How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment

by Matt Johnson

Christopher Hitchens was for many years considered one of the fiercest and most eloquent left-wing polemicists in the world. But on much of today’s left, he’s remembered as a defector, a warmonger, and a sellout—a supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who traded his left-wing principles for neoconservatism after the September 11 attacks.

In How Hitchens Can Save the Left , Matt Johnson argues that this easy narrative gets Hitchens exactly wrong. Hitchens was a lifelong champion of free inquiry, humanism, and universal liberal values. He was an internationalist who believed all people should have the liberty to speak and write openly, to be free of authoritarian domination, and to escape the arbitrary constraints of tribe, faith, and nation. He was a figure of the Enlightenment and a man of the left until the very end, and his example has never been more important.

Over the past several years, the liberal foundations of democratic societies have been showing signs of structural decay. On the right, nationalism and authoritarianism have been revived on both sides of the Atlantic. On the left, many activists and intellectuals have become obsessed with a reductive and censorious brand of identity politics, as well as the conviction that their own liberal democratic societies are institutionally racist, exploitative, and imperialistic. Across the democratic world, free speech, individual rights, and other basic liberal values are losing their power to inspire.

Hitchens’s case for universal Enlightenment principles won’t just help genuine liberals mount a resistance to the emerging illiberal orthodoxies on the left and the right. It will also remind us how to think and speak fearlessly in defense of those principles.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Journalism, History

424 pages, Paperback

Published February 14, 2023

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Reviews

[Adrian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really interesting read. Johnson explores Hitchens politics and principles, how they evolved over time and their relevance for now.

Johnson spends much of the book exploring Hitchens support for the Iraq war and how it squares with his other political positions. Johnson is able to identify some of Hitchens short-comings, particularly when he put too much stock in the ability and willingness of liberal democracies and their forces to establish democracy in the middle east.

I learned a lot from the book, and found it to be a pretty clear read. Recommend it for anyone who has an interest in contemporary politics and geopolitics.

[Cody Pritchard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has served as a bit of an antidote to the general disillusionment I've been suffering with. Where do I fall on the sociopolitical spectrum in our current day and age? I've always deeply admired Hitchens' work, and Matt Johnson does a splendid job refuting any idea that Christopher wasn't a bleeding-heart liberal until his passing. I count myself as a bleeding-heart liberal but admit that I've fooled myself into believing I'm a centrist due to a loss of identity.

Identity politics seem to rule both the far left and right's conversations these days - rooting and maybe even regressing us deeper into tribalism. While there has always been something creeping under the surface, it has been impossible for me not to recognize the ivory walls of nationality, religion, race, gender, and sexual preferences that continue to build higher and silo humans from themselves. This book reminds us that liberal democracies after WW2 created an unparalleled time of peace and prosperity in the modern age. And while there always have been detractors and bigots, the foundations of this prosperity are based upon secularism and human universalism.

Non-interventionism has also become pervasive on both sides of the aisle; in the form of anti-imperialism with the far-left, and the form of "America First" rhetoric (see Charles Lindbergh, Pat Buchanan, Donald Trump). There is a point to be made about the self-loathing of the anti-imperialist attitude. Is there not some responsibility on the superpowers of the world to help uphold order and maintain basic human rights? Corruption (especially in the financial form) can masquerade as "maintaining the order" undoubtedly, but shouldn't we continue to attempt to filter that democratically? Most of the attitude toward anti-imperialism is at least admissible until it starts to manifest as cognitive dissonance on the imperial actions of our non-allies and foes (ie, US aid for Ukraine). "America First" has its roots in the early '40s and was associated with nazi sympathizers and nationalists. Turns out that when we decided to put internationalism and a degree of universalism first in WW2, it resulted in huge amounts of prosperity.

This all was a reminder to me that old-school liberalism isn't dead, it is just a bit lost right now. Hopefully, we can create a shift where things like free speech are a value again aligned with the left. Where patriotism is applauded while still firmly rooted in internationalism. Where humanism is more important than individualistic interests.

[Matt Berkowitz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fantastic read for two main reasons:

1) Matt Johnson gives an impressively comprehensive run-down of Hitchens’ intellectual contributions and positions throughout his illustrious career.

2) The book is one of the best recent defenses of Enlightenment principles: universalism (a concern for others beyond national interests), liberal democracy, scientific rationality, and secular humanism.

There are only six main chapters in the book, with a brief, seventh, concluding chapter to tie things up. What follows is a chapter-by-chapter run-down of what I took to be the main themes.

Chapter 1 describes Hitchens’ fierce defense of free speech and what Johnson calls “First Amendment absolutism” (not free speech absolutism, since there are cases where speech/expression does have to be curtailed). Hitchens was remarkably consistent throughout his life in his defense of free speech, especially for the most unsavoury of characters (e.g., the holocaust denier/“revisionist”, David Irving). Johnson summarizes: “As Hitchens demonstrates, if you’re opposed to laws against blasphemy, you can also be opposed to laws against Holocaust denial. You can fight censorship from the left and the right at the same time. The real test of your adherence to a principle is whether you affirm it in the tough cases—when other values are at stake and the pressure to make an exception is strongest. If you abandon the principle in those cases, to what extent did you believe in it at all?” (p. 46).

One of the catalyzing moments for Hitchens was the response—both from the Islamic world and the liberal West—to the publishing of Salmon Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. The Islamic world issued a fatwa on Rushdie’s life, and the liberal West cowered. Many bookstores pulled the book, and many if not most commentators failed to defend Rushdie’s right to satirize Islam—a pattern we’ve seen repeated all too often: after Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of Muhammed, and the tragic attacks on the French satirical magazine headquarters, Charlie Hebdo.

“The fatwa was a galvanizing event for Hitchens. It synthesized and exposed many of the deepest problems with what he saw as complacent Western liberalism: its susceptibility to theocratic bullying under the cloak of multiculturalism; its unwillingness to take a firm position even when the two “sides” couldn’t be clearer; and most of all, its touch-and-go commitment to free speech” (p. 20).

Chapter 2 focuses on identity politics and political correctness. Johnson convincingly shows how Hitchens would almost surely have been opposed to the present wave of social justice hysteria, as evidenced by Hitchens’ staunch opposition to identity-based politics. This opposition was obvious through his commitment to universalism (and his enthusiasm for the European Union) and his opposition to religion. As Johnson explains, “Hitchens believed a liberal society shouldn’t tolerate the idea that race, national origin, or any other superficial characteristic should give anyone a special platform in the public square” (p. 52).

Chapter 3 recounts the numerous ways in which Hitchens departed from his contemporary lefties and thus paid a reputational price for adopting positions considered heretical by his old “team”. But Johnson does a persuasive job of showing how, whether you agree with Hitchens’ positions or not, the principles that Hitchens used to argue for his positions were consistently applied.

Chapter 4 continues this theme by elaborating on the most glaring example of Hitchens departing from his left-wing contemporaries: his support for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which were seen as contemptuous moves. Whether or not one agrees with Hitchens though, Johnson explains that it’s important to view Hitchens’ positions as principled and reasoned, rather than ideological and dogmatic. Hitchens’ support for the Iraq war in particular was due to Hitchens being fed up with the US cooperating with a murderous dictator that flagrantly violated fundamental principles of international law, not to mention gross moral violations against his own people. Hitchens tried—perhaps unsuccessfully but still intellectually seriously—to view the situation counterfactually: what would have happened in Iraq if the US had not intervened? It is now politically and socially unfashionable to attempt to countenance the Iraq war, but Hitchens didn’t care about being popular. This chapter was quite illuminating and provided informative context to Hitchens’ defense of such wars.

Chapter 5 discusses Hitchens’ consistent anti-authoritarianism as one of the foundations of his many positions—and attempts (I think, successfully) to show how his support of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were a function of his anti-authoritarianism rather than a departure from it. Johnson argues persuasively that Hitchens would have almost certainly been a staunch critic of Trump/Trumpism, despite some cynical and ill-informed hot takes to the contrary (e.g., by Matt Yglesias).

“With the international socialist movement in decline and market-based neoliberal systems seemingly triumphant around the world, many on the left made resistance to American hegemony their central cause. They didn’t regard solidarity against oppression and violence as a good in and of itself—it had to be filtered through the prism of opposition to the United States (and to a lesser extent, other Western countries). This hasn’t just led to an attenuated and impotent form of internationalism on the left—it has warped left-wing thought and discourse, which is why today’s “anti-imperialist” left is often indistinguishable from the isolationist right” (p. 213).

Chapter 6’s central point is, in my reading, as follows (particular the italicized part): “Hitchens’s observation that the United States had good reasons to intervene in Afghanistan “even if it was not in our interests” mirrored the point he made about Bosnia—if America refused to defend a secular European republic as it was shelled and ethnically cleansed by a neighbor, it might as well slash the defense budget and stop pretending to be a superpower. Hitchens wanted to live in a world that took the concept of an international community seriously, which meant powerful countries like the United States should be obligated to use their resources to deter aggression and prevent suffering” (p. 264).

However, many on the “anti-imperialist” left didn’t interpret Hitchens’ positions or the US’s role this way. “You could interpret Hitchens’s support for regime change policies as an expression of imperialism and militarism, or you could view it as impatience with a status quo that left tens of millions of people at the mercy of brutal dictatorships for decades” (p. 266).

In the end, it’s possible—and, arguably, intellectually necessary—to acknowledge both the US’s many foreign policy blunders and its vital role in propagating universalism throughout the world.

Chapter 7 concludes by defending Hitchens as an old-school “Paine-ite” liberal (after Thomas Paine) of the 19th century, of a fearless man of high integrity who argued consistently and usually persuasively for his principled positions, whether or not one agreed with him. “[A]t this point in the book I hope you’ll agree that his positions on Afghanistan, Iraq, the Arab Spring, and Islamism weren’t such substantial deviations—if they were deviations at all. The most significant deviation was Hitchens’s shift from Marxism to the advocacy of a more fundamental set of liberal democratic principles.” (p. 278)

Johnson wrote a wonderfully researched, passionate and meticulous book here, and it left me with more appreciation for Hitchens and, incredibly, even more enthusiasm for the universalist, Enlightenment project than I had previously.

[Jeff Kaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Christopher Hitchens was, for me, a great thinker, writer and destroyer of bombasts of every political leaning. His forceful erudition on politics, God, people, freedom, the UK and the USA and a host of other subjects were of the highest intelligence and levelled often at those who suffered from a their own deficiencies to stand comparison.

I came to this excellent book, written by an author that is hardly old enough to have known Hitchens while he lived, with some trepidation. While I have read most of Hitchens' books, I had not been sufficiently focused on his leftist politics in early life to worry about whether his inheritance would be to the that political wing. However, Matt Johnson writes with verve and understanding on how Hitchens was vilified by many on the left for his later years' accord with efforts to free up countries that had autocratic leanings to make them democracies.

This adherence to freedom for the individual, the John Stuart Mill definition of liberalism, showed Hitchens less as a socialist and more as a liberal in the classic sense. It was, perhaps, why I always felt at home with his views as he shared many that I adhere to although able to state them in ways I can only wish for.

This book shows how Hitchens retains complete credibility in 2023 and underscores why his writing remains current. It is unbelievably sad that Christopher Hitchens died too young. The world lost not just a great thinker but a wonderful wordsmith and winning debater that always seemed to put across his views and create new admirers with every word uttered or written. This book ably shows that spirit and vitality and, if fearless liberalism defines the left in an age of autocrats, Trumpites and Braverman-like opposers of the rights of people to live their lives peacefully, then it fully met the requirements of its title.

[Newton Nitro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Como Hitchens Pode Salvar a Esquerda
Matt Johnson argumenta que Christopher Hitchens nunca traiu seus princípios — foi a esquerda que abandonou seu credo de liberdade, universalismo e debate destemido.

“Nunca seja espectador da injustiça ou da estupidez”, disse certa vez Christopher Hitchens a um auditório lotado de universitários, com a voz rouca pelo excesso de álcool e cigarros. “Procure a discussão e a disputa por elas mesmas. O túmulo oferecerá tempo suficiente para o silêncio.” A plateia riu, mas a frase não era uma piada. Hitchens viveu dessa forma e também morreu assim, deixando uma obra que nunca parou de brigar com o mundo.

Quem o viu em um debate lembra da eletricidade do momento. Ele se inclinava para a frente com o copo na mão, sobrancelhas arqueadas, saboreando a chance de ofender. Tratava a retórica como combate, mas havia também prazer nisso — a sensação de que as ideias importavam o bastante para serem defendidas, de que a coragem e o espírito pertenciam ao centro da política.

Mais de uma década após sua morte, Hitchens continua sendo um fantasma disputado. Para alguns, é a voz da livre investigação, um escritor capaz de transformar a clareza moral em música. Para outros, é o apóstata que emprestou seu prestígio a uma guerra que arruinou sua reputação. Seu nome ainda provoca discussão — e isso o teria divertido.

How Hitchens Can Save the Left, de Matt Johnson, entra nesse terreno contestado com sua própria provocação: Hitchens nunca abandonou a esquerda. Ele permaneceu fiel a princípios que ainda deveriam defini-la — a sacralidade da liberdade de expressão, a resistência à tirania e a crença nos direitos humanos universais. Se hoje a esquerda se sente distante dele, Johnson sustenta que é porque ela própria se afastou desses compromissos.

O livro não é uma biografia. Johnson não se demora nos vícios privados de Hitchens nem em seu carisma de bar. Não reconta todas as brigas ou cada frase de efeito. Em vez disso, persegue uma linha única: das denúncias a Kissinger e Pinochet nos anos 1970, passando pelos ataques a teocratas e ditadores nos anos 1990, até sua posição controversa sobre o Iraque nos anos 2000, vê-se a mesma lógica antitotalitária em ação. Nesse retrato, Hitchens não é um desertor, mas um defensor consistente da liberdade.

Aceitar ou não esse argumento depende de como se pesa a intenção contra a consequência. O Iraque foi catastrófico, e Johnson não nega isso. Mas insiste que as motivações de Hitchens não foram oportunistas. Nasciam do mesmo ódio ao despotismo que moldou sua vida. Julgá-lo apenas por aquela guerra é, segundo Johnson, reduzir seu legado a uma única decisão.

O que se segue é a tentativa de Johnson de reinscrever Hitchens na tradição política que ele nunca renunciou: uma esquerda que valoriza a verdade acima da lealdade tribal, o debate acima da conformidade e a dignidade humana acima do relativismo cultural. É, ao mesmo tempo, um ato de defesa e um desafio. Se Hitchens ainda importa, diz Johnson, é porque a esquerda precisa voltar a não ter medo da liberdade.

[Chris Boutté · Rating 5 out of 5]

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I have quite a few criticisms of the book, but I’ll start off with the good. I’ve been trying to read more Hitchens because I only recently started learning about him and his work. So, when I saw this new book was released, I kind of sighed but decided to read it anyways. I sighed because I thought, “Oh great, another anti-woke book.” It had it’s parts, but I’m really pleased with this book because I typically hate biographies, but Matt Johnson wrote this in a way that really kept my attention.

The book is sort of a biography while also covering a wide range of topics that Hitchens was passionate about. What I enjoyed about the book is that it had some stories about Hitchens but also broke down his ideas and what people got right and wrong about him. I’m regularly looking for authors who write books just explaining the ideas of great thinkers, and this book was one of the only ones that actually did that.

My criticisms are purely subjective, but the book is kind of like a book written by the ultimate fanboy. The author loves Hitchens and knows everything Hitchens ever wrote and stood for inside and out. At no point in the book do I remember the author ever pushing back on anything Hitchens ever did, and I’m a firm believer that a book should somewhat argue with itself and come up with rebuttals. But from start to finish, this book was basically saying, “Everything Hitchens did was amazing. Anyone who disagreed with him is wrong. Hitchens was the perfect human being.”

I understand the book is about how Hitchens can save the left, but I would have really enjoyed more stuff about Hitchens debating religion. As the book suggests, it primarily discusses Hitchens’ issues with the left. The anti-woke stuff was early in the book, and it wasn’t too heavy. I really liked learning about Hitchens’ ideas about war and imperialism. I’m not sure if I necessarily agree with all of his takes, but it definitely gave me some things to think about.

Overall, this is a really good book if you want to learn more about Hitchens. I will say that the foreign policy stuff took up more of the book than I would have liked, but it was a great book nonetheless.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings toward this book. The author argues Hitchens remained left-wing throughout his life but abandoned specific sections of left-wing thought like anti-interventionism and Marxist analyses of politics which seems true and was interesting to learn about.
But there were points where the framing seemed rather misleading like his discussion of free speech polls in Chapter 1 and his summary of several writers' perspectives seemed somewhat sweeping or unfair.
Johnson asks if the historian David Blight believes the US has made no progress on racial issues. ‘ Is Blight arguing the United States hasn’t in fact made progress on race?’ But, looking at what Blight said it is clear that Blight was criticizing the overuse of narratives to explain American history as he prefers an approach that eschews easy categorization such as narratives of inevitable progress or continuous oppression: the introduction contains quotes like the following which seem pretty clear that there has been improvement.

“History does not happen because of prescriptions etched into our lives and behavior. As humans, we do have many disturbing habits and tendencies. But history is also full of great change. “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability,” wrote Martin Luther King Jr. Change comes because we make it come. The history of slavery is not merely a depressing subject about exploiters and victims, racists and heroic survivors. It is all of those things, but is also a great place to begin to understand our human condition, our nation’s foundations and legacies all round us with which we live every day. Slavery helped make America—to build it—and through cataclysms, its destruction made possible remaking America.”

[Ian Bellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished the book. Loved it.

It pulls Hitchens away from impressions or 'takes' on him just based on atheism and/or Iraq.

This book doesn't just settle for the simplistic: he was a socialist, then he was a right winger. The title isn't a lie AND it is an actual piece of advice that the left should grab.

The chapter on internationalism, for example, helps put forward the kind of American exceptionalism the left should claim, including not ceding patriotism to the flyover and flag crowd.

The book does what Hitchens talked about so much in reference to 'God is Not Great'. It lives up to its "damn subtitle".

[Hippocleides · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting summation of Christopher Hitchens' values, and a useful tool for answering the oft-asked question among Hitchens' adherents--what would Hitchens think of current events?

However, it also often repeats itself and is over-reliant on quotes, and is not uniformly persuasive. In particular, Johnson's case for interventionism certainly parrots Hitchens' views, but hardly makes a strong case for interventionism overall. For example, if the ousting of the Taliban from power in 2001 was applauded by the vast majority of Afghans, why did the Taliban almost immediately retake the country when the US withdrew in 2021?

[Rebekah Iliff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book couldn't have come at a more perfect time - and those of us committed to classic liberalism have certainly been waiting for it! While I may not be 100% aligned on all of Hitchens views, Johnson's writing and his painstaking detail to illuminate one of the most fascinating thinkers in modern history is truly extraordinary. If you're a curious human who wants to learn how reasonable arguments can be actually heard when presented through clear thinking, this is the perfect book.

[Sir Mullo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent listen. I'll delve into a few more names that Matt mentions, George Packer being one. Its also sent me onto my next audible which will be Orwell's essays. Must read/listen If you, like Hitchens, find your self utterly dismayed by the left you grew up thinking you were part of. The abject failure of its direction down identity politics and US / NATO imperialism, scrapping the institutions that have been built up over decades and to be relaced with what exactly?

An important book

[Darryl Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

For fans of Hitchens like myself, who constantly wonder what he would have made of the world today, the author does a great job of speculation based on his life's work. The book does not shy away from depth in its geopolitics. It's complicated at times, but so were Hitchens views. It never really addresses the question posed by its title though.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've often thought that the world missed out on seeing Hitchens take down Trump and Putin- but this book comes close to doing it. Matt Jonhnson draws the line between what he said before his death in 2011 and the world we find ourselves in today.

[Charles Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's always nice to be reminded of Christopher Hitchens: his wit and wisdom and clarity. This book details the political opinions of his later life, showing how they were founded on his opposition to authoritarianism. How I wish he were still alive to comment on our current problems.

[Kyle C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh do I wish we had Hitchens' voice now...

[Mati · Rating 4 out of 5]

Other than being a bit repetitive this book is great. Well researched look at a much praised and often maligned figure.

[Sergeant Darwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first exposure to the great Christopher Hitchens came thanks to his status as one of the "Four Horsemen" of the so-called New Atheist movement. Leaving religion behind in my early 20s had essentially meant starting from scratch, morally and philosophically speaking (not that I had ever been some great thinker in those arenas prior) - so I scavenged through the whole "rational skeptic" subgenre in search of direction. I never found Hitch's work on religion particularly useful, largely because I'd already had my faith torn down and was instead searching for something to build in its place. Thus, I became a Sam Harris/Carl Sagan fanboy and left God is not Great to collect dust on my bookshelf.

Over the last couple of years, I've lost another long-held faith: the one I'd built in the political left. And in my Second Great Scavenging, I began to revisit the writings of my old friend Hitch. More specifically, I read 750 pages of essays from his final collection, Arguably, and I can honestly say I've never learned more from a book in my entire life. Enough ink has been spilled on Hitch's erudition and near endless depth of knowledge on all things geopolitical and literary, and I obviously found much to admire there. But even more, I found a man who could articulate my deepest-held values in language I could only weakly aspire to, and I found that I did not feel so politically homeless as I read him.

Hitch, in death, has become a figure much like his hero Orwell, or like the Reverend Dr. King: all sides wish to claim him for their own. The rational skeptics feel sure he would have shared their views on the issues of the day. So too with the RFK/Rogan wing of contrarian conspiracists, the Trump crowd (ha!), and the neocons and neolibs alike. Even the socialist/Marxist left, who have always viewed Hitch's support of the Iraq War as a once-comrade's despicable betrayal, admit that the man made a great many good points about a great many things.

That's why Matt Johnson's book is so necessary. Hitch was principled enough - and wrote and spoke enough about those principles - that it's actually quite possible to know, with reasonable certainty, how he would have felt about our modern landscape. The notion that he would have been a Trump supporter does not take long to dispense with, of course. But it's also clear that he would have rained fierce hellfire upon the modern left, with their cultural hostility to debate and free expression, their useless and ceaseless and (worst of all) mandatory diversity trainings, their Big-Brotherish censorship of "misinformation," and their embarrassingly reflexive bias against America and the West. In fact, he might have saved his sharpest critiques for the left, because he always viewed the left as worth saving.

Though I'll always wish I could read a Hitch takedown of Robin DiAngelo's halfwit White Fragility, I found Johnson's work here to be a stellar consolation. Hitch may be gone, but so long as we keep the values of the Enlightenment - reason, liberty, democracy, and small-L liberalism - firmly in sight, the great man can rest easy.

[Brandon Giella · Rating 3 out of 5]

It droned on and on (I only got halfway), but I think its main points are accurate and honor Hitchens’s legacy: Strive to be fiercely independent, even when your friends are against you.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Here's my somewhat inaccurately titled review: https://thecritic.co.uk/liberalisms-l...