"Letters to a Young Contrarian"

[AValdoux]

Has anyone read this by Christopher Hitchens?

My daughter & I are feuding about this book. She wants me to read it. I have such a hate for Hitchens, I can't bring myself to read anything written by him. She is unaware of his stance on the war. When I recently sent her his quotes defending Chalabi posted to David Corn's blog. She told me I need to read more books and stay away from "blogger nonsense". She also informed be that "the internet has no checks & balances so it is impossible to get accurate information."

In my reply, I sent her links to Media Matters, she hates O'Reilly. I asked her who she wants to check & balance our info.
Rolling Stone had an article about how bloggers scooped the big news guys on Plame Gate. It mentions Huffington's, Washington Note & Raw Story. I sent her a link to that.
Also sent her a link to Juan Cole, in an earlier conversation she asked what was going on in Paris.
I also sent her a link from antiwar.com that list about fifty different international news services. I then told her she needs to get her nose out of philosphy books and educate herself about what is happening right now.

She's a bright kid, 21-yrs old. She spent time working with environmental groups in Austin, TX. She is saving up the money to move to London. Her plan in life is to write, her favorite author is Hunter S Thompson. She got a tattoo of his gonzo fist on her wrist when he died. How can she be reading Hitchens? I feel like such a failure.

AValdoux

[xchrom]

1. while i feel you re: hitchens.

read everything.
i read authors that i don't like so that i can better understand them.

but educating your daughter re: good bloggers and the extreme media society passes off as mainstream is a very, very good idea.

[dave29]

2. let her read him

I think it's important to understand every point of view, and decide for ones-self. It's never a good idea to tell people they can't read something. That just makes them want to read it more.

[AValdoux]

3. I guess I will have to read it

It will show I don't self-censor the information I disagree with. But why does it have to be Hitchens?


AValdoux

[pop goes the weasel]

4. he writes well, at least

But he is completely blinkered. He made his decision, for the sake of a few Kurdish people he knows, to support W no matter what. No matter that the official reasons for going to war had nothing to do with his Kurdish friends, no matter that conditions for the Kurds are not better and are in some ways worse, no matter that thousands of innocent people have died and that our nation is bankrupt and that the world as a whole is less safe. He made his decision and now everything he writes and says is aimed at trying to justify his complicity in lies and murder.

But still, read him. What he writes will be thrown at you by neo-cons and Bush worshippers as if it was logic, just because he writes well. Read him with a copy of your favorite book on rhetoric alongside. Look at it as an exercise with your daughter in philosophy.

[applegrove]

5. i used to like hitchens stuff - until he went over to the dark side. Still

you do need to read the opposite side's stuff to figure out why they are so nuts. Really important to read everything.

But maybe your daughter could find you some other author - more acceptable to you than Hitchens - if she wants you need to look at the other side for a bit.