Christopher Hitchens - Free Speech (2006) [HQ]
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2018
- In 2006, Christopher Hitchens was invited by the University of Toronto's Hart House Debating Club to voice his opinion on the subject of the evening's debate: Be it resolved: Freedom of speech includes the freedom to hate.
The entire debate can be found here tvo.org/video/archive/big-ide...
Don't worry. You're not the only one watching the masterpiece of a speech in 2024.
Rest in peace, Mr. Hitchens!
And you're not the only one watching the masterpiece of a speech at the beginning of 2024. Let's hope there are still those of us listening to the great man in 2124. RIP Mr Hitchins.
Very pleased to know I’m not the only person who keeps coming back to this debate. His memory is kept alive by the sheer force of his arguments
@@alecsmith8050 you're certainly not alone, I revisit his debates and TV appearances and programmes now and then, just to remind myself what a genius sounds like.
"Painfully relevant" is how I feel about a lot of 00s-era Hitchens speeches these days.
I watch this several times a year, someone always needs this stuff explained to them - myself included.
Hitch died 10 years ago today. The world is worse off because of it. This speech is a masterpiece.
Time to raise a Jhonny walker in his memory
He is needed today more then ever , there will unlikely be someone else like him again.
U mean james walker
@@AndyDeSantisRD unfortunately you’re right I think. No living person comes close
@@euphegenia Douglas Murray comes awfully close. Equally fearless, comparably eloquent, another erudite, and a personal protege and friend of the late great Hitchens.
"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus" just a sensational message
"Come to think of it, how _can_ I prove the Earth is round?"
So articulate
how convenient that this line is so often used to defend fascists and holocaust deniers but not leftists or union reps. Then again, when a supposedly "marxist" like hitchens supports the iraq war, you have to wonder if his words are genuine or if it's all bollocks
My favorite quote.
@@sarcasmenul it is used to defend marxist and communist free speech, don't try that that. Now down to hitchens, he was a trotskyist. And he was entirely consistent with iraq war, you're being deliberately flippant. He took the side of the victim and supported the struggle of the iraqi people and of the secular democratic leftist kurds to free themselves from saddam and from hafez al assad and in Turkey and in Iran.
This may sound crazy but I think that this may be the most important video on youtube.
2024, and I'll still be watching these old hitchslaps well into 2034... ❤❤❤
Same here, this is timeless and could have been spoken at any point in the last 10 years
@@alecsmith8050 Even better than timeless, this speech, and subject matter in general, become more prescient with each passing day.
It's hard to say. This is one of the best speeches made by him and also made by anyone so I would posit it like this: Video > Speech > by Hitchens / By someone else > about X
This is probably my favorite speech ever. I listen to it whenever I'm feeling a little blue. It doesn't always cheer me up completely, but it never completely fails either.
@Arkd Dee I think Hitch got that from Wodehouse's “I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled."
same
Same here. Nice to see someone else feeling the same
M K: Very likely. Hitchens (like all sensible people) loved Wodehouse.
He’s just so concise and eloquent
This is one of the most important speeches ever spoken. Especially with the way the cancel culture and society is today. Thank u, Hitch. RIP 🙏
Absolutely.
If it were possible, I'd have this entire video tattooed on my forehead.
Wonderful lol
If I had to fit a Hitch quote from this video on my forehead, it'd be "Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
There are so many other great ones in here though. It's just ridiculous.
I love this thought, not as the text of the video tattooed on your forehead, but the actual video as a concept, tattooed on 🤣🤣🤣
You don’t have enough forehead.
Ouch
“Where are your priorities? You’re giving away what’s most precious in your society and your giving it away without a fight, and you’re even praising the people who want to deny your right to resist it. Shame on you while you do this. Make the best use of the time you’ve got left. This is really serious.”
This speech should be at the first page of school and university books
"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus"
And years later , Canada fell into fascism. RIP Hitch
An excellent speech and one of my favorites as a Hitchens fan. One quibble: he's a bit confused on the court cases in the first few minutes.
The "crowded theater" phrase and the original "clear and present danger" test were developed by Holmes in Schenck v. U.S. (1918). That case did not involve the Yiddish-speaking socialists that Hitchens references, but rather the Philadelphia Socialist Party that had distributed 15k flyers encouraging men not to comply with the WWI draft. Holmes delivered the opinion for a unanimous court upholding the convictions with the CPD test. The decision is a mess, and Hitchens is right to point out its pathetic reasoning.
The case of Yiddish-speaking socialists is a subsequent one, Abrams v. U.S. (1919). That case upheld the convictions of Russian immigrants who opposed Wilson's meddling with the Russian Revolution on the side of the Russian government. Hitchens is definitely correct that they were the ones identifying a "fire" in a "crowded theater" (i.e., speaking about Wilson's authoritarian foreign policy), especially as insular minorities who had already lived under a draconian regime. But it should be noted that Holmes dissented in that case, arguing that the CPD test had not been met - the speech was too tenuous with any probable harm. So, Hitchens might be overshooting a little.
That said, his overarching point that Holmes' test was on the wrong footing is absolutely correct. And the upshot is the same: who decides on "harmful" speech is the right question to ask in all of these cases.
Thank you for sharing this.
Yes thanks for that info. Even the great Hitch can make a mistake.
I wish I read this, before memorising hitch's speech.😅😖
Really well done. Thanks.
He must be turning in his grave now . A giant of a man , sorely missed .
He was turning when he was still alive.
@@abrahamlincoln9758 a dervish of diction and erudition his whole life long
As a Yorkshire man I am honoured to be insulted by Hitch.
I actually always wondered about that. It sounded like an inside joke, or perhaps the equivalent of a half serious rivalry between different universities. Care to provide any insight into the comment to an ignorant yank across the pond?
I love this comment hahahaha
@@TheJeremyKentBGross It's not really a British reference so much as a Hitchens one. There's a much older clip of him being asked about the late Billy Graham and he mentions the antisemitic views that the evangelist had (or used to have in the early '70s when he was recorded expressing them). Comparing this, Hitchens admits to having an aversion and/or phobia towards people from Yorkshire for reasons he can't explain. He then goes on to explain that this and antisemitism aren't really the same sort of prejudices. In this video, in referencing Yorkshire again, he's basically playing on an old in-joke.
@@Extra_050 Tbh I have trouble understanding antisemitism in general, especially in the modern world.
My best guess is it being caused by envy as their mythology is the sort that engenders success. Although I can understand pretty easily that people did not appreciate the tactics of loan sharks in the middle ages, a role they often filled being unable to take stewardship or ownership of land. Although how they ended up in the situation to need that occupation in the first place is not entirely clear to me.
I also gather that the nobility, who's siblings tended to control the church, used it as a platform to blame their own failures in leadership that caused general hardship for the public on them, in the same way that leaders today blame the middle class and incite riots (or pogroms). (I mean, what was the Saint Fentanyl riots if not modern pogroms incited by our overlords against the minor merchant class based on deliberate misinformation?)
One Hispanic dude I sorta knew who seemed to be a bit on the antisemitic spectrum once asked how they were able to keep their own religion in the European middle ages when all the natives were more or less forcibly converted to Christianity at some point, which did seem like an interesting question that had never occurred to me.
I think there's some animosity from the Islamic world based on the existence of Israel, but tbh I can't tell if that's real the cause, or just an excuse, and an excuse that perpetuates problems.
I do think there must be a small but powerful mafia or two of that particular ethnicity that people object to, which would explain folks like Mel Gibson and Ye, but even accepting that probably exists, it doesn't even remotely imply that anything like a majority of the enthic group could be involved in it. Although it does seem like both people attacking and defending anything that probable mafia does, frame it in such a way as to imply it's all of them, instead of just a particular small cabal, which doesn't help matters.
I wonder if Hitchens would be as amazing today, or if he would have gone full Sam Harris. I'd definitely like to see the timeline where Hitch, Bill Hicks, and George Carlin were still around. And also where Firefly was never canceled. Alas.
@@TheJeremyKentBGross Well, I can answer some of that: in Mediaeval and Renaissance Europe, Christians did not believe that usury (the practice of lending money and charging with interest) was compatible with the teachings of the New Testament. The Jews were obviously not subject to the same laws and they were also, as you say, barred from most guilds, so many of them turned to moneylending as a profession. This is likely why Shakespeare chose Venice as his setting of choice when he introduced his Jewish character Shylock in "Merchant of Venice". Venice was a place in Europe that had relative religious freedom and Jews were allowed to have their own businesses and kosher butchers. That more or less answers your Hispanic friend's question as to how Judaism remained in Europe: some countries tried to coerce Jews into conversion and even those who didn't sometimes held them with a level of suspicion due to their status as non-Christians, but on the other hand they were useful and so relations between some of them were relatively cordial. Much of our modern animus towards bankers probably stems from that era when you think about it: there's no meaningful reason to dislike banks, as they're just places where you put your money, but of course if ever the economy goes wrong they serve as a convenient distraction from the politicians who regulate them and who pass laws on where our taxes should go.
On the question of Islamic/Islamist antisemitism, the answer is mixed. Part of it is obviously religious, because Jews, together with Christians, do not acknowledge Muhammad as a prophet, but it's also racial: Israel serves as a convenient geographic personification of all things they see as Jewish much as "the West" is looked at by them as the main driving force behind Christianity (and hence, Crusaders). Some Islamists propagate or translate into Arabic antisemitic and/or Holocaust-denying works to their less religious brethren to try to justify their hatred. As you rightly speculate, it is likely a means by which to distract from their leaders' own failings.
Finally, it is of course true that the world's culture and tastes are shaped somewhat by various lobbyists and pundits, etc., but I don't think they're of any particular race or religion. Mel Gibson was raised by a Holocaust denier, which explains a few things there and Ye, bless him, is away with the fairies and surrounded by people who never say "no" in his presence.
One of the most brilliant speeches on Free Speech and one everyone should hear. He is SO missed.
I just sat through this speech for - I think - the 12th or 13th time.
I still think it's one of the most important (and possibly desperate) expressions of REAL morality within my lifetime, and I'm almost 80.
Heard a lot of Hitch speeches and this one is definitely one of my favorites now. Not sure how I missed it previously. I so admire his eloquence and fearlessness.
What a great individual. His life should be openly celebrated.
Amen 🙏
This is my favorite speech. There’s no sense in trying to express it more eloquently, so I just share this vid all the time.
One of the great speeches and greatest defenses of free speech.
Freedom loving people should watch this once a month.
Jesus did we need this guy the last 3 years.
Ive never felt as intellectually alone in holding liberty oriented principles in ny life!
"Don't take refuge in the false security of consensus."
I fucking love him. Something that should be so easy to do, taken for granted by so many and so eloquently yet simply stated.
Hitchens is truly missed, especially where we are today.
From time to time I come here to listen and clear my mind with this masterpiece
15 years later: misgender me in your speech and your life is ruined
Don't live in fear, lots of people get away with it.
We need him so badly today .. it’s scary how accurate this warning was..
The only man who was 100% honest about Islam.
"It is always worth interrogating the first principles one thinks they know. Don't take comfort in the false security of consensus." Here here
Dear Christopher, we need you more in Canada now than ever...how you are missed sir.
I could listen to this man read a Chinese fone book. He's absolutely mesmerizing. Sharp as a razor, whip-crack smart, facts at his fingertips, brutally, unshakably, forthright, honest and direct. He is sorely missed. As is George Carlin.
And not only that, he had a panache and éclat that's usually reserved for career entertainers not public intellectuals. Fuck I wish eh were still around. In any case I try to exude his values and continue the fight in my own less brilliant way
And Bill Hicks.
21 mins that everyone needs to hear.
I'm a theist but absolutely adore and respect Hitchens to the highest of degrees. An amazing man indeed 👏
do you adore him while said 12:29
@@chrispywilliams1992 The power structure of religion (People not the principles) are full of hatred or destruction. Religions power is political not spiritual
repent of your sin...of being a theist.
@@Harry-uq9qd I’d rather be free. I can hear your chains from over here
@@chrispywilliams1992 did you misread my comment?
One of his finest if not the finest covering all angles of the subject in all its glory...
Society got progressively stupider the day this great man died. I weep.
immediately stupider* or after the day* ...idiot hehe
I weep with u man but on the side. Lets be stoic after all
His ability to define wokeism even before it existed is nothing short of genius but then we are talking about genius, aren't we?
I have a list of people with great minds that I study and this man is at the top of my list.
Does anyone else consider it ironic that this excellent lecture on the value of free speech and the iniquity of censorship is to be found here on a platform that censors free speech every single day in 2021?
Indeed I do!
Same here.
@@AFMMarcelD Oh stop. It's a platform not a country.
You have no understanding of irony. This website has never professed to be ‘free speech’, therefore youtube censoring shit on their site isn’t ironic in any fashion.
@@WhamBang You really are an idiot.
You clearly don't have even the slightest clue what free speech is or why it is so important.
For RUclips to censor anything is iniquitous because it assumes that only tech geeks know what is right and what is wrong and that the rest of us are morons who need to be spoon fed the information that they decide is good and safe for us to receive.
In your case of course they are probably correct.
If I had any influece in the world, I would have this vidio played to every university freshman during frosh week.
And you would get handwaved away as a bigot so they can go back to scrolling Facebook on their phones without feeling guilty about it.
Christopher gave a lot of speeches, but I include this as one of his very best.
This speech is legendary
RIP hitch. How we need you now
Love the Hitch... Truth unadulterated. He played his part 🔥🔥🔥🔥 we miss you comrade n good sir..
If anybody asked me who ist my hero I would, with no doubt in my heart and mind answer *"The Hitch!"* and I am absolutly sure, that I am not alone.
He is one of mine for sure
I never knew of him when he was alive to be able to miss him, but what a loss he was, even to those he locked horns with, Hitch is the missing piece of order in the sea of chaos we find ourselves in.
Many of those with whom he locked horns now carry the mantle of free speech. Not sure how he'd feel about it, but somebody needs to do it.
The wisdom, the WISDOM!
I hate to say this....but Hitchens is clearly a genius. And, his command of the English language is to be admired and create envy in most.
How right he was. Islamophobia is now used without conscience. A charge of racism when it is nothing more than a criticism of the most powerful religion in the world.
i've always viewed freedom of speech to be just that, i never thought about the right of the listener to HEAR the speech of others as well. that's a decent thought there. "take a number , get in line, and KISS MY ASS!" i LOVE THIS MAN. he took no prisoners :)
in a competitive category, his finest speech
Extremely competitive
The last intelligent and articulate man stands up.
This really does matter now, given todays events.
What a devilishly handsome chap
I miss him :( I often wonder what he would have to say in 2021...
This masterpiece of a speech should have been pensum in all academia all over the world. And all politicans, religious leaders everywhere should have this on their desks. Then the world might have a chance.
That has to be one of the best speeches ever written, surely?
One of my favorite and insightful speeches I've heard ever. I learned a lot and had vast changes in my thinking due to this man.
Not a false word spoken.
Need this voice back
Finally a well captioned version of this wonderful speech. Thankyou!!
A hero of modern times. His early death was a tragedy.
This absolute brilliance...
This might be the greatest 21 minutes orated in the 200 thousand years of homo sapiens
Hitchens was a true master.
None better.
Missed. Needed.
It occurs to me, on what must be at least my sixth viewing, that Christopher Hitchens would have made just as exquisite a Professor Snape as Alan Rickman.
In the movie perhaps, but not the book.
@@TheJeremyKentBGrossAgreed, even though Snape did redeeming things and ultimately was a hero, he was very much a bully and needlessly cruel and unfair to Harry throughout the books.
This speech I go back to very often
It’s absolutely brilliant. Christopher was brilliant and sorely missed in the world
Incredible speech. Incredible man.
This is my bed time mantra, this is wonderful word porn
How thankful I am to all the great human thinkers - and to having had the privilege of exercising my right to hear all sides, and how much smarter that has made me! How grateful I am to both Adam Smith and Karl Marx, to Moses and Jesus, to the Catholics and the Protestants, to the Latins and the Greeks, to the Traditionalists and the Reformers, to NATO and Varsaw pact, to East and the West, to the right and the left.
Christopher Hitchens would be canceled today.
You damn right!!!
No he wouldn't, because 'cancelling' means nothing to those who don't place value on it. They can try to censor you or block you from social media, but we're humans, not computer programs. We cannot be cancelled.
Miss him
What a giant man!
Everyone must keep uploading this speech!! Freedom of speech is critical in order to undergird basic human freedom and integrity.
I know I'm not going to live forever, and neither are you. But until my furlough here on Earth is revoked, I should like to elbow aside the established pieties and raise my tumbler of JWB in honour of this special giant of reason and thought provoking ideas, this one’s for you Christopher! 🥃 I sorely miss your wisdom.
Fuck yeah, I love his speeches!
Amen
Damn... We are poorer as a spieces to have lost a mind like this.
“Don’t take refuge in the false security of consensus.” MASSIVELY important to test how you “know” what you know, and to defend not only your right to speak, but your right to HEAR other opinions and facts that might contradict “common wisdom.” If you lose these rights, you’ve made a rod for your own back.
EVERYONE needs to recognize that. I do not delegate to ANYONE control over my capacity to READ, WRITE, and THINK.
I second this point very strongly. Going along with whatever the majority says is lazy and thoughtless...it robs you of your own ability to think.
@@ScandinavianHeretic Then again, mindlessly going along with things that are not conscensus is equally bad.
I couldn't fine an "introduction" to the Age of Reason by Thomas Paine that had anything to do with free speech. Does anyone know what Hitchens is referring to?
Mr. Hitchens used Paines introduction in the age of reason as an example of the protection of freedom of speech to ones religious views.
It can also be applied to ones opinion to anything (Mr. Hitchens uses the example of someone who believes the Holocaust never happened) and their right to express that opinion and it be protected.
You can read the introduction here:
www.ushistory.org/paine/reason/intro.htm
The world needs you more than ever Mr Hitchens.
Initially I never thought about it in terms of first principles (How do I know what I do) and how would you combat any given claim about something, but that is a good point.
We miss you Hitch
This man died too early. He has the type of wit and poignance that is sorely missing from discourse these days
7:12
God damned incredible
“Anybody who wants to say anything abusive about or to me is quite free to do so, Welcome in fact, At there own risk” my god do we need this attitude today.
Congratulations. You didn't listen, and you sacrificed everything for the right to agree with the consensus of authority.
I am an ardent Catholic, but I respect Hitchens and I consider this as one of his best speeches. If freedom is not essentially the freedom to dissent, then what is it really?! A freedom to consent!?!? Isn’t that rubbish?!
I found much of the remarks of Hitchens about Catholicism were very simplistic and offensive, but I would never approve to silencing or cancelling him. If I can have the right to criticise his beliefs, why shouldn’t he mine!?!
The useful idiots from West are selling their birthright of freedom for the cheap porridge of moral exhibitionism.. And as Hitchens said, “shame on you” useful idiots…
For whatever reason, it seems he looked at a world in which most profess an adherence to one set of religious beliefs or another and then ascribed the atrocious acts of flawed people to the belief system (or label) they had chosen. His thinking was so rooted in reason that he saw little benefit in thinking beyond it, which is the realm of belief and faith. I find it fascinating that his brother, Peter, is both staunch in his religious faith and resolute in his adherence to reason on worldly matters. What must their house have been like?
“Dont take refugee in being in the safely moral majority” perfect example of this is veganism and carnism
What a brilliant mind
Greatest speech on free speech this century
I wonder if Hitchens would have the same position today, now that social media has changed the rules of the game.
I mean, all the social media realm has done is prove him righter than he even knew.
Christopher Hitchens died 12 years ago today. I miss him dearly. Of all the great Hitchens videos on the internet, this might be the best.
❤❤❤
I want the entire transcript of this video tattooed on my body
Remember when this guy was a public intellectual, and not that delirious crank Jordan Peterson?
I never got the appeal of Jordan Peterson.
I do remember when "this guy" was a public intellectual, yes. I don't agree that Jordan Peterson needs to be brought up, nor that hes "delirious" nor a "crank". They are very different people and one does not take the place of the other.
To the guy who shouted “Bravo!” In the middle of that genius speech- I see you brother
I love hearing the Hitch quoting from history. I, these days, quote Christopher quoting from history. It's a strange thing. It's not just education, there was something very unique about the Hitch. P.S. I'm dismayed that supporters of Peter Hitchens have started referring to him as the Hitch. He just isn't in the same league.
The greatest lesson of this video, IMO, is not what Hitch said but rather it demonstrates that knowing what is wrong, and saying so clearly, is no damned use whatsoever. For all the truth of this speech, our govts. have simply slid further and further down the shitty slope of gutless careerism, and done the opposite of what was said here at every turn. ACTION is what is needed, not words.
18 years ago, still one of the best pieces of rethoric. Let’s offend each other, ladies and gentlemen. Stay cool.