How I Discovered Hitch and Decided to Do This

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I discovered Hitchin's freshman year of college. It was the time when I was kind of a still fan of Noam Chomsky, still fancy myself a little radical. So discovering Hitchin's was such a shock to the system because it was this strange, jolting experience. He wrote all over the place at the London Review of Books and, you know, at Harpers. And yeah, it is, I suppose you could say in that one very narrow sense, my career thus far has been somewhat similar to Hitchin's but it diverges in just about every other way.

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.

Shermer and Johnson discuss: Hitchens on free expression, identity politics, radicalism, interventionism, authoritarianism, patriotism, internationalism, America and Liberalism, reparations, religion, and death • identity politics • hostility to free speech • why Hitch did not become a neoconservative, warmonger, or imperialist • Enlightenment Liberalism • Trump and the division of the right • Hitchens on the precursors to Trump • Putin and Russian nationalism.

Matt Johnson writes for Haaretz, Quillette, American Purpose, South China Morning Post, The Bulwark, Areo, Arc Digital, RealClearDefense, The Kansas City Star, and many other publications. His new book is How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment.