For many intellectuals, journalist, author & part-time teacher Christopher Hitchens was the foremost modern arbiter of enlightenment and knowledge. His courageous and well researched opinions on religion, politics, faith, non-belief, secularism and atheism will forever enshrine him amongst the giants of reason. I miss this gorgeous bastard. 😢❤
@@barracuda7018 💯 agree, and yes, I’m very aware how the Hitch has helped others (us) with his thesaurus lexicon vocabulary and inflection, same goes for his books. As a foreigner myself coming into the US a man and not with a lick of English in my pocket I unequivocally assert that listening to Christopher Hitchens rhetoric has also helped my vocabulary and verbatim a great deal, same goes for reading his books, it has lifted my understanding of the language and even my grammar. So I totally get you my friend barracuda7018 it has happened to me too, best regards to you, and cheers 🥃🥃 to Hitch. (had to pick up the tumbler of Johnnie Walker Black with a tad of Perrier, his favorite serum.
He was very eloquent and knowledgeable. I doubt he said anything original or should be ranked with greater thinkers-past and present. He shone in a culture of ignorance and stupidity. He made an incorrect analysis and judgement about the major event of his career: the War in Iraq.
@@TheEleatic Just because a man made an incorrect statement about something (and this is open to interpretation) it doesn’t mean he was incorrect in many other areas, his main focus were politics, then after 9/11 he shifted his focus arguing against religions. I still admire his logic, lexicon and amazing memory.
agree with him or not, hitchens is an obvious target of praise here and deservedly so. but i keep coming back to uncommon knowledge for peter robinson's excellent work as an interviewer. good faith questions, fair follow up, and allowing his guests to actually answer in whatever way they feel is best. a rare skill
@@Nedxr777 Referring to Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and like-minded imperialist ghouls, Chomsky thoughtfully observed: "They practice the state religion-which is far more dangerous."
one of the many reasons i admire Christopher is how sure and exact he is in his worldview and how he will not let other "get away " with something he is not in consensus with...
@@1984isnotamanual He advocated strongly in favor of military intervention in Iraq, which was a mistake. It was a mistake to want to do it, and the execution was a total disaster.
What an enjoyable watch this is turning out to be. I'm only 20 odd minutes into the video and it's remarkable how the well informed and highly knowledgeable interviewer is surprised by the responses to his questions.
Yeah, I'm not entirely sure his background or his exact role at the place, but he hosts most or all of the Hoover Institution's interviews. I once saw he spoke after Hicthens' death, and it was quite touching. The two were clearly friends outside of their interactions in this video.
To call him a neo- conservative misses the point. Mr. Hitchens just followed his feelings. I always thought that he disliked Saddam Hussein a great deal and that was the basis of his agreement with attacking Iraq.
I love how Conservatives think Hitch is suddenly a Con simply because he wanted to stop Islamic foolishness. Neither his anti-religious position and his anti- dictatorial sentiments are Conservative.
Hopefully there will be beings that will make even more robust arguments and points in the future, but only through standing on the shoulders of contrarian giants like hitch. I believe christopher hitchens will become like socratic thought and other pivotal figures who have stood bravely against tyranical, misguided and erroneous errors of thought and behaviour. The adept oration skills, courageous steadfast breadth of knowledge and clarity of argument is nothing short of phenomenal. He showed integrity under fear of jihad, and calls for him to take comfort in the corruption of pascal's wager as cancer took him. Steadfastly sticking to honour whilst exposing the dark sides of words like faith and loyalty. Getting us to take second looks at people who cloak themselves with compassion or hybris/ righteousness. A man of warmth, sharp intellect and determination to maintain logic and seek betterment for all. What a life he lived!
He was wrong about iraq...apart from that though he did absolutely no wrong in ny eyes and was one of the greatest writers, orators and quintessentially English heroes of our time...rest in peace Hitch x
I utterly disagree with C.H on the war in Iraq. That, (as many other U.S.A intervention), was absolutely disgusting actions this country has engaged throughout history.
Certainly Hitch hated dictatorial authoritarians like Sadam. Probably his blind spot was brought on by rose colored glasses on what the US military actions into the country would yield and at what financial/human/political cost. Was Sadam a sadistic bastard who (if removed and replaced with a stable political system) was better gone? Of course; but how, by whom, and at what cost needed to be calculated better, IMO, by Hitch. His goal was admirable, but his equation was skewed with idealism a bit.
I’m almost in cahoots with your well written sentiment. But then we also must admit that most of us, including the great Hitch loved to root for a good sentimental idealistic cause.
His only glaring mistake...you see him here struggling to answer the question and his incredible mind feels uneasy actually answering the question... We are all infallible, even the great Hitch...a victim of a kind of reverse confirmation bias...poppy bush actually had the right idea...stop them quickly and decisively and gtfo
1:25:29, Their discussion on the use of words to describe terrorism, diminish the true nature of the threat. Theocratic Fascism, verses Terrorism is a great example of how the media has chose words to rally its consumers. I would give a more contemporary example, Global Warming verse Global Pollution, the first being easy to argue away in examples of geologic history, but pollution, specifically, Mankind's foot print is definitive, as is the trend of carbons left Antarctica. Consume your words wisely.
Hitchens, for all his intellectual brilliance, ought to have deferred to Prof Robert Service, whose knowledge of twentieth century Russian and Soviet history far exceeds his own.
The Theory and Practice of Bolshevism -Bertram Russell. Someone really has to compile a list of books and articles that Hitchens quoted in in his interviews with how they were used.
There actually is a book completely of Hitchen's quotes available. Sorry, I don't recall the title, but it's out there. Quotes of CH... perhaps?. Extremely good.
Hitch - I will always love him. In all his scepticism about totalitarian governments, however, he did not levy enough scepticism at non-totalitarian governments which are bloated with bureaucracy. If only he could have seen, as Milton Friedman did, that bloated bureaucracy can look and act and feel almost exactly like a totalitarian government. Not intentionally so - but bureaucracy (as Sowell loves to remind us) seeks to uphold and shore up further bureaucracy. I think, deep down, I agree with Nassim Taleb when he says that you can always tell who the sucker is with two tests: One - does he reserve his scepticism for the big issues (God, money, existence, time) and Two - have no scepticism for the practical day-to-day issues that affect his life? If so, he’s a sucker. Sadly, I think Hitch may have been a sucker.
i hate when some of my favorite people of all time have such a blight in their history. his staunch support of bush and the iraq war was as strong as his staunch advocacy of freedom from the totalitarianism of religion. i can't believe a mind like that analyzed the war and came away with the views he did. eugh.
You can tell the interviewer thinks that he is the intellectual equivalent of Hitchens, but you can see him slowly realise, like a stroppy teen in a boxing ring with Ali, just how out of his depth he truly is.
A lot of U.S/Middle East foreign policy experts in RUclips chat apparently. You can disagree with Hitch all you like, but don't pretend like he wasn't insanely informed on the topic.
interesting. as someone who has been studying WW2 and just had read Peter Hitchens "Victory" book. seems like Peter may have definitely read some of Buchanan's work. came to some very similar conclusions.
now that we know more about hitchens im curious who the next person is that will pull the wool over our eyes. you too movement has opened our eyes to these predators.
See, I DON'T think mind/reason is wholly dependent on matter. I do think "mind" is what's fundamental in reality. Contrary to what many scientists will try to say, I don't find this point of view incompatible with science in any way. I think the whole shebang that we regard as "the physical world" is actually just the aggregate perceptions of mind, and those perceptions STILL MUST OBEY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. It's a difference in interpretation only - not a difference in anything observational. Physics today posits a set of quantum fields as the most basic, fundamental things from which all arises. I posit that mind is the fundamental thing from which all arises, but in the end the results are the same. After all, we've observed and measured those results - any proposal that we make has to be compatible with those observations. Importantly, this proposal DOES NOT demand that there exist some "super mind" that we call God. Such a thing MIGHT exist, but the interpretation does not make it a requirement. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that our sense of morality arises from OUR minds - a higher order mind to provide that for us is not required by this way of looking at things. It's not ruled out, but it's not REQUIRED. And we have no observational evidence either way, so in the end it's the same old story - if you choose to believe in such a thing you're making an act of faith, not a rational conclusion based on evidence. You're believing in it because it pleases you to believe in it, and for no other reason. I've spent decades studying the foundations of physics (informally - my actual training is in engineering), and my opinion is that physics offers NO EXPLANATION OF MIND WHATSOEVER. Materialists just take it for granted that "someday it will be explained." Their basis for this is just the fact that historically many many many things that were once total mysteries have been similarly explained, and that is not an empty argument. But it is NOT a guarantee - this belief is ITSELF an act of faith no less substantial that the faith devout people have in God. It's an ASSUMPTION, and I just don't see much plausibility in it. Meanwhile, physics expects us to simply take as given these quantum fields. And no doubt something that plays the mathematical role of quantum fields is a part of things, but there is absolutely nothing that says those fields must be the fundamental layer of things. I'm entirely open to the idea that the way our minds interact with one another GIVES RISE to these behaviors. And in contrast to quantum fields, which none of us have ever directly seen or experienced, each one of us KNOWS that we have a working conscious mind - we have DIRECT PERCEPTION of it. The existence of our own mind cannot be doubted. None of us can prove to one another that we do in fact have such a mind, but given that I know I have one I'm fairly willing to believe that you do, and everyone else does, as well. Furthermore, we KNOW that "mind" can cook up perceptions of a physical world entirely from scratch - it happens every time we dream. The existence of perceptions of a physical world DOES NOT conclusively require that there be something objective a physical, separate from our minds, out there to serve as the "fodder" of those perceptions.
Hearing a Brit say Germany helping spain (and getting nothing out of it in the end, I mean they didnt even take gibraltar in the war) is an act of 'fascist imperialism' is a bit rich though. They were not a puppet, unlike all the states the british empire helped create.
I do wish he would stop interrupting and attempting to...spar? with Hitchens, and and had just let him speak, the way he does with Dr. Sowell. It is very irritating to hear his incessant commenting
Not sure it's quite so clear....while yes the war in Iraq was a bad idea, however his defense of it, can be and really should be scene as a criticism of the UN as a concept and a entity. It was highly likely that Iraq would have imploded something between 2000 and 2010....Hitchens rightly argued that if it did happened it be left the USA primarily to clean up and a controlled fire is better then a blazing info. So as a matter of practicality....the war was not a terrible idea. It would also allow us a easy friendly foothold in the region if necessary. He also was correct to say that the country essentially lost its sovereignty due to its prior history...and a humanitarian crisis bound to get worse. The UN was ineffective in the latter point and irrelevant in the case of the first. Why Hitchens was wrong was that he argued for what was essentially a impossible goal. The USA when going it alone absolutely fucking sucs at nation building. So then your back to the real weight of Hitchens arguemenf.....if you dislike the idea of the USA doing that....then what are you going to do as a international community when it turns out that fundamentally the USA had the right idea in the first place.....having a stable democratic country in the Muslim world is a good idea and a potential good influence on the others.
With the information available around that time he had a very reasonable view. The impact of the wars in the middle east, and the events that followed the next decade would not have been easily foreseen.
But now look at Iran with the young and the revolution that’s happening against the Islamic state. He’s on the right track with that one for sure. Your are missed Hitchens.
I loved Christopher’s abilities as a debater. But As someone who’s father and mother suffered from Soviet communist oppression- I can tell you he was plainly misguided and wrong.
His Iran prediction was so wrong, as well as his other prediction about the Middle East stabilising. To be fair to him though, it’s almost impossible to predict such a bloodthirsty yet spineless government such as the Obama / Biden one.
I'm English, as you may well be I think, you pinpoint a very interesting mentality, one which sent millions of our people 'over the top' ... To certain death. For what? Id argue.. depopulation of proper blokes who threatened the oighty toightys grip on our beautiful country and it's prospects
He was always a bit of a knee-jerk Zionist. Definitely missed the mark spectacularly on Iraq, and his ego could never let him admit it. Sam Harris has the same affliction. EDIT: Thanks to @DavidLamb7524 in the replies for rightly noting that it's inaccurate to refer to Hitch as "a knee-jerk Zionist." Leaving the OP (vs. deleting) in case others share that over-simplified view.
@davidlamb7524 Thanks for that comment. I'll look for those. I've listened to him in numerous, extensive interviews, speeches, and debates, and whenever he spoke of Israel--or Israeli-related geopolitical issues, such as the wars in Iraq--he seemed to shift to Nonsense mode, which frequently took the form of functional Zionism. (Sam Harris has a similar but more muted tendency.) I wonder if maybe you're saying he wasn't a Zionist merely because he (sometimes) opposed ever-further expansions of settlements. That seems to me a bit different.
The moment you stop selling commercials ,the word Nazi in the right definition should be used. The right words were in the background that the anti-fascist use. Of course it had been called FASCISM All Along by professionals.
I have always felt like this interviewer is a little weak. That he's just not all that bright. So it's extremely gratifying to see Hitchens just kind of stomp his balls sometimes, just talk right over him, quiet now Randall.
I can refute half of what chris ever said, permenantly and authoritatively.. But it takes me weeks each time, and i can only do it in written form. He was so brilliant, especially extemporaneously. But please consider that not all split-screen 3 minuet aound bite format experts not who we ought to form our opinions from.
I am so tired of ignorant religions people making stupid statements about morality. Just read some philosophy and you will know everything there is to know about morality, it's not that bloody complicated. Religious morality is called duty ethics and can also be found in national laws. Laws are an identical way of indoctrinating a sense of "morality" as to religious texts. There's rules and there's punishments for not following these rules. The purpose of these rules is to make society work and help us benefit from each other. This will over time effect how people think about certain things. Then there's individual morality also called consequence ethics which people only use in internal or external debates. It's when you consider the pros and cons to an action and what would be the most sensible choice. This type of ethics requires a lot of thinking and reasoning which is why most of the time people don't actually use it.
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For many intellectuals, journalist, author & part-time teacher Christopher Hitchens was the foremost modern arbiter of enlightenment and knowledge.
His courageous and well researched opinions on religion, politics, faith, non-belief, secularism and atheism will forever enshrine him amongst the giants of reason.
I miss this gorgeous bastard. 😢❤
He was the best of his profession... I improved my English simply by listening him..Fact, not joke..
@@barracuda7018 💯 agree, and yes, I’m very aware how the Hitch has helped others (us) with his thesaurus lexicon vocabulary and inflection, same goes for his books.
As a foreigner myself coming into the US a man and not with a lick of English in my pocket I unequivocally assert that listening to Christopher Hitchens rhetoric has also helped my vocabulary and verbatim a great deal, same goes for reading his books, it has lifted my understanding of the language and even my grammar.
So I totally get you my friend barracuda7018 it has happened to me too, best regards to you, and cheers 🥃🥃 to Hitch. (had to pick up the tumbler of Johnnie Walker Black with a tad of Perrier, his favorite serum.
He was very eloquent and knowledgeable. I doubt he said anything original or should be ranked with greater thinkers-past and present. He shone in a culture of ignorance and stupidity. He made an incorrect analysis and judgement about the major event of his career: the War in Iraq.
@@TheEleatic Just because a man made an incorrect statement about something (and this is open to interpretation) it doesn’t mean he was incorrect in many other areas, his main focus were politics, then after 9/11 he shifted his focus arguing against religions. I still admire his logic, lexicon and amazing memory.
Reason😂 😂😂😂😂
agree with him or not, hitchens is an obvious target of praise here and deservedly so. but i keep coming back to uncommon knowledge for peter robinson's excellent work as an interviewer. good faith questions, fair follow up, and allowing his guests to actually answer in whatever way they feel is best. a rare skill
Bravo... Hitch is a well known intellectual giant but the interviewer here must be commended too.
Just discovered this - thanks for posting!
Just rare nowadays, alas
I don't always agree, but I'm always in awe.
Excellent observation
You cannot listen to Hitchens and fail to be in some way refreshed. He is the walk and the talk of the love of ideas.
I get the same feeling reading his best essays. From the collections 'Love, Poverty and War', 'Unacknowledged Legislation' and 'Arguably'.
@flippy5118 A drunken moron best forgotten.
@@Nedxr777 Referring to Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and like-minded imperialist ghouls, Chomsky thoughtfully observed: "They practice the state religion-which is far more dangerous."
@flippy5118 Hitches wasn't wrong on Iran or Iraq.
@@d.mavridopoulos66😅😂😂 1:06 😅😊😅
one of the many reasons i admire Christopher is how sure and exact he is in his worldview and how he will not let other "get away " with something he is not in consensus with...
He didn't need to fit in a box. His genius was not being trapped by paradigms.
I could listen him all day!!!
I DO listen to him all day 🤣🧐
“…how well things were going in Iraq…”
I love Hitchens but he blew it on Iraq.
God did he ever. Yeesh.
Time stamp.
How so? How did he blow it?
@@1984isnotamanual He advocated strongly in favor of military intervention in Iraq, which was a mistake. It was a mistake to want to do it, and the execution was a total disaster.
@@tommym321 but we made up for it in Kabul
Miss ya mate.
They should have cloned this man's brain.
@@yomilalgro is going poop
Huh
or cloned him entirely
Maybe AI will "resurrect" him
@@pwuk that would be a good project. I hope they think of it as well.
What an enjoyable watch this is turning out to be. I'm only 20 odd minutes into the video and it's remarkable how the well informed and highly knowledgeable interviewer is surprised by the responses to his questions.
Yeah, I'm not entirely sure his background or his exact role at the place, but he hosts most or all of the Hoover Institution's interviews. I once saw he spoke after Hicthens' death, and it was quite touching. The two were clearly friends outside of their interactions in this video.
An more excellent host would be hard to find!
Miss Hitchens even though he makes me feel as dumb as a rock.
I’m the complete opposite. When I listen to him it makes me want to read, learn and make myself better. Don’t let it make you feel inferior
To call him a neo- conservative misses the point. Mr. Hitchens just followed his feelings. I always thought that he disliked Saddam Hussein a great deal and that was the basis of his agreement with attacking Iraq.
Thank you for this compilation
Exerytime I listen to Hitch I think what a wonder is man he makes you proud humans can be this
Could have let him complete at least one question without interruption
His immense knowledge and able to quote from memory is incredible… miss him deeply
I miss him
Dang, could you imagine trying to debate Hitchens? Dude is way too quick
I love how Conservatives think Hitch is suddenly a Con simply because he wanted to stop Islamic foolishness. Neither his anti-religious position and his anti- dictatorial sentiments are Conservative.
Hitch always loathed Bill Clinton - great book ‘No one left to lie to’
Bill “always hard” Clinton is a very corrupt man, and so is his wife.
Bravo 🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌
WHO DOESN'T
LYING POS
RAPIST
PATHOLOGICAL LIAR
COMPLETE AND TOTAL POS
TOUBOB
Hitchens would have hated Trump as a "politician" much more than Bill Clinton. The Lying King makes Clinton look like Honest Abe.
i dont see how any leftist could like clinton.. hillary clinton is why i left the democrat party for an actually leftist party, the green party
Thank you so much for this post, pure gold 24 carat Hitch.
He is always my answer when asked the 'one person alive or dead' questions. He is and will always be my answer.
He's at his most dashing here, too...
Mine is "Trump... dead."
I do love Christopher Hitchens. Incredible public intellectual, most for walking the walk
ha.@@matthewscott7198
he was totally wrong about iraq.
He addresses them as "Mr Speaker... and Christopher". Ha! What a reversing of accolades. It should be Honourable-Sir-Hitchens... and 'Newt'.
i would be nervous as hell getting interviewed by peter robinson. he truly is an incredibly knowledgeable person. great interview. love hitchens.
Hopefully there will be beings that will make even more robust arguments and points in the future, but only through standing on the shoulders of contrarian giants like hitch. I believe christopher hitchens will become like socratic thought and other pivotal figures who have stood bravely against tyranical, misguided and erroneous errors of thought and behaviour. The adept oration skills, courageous steadfast breadth of knowledge and clarity of argument is nothing short of phenomenal. He showed integrity under fear of jihad, and calls for him to take comfort in the corruption of pascal's wager as cancer took him. Steadfastly sticking to honour whilst exposing the dark sides of words like faith and loyalty. Getting us to take second looks at people who cloak themselves with compassion or hybris/ righteousness. A man of warmth, sharp intellect and determination to maintain logic and seek betterment for all. What a life he lived!
This is like the bar scene in good will hunting, with Hitchens as Will.
A 'secular crusader' in the best sense.
He was wrong about iraq...apart from that though he did absolutely no wrong in ny eyes and was one of the greatest writers, orators and quintessentially English heroes of our time...rest in peace Hitch x
I utterly disagree with C.H on the war in Iraq.
That, (as many other U.S.A intervention), was absolutely disgusting actions this country has engaged throughout history.
GREAT STUFF. !!!!!!! LOVE IT. !!!!!!!
37:12 I haven't even got my trousers off yet 😂😂
Certainly Hitch hated dictatorial authoritarians like Sadam. Probably his blind spot was brought on by rose colored glasses on what the US military actions into the country would yield and at what financial/human/political cost.
Was Sadam a sadistic bastard who (if removed and replaced with a stable political system) was better gone? Of course; but how, by whom, and at what cost needed to be calculated better, IMO, by Hitch.
His goal was admirable, but his equation was skewed with idealism a bit.
I’m almost in cahoots with your well written sentiment. But then we also must admit that most of us, including the great Hitch loved to root for a good sentimental idealistic cause.
the U.S. won the war and lost the peace
*Saddam
If we didnt intervene Iraq would look like what Syria is now, a black hole.
His only glaring mistake...you see him here struggling to answer the question and his incredible mind feels uneasy actually answering the question...
We are all infallible, even the great Hitch...a victim of a kind of reverse confirmation bias...poppy bush actually had the right idea...stop them quickly and decisively and gtfo
1:25:29, Their discussion on the use of words to describe terrorism, diminish the true nature of the threat. Theocratic Fascism, verses Terrorism is a great example of how the media has chose words to rally its consumers. I would give a more contemporary example, Global Warming verse Global Pollution, the first being easy to argue away in examples of geologic history, but pollution, specifically, Mankind's foot print is definitive, as is the trend of carbons left Antarctica. Consume your words wisely.
Great comment David. Thank you for its insight.
The last great Liberal and defender of the enlightenment values....a tragedy that we are lacking such men...
He wasn’t a Liberal. He was Troskyist.
Liberalism is a right-wing ideology
LMAO
Robinson just wants to hear himself talk
Hitchens, for all his intellectual brilliance, ought to have deferred to Prof Robert Service, whose knowledge of twentieth century Russian and Soviet history far exceeds his own.
The Theory and Practice of Bolshevism -Bertram Russell.
Someone really has to compile a list of books and articles that Hitchens quoted in in his interviews with how they were used.
There actually is a book completely of Hitchen's quotes available. Sorry, I don't recall the title, but it's out there.
Quotes of CH... perhaps?.
Extremely good.
Those talk had PNAC all over it! If only Hitchens knew of that paper during his lifetime!
If only they knew nothing came out of the war in the Middle East. It ended in disaster
Great mind, thinker, writer & lest we not forget atheist, the great Christopher Hitchens, rest in peace.
They didn't know the bomb was going to work until it actually went off. They couldn't afford to pause everything else and wait for it.
I believe that Common Sense is not that Common. Many people think with feelings not fact.
Hitchens being one of them.
Hitch - I will always love him. In all his scepticism about totalitarian governments, however, he did not levy enough scepticism at non-totalitarian governments which are bloated with bureaucracy. If only he could have seen, as Milton Friedman did, that bloated bureaucracy can look and act and feel almost exactly like a totalitarian government. Not intentionally so - but bureaucracy (as Sowell loves to remind us) seeks to uphold and shore up further bureaucracy. I think, deep down, I agree with Nassim Taleb when he says that you can always tell who the sucker is with two tests: One - does he reserve his scepticism for the big issues (God, money, existence, time) and Two - have no scepticism for the practical day-to-day issues that affect his life? If so, he’s a sucker. Sadly, I think Hitch may have been a sucker.
Well done, I think the things you say are much more clverer than them, so I think that puts us two groups together.
i hate when some of my favorite people of all time have such a blight in their history. his staunch support of bush and the iraq war was as strong as his staunch advocacy of freedom from the totalitarianism of religion. i can't believe a mind like that analyzed the war and came away with the views he did. eugh.
God bless Mr Hitchens
Irony.
Checking in a decade later: every prediction was wrong
I love Hitch, but his oracular powers rivaled that of petty fortune tellers and lottery patrons
You can tell the interviewer thinks that he is the intellectual equivalent of Hitchens, but you can see him slowly realise, like a stroppy teen in a boxing ring with Ali, just how out of his depth he truly is.
Interesting approach to an interview: have a guest on and then interupt them every time they speak. :|
A lot of U.S/Middle East foreign policy experts in RUclips chat apparently. You can disagree with Hitch all you like, but don't pretend like he wasn't insanely informed on the topic.
Long live the Hitch!
Why do people think the US were in Vietnam to help to French😅😅. It was strictly fighting against Soviet influence
Chinese influence?
Was this transferred from someone’s home video VHS tape? 😂 without the sound on for all I know I could be watching Muppets From Space…
Watching the final moments of this, it is clear how thoroughly deluded CH was about Iraq, and many other things.
I love Hitchens but the idea that Japan would ever become a nuclear power is ludicrous.
interesting. as someone who has been studying WW2 and just had read Peter Hitchens "Victory" book.
seems like Peter may have definitely read some of Buchanan's work.
came to some very similar conclusions.
Pete's a closet Fascist at best.
Well well well… didn’t believe in containment but when his home city was attacked, Hitchens suddenly turned from war protester to into a war hawk.
A brilliant mind who sold out to the war machine.
islam must be resisted violently.
now that we know more about hitchens im curious who the next person is that will pull the wool over our eyes. you too movement has opened our eyes to these predators.
See, I DON'T think mind/reason is wholly dependent on matter. I do think "mind" is what's fundamental in reality. Contrary to what many scientists will try to say, I don't find this point of view incompatible with science in any way. I think the whole shebang that we regard as "the physical world" is actually just the aggregate perceptions of mind, and those perceptions STILL MUST OBEY THE LAWS OF PHYSICS. It's a difference in interpretation only - not a difference in anything observational. Physics today posits a set of quantum fields as the most basic, fundamental things from which all arises. I posit that mind is the fundamental thing from which all arises, but in the end the results are the same. After all, we've observed and measured those results - any proposal that we make has to be compatible with those observations.
Importantly, this proposal DOES NOT demand that there exist some "super mind" that we call God. Such a thing MIGHT exist, but the interpretation does not make it a requirement. I'm perfectly fine with the idea that our sense of morality arises from OUR minds - a higher order mind to provide that for us is not required by this way of looking at things. It's not ruled out, but it's not REQUIRED. And we have no observational evidence either way, so in the end it's the same old story - if you choose to believe in such a thing you're making an act of faith, not a rational conclusion based on evidence. You're believing in it because it pleases you to believe in it, and for no other reason.
I've spent decades studying the foundations of physics (informally - my actual training is in engineering), and my opinion is that physics offers NO EXPLANATION OF MIND WHATSOEVER. Materialists just take it for granted that "someday it will be explained." Their basis for this is just the fact that historically many many many things that were once total mysteries have been similarly explained, and that is not an empty argument. But it is NOT a guarantee - this belief is ITSELF an act of faith no less substantial that the faith devout people have in God. It's an ASSUMPTION, and I just don't see much plausibility in it. Meanwhile, physics expects us to simply take as given these quantum fields. And no doubt something that plays the mathematical role of quantum fields is a part of things, but there is absolutely nothing that says those fields must be the fundamental layer of things. I'm entirely open to the idea that the way our minds interact with one another GIVES RISE to these behaviors. And in contrast to quantum fields, which none of us have ever directly seen or experienced, each one of us KNOWS that we have a working conscious mind - we have DIRECT PERCEPTION of it. The existence of our own mind cannot be doubted. None of us can prove to one another that we do in fact have such a mind, but given that I know I have one I'm fairly willing to believe that you do, and everyone else does, as well. Furthermore, we KNOW that "mind" can cook up perceptions of a physical world entirely from scratch - it happens every time we dream. The existence of perceptions of a physical world DOES NOT conclusively require that there be something objective a physical, separate from our minds, out there to serve as the "fodder" of those perceptions.
Wowza, he was wrong about more than a few things in retrospect. But he did sound like he knew what he was talking about.
yep this hasnt aged well.
He was right in most things.
is there anywhere to find the rest of their Vietnam conversation?
Americans did not espouse French colonialism in Vietnam in the '60s because it was trying to impose its own imperialism.
Hitch was clueless when it came to geopolitics. If only Hitch saw the depravity in.America these days.
Hearing a Brit say Germany helping spain (and getting nothing out of it in the end, I mean they didnt even take gibraltar in the war) is an act of 'fascist imperialism' is a bit rich though. They were not a puppet, unlike all the states the british empire helped create.
The man is a frog hopping opportunist
O Captain My Captain
I do wish he would stop interrupting and attempting to...spar? with Hitchens, and and had just let him speak, the way he does with Dr. Sowell. It is very irritating to hear his incessant commenting
Funny to hear someone so usually well informed and often prescient be so colossally wrong about "the long short war in Iraq"
Love him but he was dead wrong about Iraq
Not sure it's quite so clear....while yes the war in Iraq was a bad idea, however his defense of it, can be and really should be scene as a criticism of the UN as a concept and a entity.
It was highly likely that Iraq would have imploded something between 2000 and 2010....Hitchens rightly argued that if it did happened it be left the USA primarily to clean up and a controlled fire is better then a blazing info. So as a matter of practicality....the war was not a terrible idea. It would also allow us a easy friendly foothold in the region if necessary.
He also was correct to say that the country essentially lost its sovereignty due to its prior history...and a humanitarian crisis bound to get worse.
The UN was ineffective in the latter point and irrelevant in the case of the first.
Why Hitchens was wrong was that he argued for what was essentially a impossible goal. The USA when going it alone absolutely fucking sucs at nation building.
So then your back to the real weight of Hitchens arguemenf.....if you dislike the idea of the USA doing that....then what are you going to do as a international community when it turns out that fundamentally the USA had the right idea in the first place.....having a stable democratic country in the Muslim world is a good idea and a potential good influence on the others.
Getting saddam out wasn't a bad idea...the way they went about it was dead wrong...
so he was wrong about the Arab world and the Palestinian state in the beginning of the interview :(
With the information available around that time he had a very reasonable view. The impact of the wars in the middle east, and the events that followed the next decade would not have been easily foreseen.
But now look at Iran with the young and the revolution that’s happening against the Islamic state. He’s on the right track with that one for sure. Your are missed Hitchens.
@@jdkhaos4983 Very well said, I second that fact 100%
@@larrybarbowski5852 💯 in agreement.
I loved Christopher’s abilities as a debater. But As someone who’s father and mother suffered from Soviet communist oppression- I can tell you he was plainly misguided and wrong.
In what regard?
What year was this interview does anyone know?
I guess 1999-2000.
His Iran prediction was so wrong, as well as his other prediction about the Middle East stabilising. To be fair to him though, it’s almost impossible to predict such a bloodthirsty yet spineless government such as the Obama / Biden one.
The OSS said to stay out of Vietnam.
Our top national treasure. Cheers Chritopher.
It's weird to see Hitchens sitting next to and agreeing with the despicable Gingrich.
Iraq turned out to b the opposite of what he thought
I don't think it did. He was very clear that the parties of god were the dangers, and that's exactly what has happened.
"There's every reason to think that Iraq could be a functioning democracy ten years from now." 🥴
i am from iraq and i would say f iraq and f the democratic system it is a failed state led by THIEVES
last season of Earth was way better
2:25:32 fascinating point
I'm English, as you may well be I think, you pinpoint a very interesting mentality, one which sent millions of our people 'over the top' ... To certain death.
For what?
Id argue.. depopulation of proper blokes who threatened the oighty toightys grip on our beautiful country and it's prospects
He was always a bit of a knee-jerk Zionist. Definitely missed the mark spectacularly on Iraq, and his ego could never let him admit it. Sam Harris has the same affliction.
EDIT: Thanks to @DavidLamb7524 in the replies for rightly noting that it's inaccurate to refer to Hitch as "a knee-jerk Zionist." Leaving the OP (vs. deleting) in case others share that over-simplified view.
Zionist? Are you kidding?
@@tomrecane6366 If you know what Zionism is, it's hard to see how you could disagree.
@@ncooty How about we get it straight from Hitchens himself
ruclips.net/video/2us2iOilc3E/видео.htmlsi=Lfy1urRQN5vnosNl
He totally condemned zionism at length and on many occasions.
@davidlamb7524 Thanks for that comment. I'll look for those. I've listened to him in numerous, extensive interviews, speeches, and debates, and whenever he spoke of Israel--or Israeli-related geopolitical issues, such as the wars in Iraq--he seemed to shift to Nonsense mode, which frequently took the form of functional Zionism. (Sam Harris has a similar but more muted tendency.)
I wonder if maybe you're saying he wasn't a Zionist merely because he (sometimes) opposed ever-further expansions of settlements. That seems to me a bit different.
He was friends that conman
Who is the idiot with grey hair and blue tye? Has he been sentenced to death and gone?
Anything puts off stalker vibes these days.
Am I threatening the pyramid?
When I say "mind your own business", be mindful of the word "mind"...
Hitch was right Saddam was shit but war can lead to bad outcomes when you don't restructure those you defeat when you use half measures you get chaos
It’s fascinating to see how completely wrong he was about Iraq Iran and the Middle East in general.
Perhaps the only thing Hitch got wrong was the Iraq war.
🌠
The moment you stop selling commercials ,the word Nazi in the right definition should be used. The right words were in the background that the anti-fascist use. Of course it had been called FASCISM All Along by professionals.
Neut is a deluded politician. Inwant to hear him now ehen we replay this interview
I have always felt like this interviewer is a little weak. That he's just not all that bright.
So it's extremely gratifying to see Hitchens just kind of stomp his balls sometimes, just talk right over him, quiet now Randall.
I can't believe one man who is considered intelligent was so wrong about so many things.
Willing to consider diverse perspectives.
Well believe it lol
What was he wrong about?
@@LivingroomTV-me9oz Iraq and his prediction that there would be a Palestinian state within a decade.
@@gsandy5235 yeah, ‘ten years’ was a bit daft, especially as that lot have been fighting over Jerusalem for ‘ten centuries’!
3:01:22
1:58:52
I can refute half of what chris ever said, permenantly and authoritatively..
But it takes me weeks each time, and i can only do it in written form.
He was so brilliant, especially extemporaneously. But please consider that not all split-screen 3 minuet aound bite format experts not who we ought to form our opinions from.
1:15:46 History has proven it's against anyone the US designates... given how liberally we've interpreted the 2001 AUMF
I am so tired of ignorant religions people making stupid statements about morality. Just read some philosophy and you will know everything there is to know about morality, it's not that bloody complicated. Religious morality is called duty ethics and can also be found in national laws. Laws are an identical way of indoctrinating a sense of "morality" as to religious texts. There's rules and there's punishments for not following these rules. The purpose of these rules is to make society work and help us benefit from each other. This will over time effect how people think about certain things. Then there's individual morality also called consequence ethics which people only use in internal or external debates. It's when you consider the pros and cons to an action and what would be the most sensible choice. This type of ethics requires a lot of thinking and reasoning which is why most of the time people don't actually use it.
Are you SURE this was 5 years ago?
You should be more accurate on publication dates.
RUclips automatically shows the length of time elapsed from when a video has been uploaded. It has nothing to do with when the video was actually recorded. That information can be added by the uploader as part of the video description.