he repeatedly emphasizes that he doesn't understand how anyone who isn't christian would want to be a conservative
i have some respect for him because at least he's fairly consistent with his beliefs
but it boils so much down to muh morality muh religion
and of course the usual boring suspects get brought up douglas 'i cant understand why middle easterners might not like us bombing them' murray, roger 'muh aesthetics' scruton
just skip them, read burke if you have to and a basic intro to art (greeks and renaissance) in particular and you don't need to pay attention to them
at least the likes of bowden and (again the always mentioned but never really read) evola have something more interesting to say
people really do need to read more wyndham lewis
>>7897641
As a casual drug user, I take offense at the fact that he hates freedom.
>>7903188
it's not that he hates freedom, he just thinks drugs are harmful
>>7903199
He doesn't. He denies the existence of drug addiction and thinks the use of drugs is always a choice. He just doesn't want you to take them because God and Morality
>>7903216
Good reasons
>>7903216
>He just doesn't want you to take them because God and Morality
wrong, but even if he did espouse those views what's so wrong with that?
>>7903159
46:00 mark, the guy is doing that thing that certain """"liberals""""" do
>"so you're saying [misrepresentation]?"
>>7903330
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDA819BJTtg&nohtml5=False&ab_channel=PatrioticPopulist
The fag is in here again and it's absolutely disgusting. It's like reading Dostoevsky or Flannery O'Connor, the people make me sick.
And they used to say that gay marriage isn't about destruction of the institution, but now it's commonly accepted and marriage really has been destoryed and the schizoid paranoics were right.
>>7903217
how is taking drugs immoral? inb4 categorical imperative
>>7903155
>>7903166
>>7903188
pfft enjoy hell, kiddo
>>7899379
I like Peter but he was utter garbage in that. Dan Savage was insufferable (and pathetically unfunny) but at least he had ONE bit where he properly expounded on his beliefs and it made a fair amount of sense.
This is the main frustration I have with Peter - he assumes that because his opinions are so far off the chart, it is sufficient that he merely state them rather than actually expand on how he arrived there.
he's pretty easily the best popular media personality in the english speaking world.
>>7902727
>it's a Peter is a leftist who wants the government to run the economy column
these are the best. economically leftist and socially/culturally conservative is the only sensible ideological position.
I don't believe in God, hence he and I agree on almost nothing, but nevertheless I like him and I'm glad he exists. He is very coherent and consequent in his views and I enjoy listening to him since he's a good and entertaining speaker (indeed not as good as his brother, but still)
>>7903149
Slav country. It's shit because of the communists and the neocons that excange each other, but hey at least there's no muslims.
>>7903382
Both that and virtue ethics since they break the imperative and lead to something other than a blessed life. Basically contradictory to all ethic systems that make sense.
>>7903419
He isn't a utilitarian so it's quite hard to explain when you have a thousand screaming progressives in the same room. I don't suppose they'd care to listen about Belloc, Chesterton, Burke, Kant, Aquinas, Plato, Aristotle or something similar.
>>7903451
> economically leftist and socially/culturally conservative is the only sensible ideological position.
What is this position called? Where can I find out more? I approach this position and interests me but almost no one I know exhibits it...maybe Jim Webb.
>>7903500
Communitarianism might be the closest bet
>>7903500
it's essentially non-represented in the english speaking world. some of the european 'new right' parties are pretty close, like the FN (the philippot wing of the party), danish people's party, finns party, etc. other 'new right' european parties like UKIP or AfD are more neo-liberal conservative but just dislike illegal immigration more than most or have more patriotic sentiments than most.
>>7903505
Distrubutionism of Chesterton and Belloc maybe?
>>7903517
>more neo-liberal conservative
Isn't that, by-definition, non-left economics?
>>7903531
depends where
it's certainly not the catholic right wing type
free market yes, neo cons no
>>7900501
Schmitt did not support market liberalism, it was one of the primary evils he railed against for its universalism
>>7903531
neoliberal economics are right wing, that's what im saying, parties like UKIP or AfD are more right-wing economically in combination with being more socially conservative whereas other new right parties like the finns, some segments of the FN are economically somewhat leftist (at least supportive of a strong welfare state for natives) while also being culturally/socially conservative.
>>7899485
Stop using your retarded American terms. Liberal does not mean social democrat.
>>7903481
what's worse, slav shithole or WE country with muslimes?
>>7903451
>culture should be the product of spontaneous tradition that develops over many generations and should not be manipulated by the government
>government should pick winners and losers in the economy though because that's logical
Stop calling yourself a conservative, commie.
>>7903597
Then why did he make a speech to business leaders on November 23 1932 in which he explicitly stated his preference for a market economy and endorsed the liberal economic policy of the German government?
>>7903760
>Why did he support the Nazies then? They were socialists after all.
He opposed the ascension of Adolf Hitler and experienced a long period of depression before joining the party opportunistically. He was cast out of the centre of power within three years when his Catholicism and lack of ideological purity was discovered. He only avoided execution because of his friendship with Johannes Popitz, who had joined the higher ranks of the Nazi party by that point.
>>7903481
Not every drug user is a self-destroying addict, just as most people who drink beer or an ocassional scotch aren't alcoholics.
I don't see how rational drug use is in breach of virue ethics.
Indeed, drugs have sometimes helped me on the road to a more blessed life. MDMA made me more joyous and open in my sober life. Psychedelics helped me to stop wasting as much time on pointless things in my sober life. Some of my drug use is just a pleasant way to kill time, but I hardly see any severe problems with that when there are no permanent ill effects.
>>7903517
Dane here. Our people's party is de facto economically right-wing. Only the right-wing want to cooperate with them, and the compromise has consistently been that they've given up the economic leftism in favor of instating their cultural conservatism. Even if the combination of economic leftism and cultural conservatism does exist on paper, it cannot fully manifest in the current political climate.
>>7903714
>Yet it remains self-evident that liberalism’s negation of state and the political, its neutralizations, depoliticalizations, and declarations of freedom have likewise a certain political meaning, and in a concrete situation these are polemically directed against a specific state and its political power. But this is neither a political theory nor a political idea. Although liberalism has not radically denied the state, it has, on the other hand, neither advanced a positive theory of state nor on its own discovered how to reform the state, but has attempted only to tie the political to the ethical and to subjugate it to economics. It has produced a doctrine of the separation and balance of powers, i.e., a system of checks and controls of state and government. This cannot be characterized as either a theory of state or a basic political principle.
Liberals (especially the American Neocon variety) love to appropriate Schmitt's work into economic liberalism but he speaks for himself here. The economy must be subject to the sovereign state, not the other way about. His authoritarianism is intrinsically opposed to free market economics which recognises no borders
>>7903844
He isn't talking about market liberalism in that quote though. You really have no clue what you're talking about.
>>7903849
>an economic sphere that belongs to the public interest and should not be seen as separate from it. Still, this is a non-state domain that can be organised and administered by these same business agents, as it happens in any genuine autonomous administration (Schmitt in Cristi 1998: 225-6).
Schmitt asserts that the establishment of an autonomous economic administration, which is an intermediate sphere between economic activity and public interest, is indispensable in the creation of a new order. His proposal is for the establishment of an economic administration is an attempt for an ‘economic constitutionalism’ that treats the market as a constitutional order with rules, institutions and procedures and with the principal purpose of insulating a range of economic institutions and activities from democratic politics. This is completely against the ideals of economic liberalism
>>7903793
>Not every drug user is a self-destroying addict, just as most people who drink beer or an ocassional scotch aren't alcoholics.
Beer isn't drank to get high. Beer has taste and is food. Drugs on the other hand aren't consumed for anything else outside their narcotic influence. And unlike beer, drugs for the most part lead to more drugs and lead people into bad company. It's not only the drug, it's the type of people that goes with it as well.
>I don't see how rational drug use is in breach of virue ethics.
Drug use is never rational, unless we're speaking medical.
>Indeed, drugs have sometimes helped me on the road to a more blessed life.
I doubt it. In fact I straight out deny it. Assuming you know what a blessed life is.
>MDMA made me more joyous and open in my sober life. Psychedelics helped me to stop wasting as much time on pointless things in my sober life.
You just waste it on other useless things now.
>Some of my drug use is just a pleasant way to kill time, but I hardly see any severe problems with that when there are no permanent ill effects.
Same reason getting drunk is bad.
Peter Hitchens is a very persuasive speaker. After listening to him I'm much more sceptical about legalising cannabis and now believe that imperial units are superior to metric for casual day to day use. I also now believe that the New Labour project was pure evil and irrevocably changed this country for the worse.
He does however have a terrible habit of blurting out outrageous things when he gets frustrated simply because he quite enjoys the outrage of his opponents and loves being in a room where everyone disagrees with him. I wish I had that courage, I don't think I could stand being the only right-wing pundit in a panel full of guardian columnists time after time.
>>7903849
>Although liberalism has not radically denied the state, it has, on the other hand, neither advanced a positive theory of state nor on its own discovered how to reform the state, but has attempted only to tie the political to the ethical and to subjugate it to economics.
....right
>>7903869
No that is literally market liberalism. Market liberals never promote lawlessness.
Schmitt clearly is not advocating the kind of state control of industry that you and the other Hitchens fuqbois are promoting.
>>7903882
How about reading the actual book in full? He isn't talking about market liberalism in that passage and any claim that he is would be remarkably dishonest.
>>7903893
He sounds interesting.
May look into him some time this year.
>>7903886
I don't care for Hitchens
Which "market" are you talking about here? In Schmitt's famous words are "Strong state, free economy", an authomous economic administration that separate the state and individual, where non-state and public interest intersects. Economic liberalism tries to free itself from the confines of the state, what is clear is that schmitt see's it as ultimately subordinate to it. What he does not advocate is the logical conclusion of the free market, a globe with no barriers to capital
>Market liberals never promote lawlessness
Marke liberals advocate laws that serve the interests of the free market. Neoliberal economics is all about the state oiling the machinery of the Global economy to ensure stability
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMcQddzH3Ug
>>7903941
>Economic liberalism tries to free itself from the confines of the state, what is clear is that schmitt see's it as ultimately subordinate to it.
*Ultimate* subordination but not constant subordination. Central to Schmitt's thinking is the exceptional and decisive case. All things are subordinate to the state in the exceptional case, but primarily because they must be to maintain order and provide a normal situation for the preservation of legal norms. This kind of qualitiative totalitarianism is antithetical to the quantitative totalitarianism that big government leftists like Peter Hitchens advocate, where the state takes control of swathes of industry as par for course.
>>7903980
I understand but he only advicated capitalism that is ultimately confined within the state, he said all activities that marginalise the state was disasterous. the new left love him precisely because he never stopped railing against the capitalist imperialism of liberal globalisation
>>7903878
Rational as in minimizing harm and negative effects.
I quit videogames, pornography and the vast majority of my mindless internet use due to psychedelics, and spend most of my time reading instead now.
But I do have a couple of questions for you.
What does and what doesn't constitute a waste of time?
What exactly do you mean when you talk of the blessed life? I'll admit my understanding of virue ethics isn't particularly deep.
Why is getting drunk bad?
>>7903879
Care to paraphrase his arguments against legalizing cannabis?
He's really fucking butthurt about the Soviet Union
>>7904028
Drugs...drugs are bad, mmmm'kay?
Theodore Dalrymple is better to be honest
>>7904318
his book on the ghettos etc. was pretty fucking enlightening
I really really like Peter Hitchens and have read and watched his stuff a lot. He correctly points out the huge lie aobut there ever being a war on drugs in the UK and he points out that it is treated with kid gloves. That's not to say I fully agree with him but he does cut through the bullshit you hear.
He's really great to watch but if you put a gun to my head to make me tell the truth: does he really offer any view other than "muh 50s"? It's like watching /pol/'s idyllic view of the past when you see him. Who cares?
Maybe it's because I'm going through an existential crisis, but what's the damn point of complaining about everything like he does? I'm happy for him that he won't live to see transhumanism stuff. I think he took up Christianity because there's nothing better to do.
>>7904028
Basically that there's considerable evidence and correlations between cannabis use and mental illness/general indolence
>>7904028
I'm not representing Hitchens but be srs, we never hear substantial arguments against it.
Why should I want cannabis legalised in the UK when we have socialised healthcare and I'll have to pay extra taxes for other peoples' healthcare? People talk a lot about "Do what you want as long as it doesn't affect others" but this won't be the case for cannabis.
>>7903500
It's called the busybody economically illiterate state moralist position.
>>7904566
If that's your problem then you can always push for an exception.
>>7904318
wonderful
>>7903683
Now: WE w/ Muslims > Slavland
In 100 years: Greater Polish Commonwealth > Eurabia.
>>7897795
Ah, like my good friend Hitler.
I agree with him about everything but drugs, and I don't even do drugs.
>>7904552
>I think he took up Christianity because there's nothing better to do.
He frequently tells the story of his conversion. Look it up. He was a Trot before. So I hardly think it originated in pure boredom.
>>7897665
>hates his foreign policy
Don't be a cuckservative m8
Watch this where he BTFO some kid on the Libyan intervention
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywqDSM1nFTo
>>7904028
that the willingness of the public to demand a cannabis prevalent society is something we should be rightly wary of, and that the long term, wider effects of cannabis is something that needs to be explored first
