Letters to a Young Contrarian (Art of Mentoring (Paperback))

I disagree with almost everything Hitchens says politically, except when he talks about the rights of the individual, the War on Terrorism, and the evils of all kinds of totalitarianism. Yet, I have always enjoyed his wit, his writing, and his liver. It is a treat to read Hitchens because he is funny, he does make you think, and he does make some points. But then again, I don't know if I learned anything from this book. How to be a contrarian? He never gives a precise definition, yet it seems at times to be less "to thine own self be true" than "piss everyone off and don't be in the majority." In Texas we call that "on'ry." There is a lot of history and literature thrown in, some biography, and, of course, opinions left and right. He takes left and right to task, and, again, makes the condescending assumption that "religion poisons everything," to quote the subtitle to his most recent tome. Hitchens seems to take the position in this book that you are lead astry if you believe in anything greater than yourself, if you have any set of unifying (or edifying) principles that you subscribe to. I think you can be an "individualist" (this is a better term than "contrarian," though he never uses it) and still believe in God or America or capitalism or any -ology or -ism (even the bad ones, like communism). There is no necessary conflict between skepticism and belief, or God and science. You can believe in God and not be fooled by religious totalitarianism, you can be a Republican and not be fooled by a "Republican" and so on. Still, a short, interesting read if you can get it cheaply.

First, Christopher Hitchens is clearly a first rate intellect. I take no issue with his ideas. This book has some gems scattered about and they are worth finding.

The reason I didn't rate this book more highly is because it is set up as a contrarian version of Rainer Rilke's "Letters To A Young Poet". Were it not trying to meet that standard, I would have had an easier time reading and enjoying it on its own merits.

As it was, Hitchens clearly was not writing in an intimate way to one protege. He took this opportunity to air his own accomplishments and grouches as often as he revealed anything about the nature of living in this world as someone who sees it through different eyes.

He ran on at times about arcane political situations and only sometimes tied those sections back to the needs and questions of a young contrarian.

Unlike Rilke, who displayed enormous empathy for the plight of his young poet, Hitchens couldn't seem to keep the patronizing, arrogant tone out of his voice for his readers, his enemies, and for the world at large.

Those who love Hitchens appreciate his acerbic style. I do, too. What I don't appreciate is his attempt at reproducing the classic Letters To A Young Poet in this way.

It wasn't personal. It wasn't generous. It didn't lead me to believe the writer cared about anything but his own rugged path through the world.

That's Hitchens and it is a perfectly valid way to be in this world.

What it isn't is a valid counterpart to the book from which it claims to draw inspiration.

Christopher Hitchens left us last year, far too young for an exit. My initial introduction to his work occurred in Paris, in 2002, when I walked by the Village Voice bookstore, and saw his book The Trial of Henry Kissinger prominently displayed in the window. Kissinger has long been a particular bête noir of mine, simply for his prolongation of the Vietnam War in 1968, and his advocacy of the relentless and ruthless B-52 bombing campaign on Cambodia. There is little doubt in my mind that the endurance of this bombing campaign by the peasantry was the prime contributing factor to the rise of, and the utter ruthlessness in turn, of the Khmer Rouge, which led to approximately two million deaths after the American withdrawal from the war. I purchased the book, and was truly appalled at how many other reasons there were for detesting the man.

"Letters to a Young Contrarian" was written a couple years before Hitchen's indictment of Kissinger. It is a zippy polemic, and as the title suggests, encourages youth to be skeptical of authority, as in, the "standard party line." No question, Hitchen's is knowledgeable, and in this relatively thin volume, includes Zola, George Orwell, Czeslaw Milosz, Milan Kundera, Noam Chomsky, and numerous others who have had the temerity to challenge the "received ideas" of the time. A sampling of his style, in which he worked in one of my favorite lines from the movie Doctor Zhivago Anniversary Edition (Blu-ray Book Packaging) is as follows: "Ancient authorities understood this well, providing feasts of misrule to entertain the vassals and laying on licensed jesters and fools into the bargain... An unforgettable moment in Doctor Zhivago puts the cynic Komarovsky in the saddle: a salon of bourgeois riffraff falls silent and uneasy as the crowd of workers sings the revolutionary anthem underneath the balcony; he punctures the tension by exclaiming, `Perhaps they'll learn to sing in tune after the revolution!'"

But then, certainly in the opinion of many, including myself, who had admired his positions and advocacy prior to 9-11-01, afterwards, he seemed to do a complete 180 degree turn, and become a strong supporter of the neocons, and their endless war against Islam. He broke with "The Nation" magazine where he used to work, and also denounced Gore Vidal, who had once nominated his as Vidal's dauphin, or successor. Prior to the American invasion of Iraq, in 2003, I saw him on an PBS show, along with three other panel members, debating the merits of the invasion. Divided two in favor, two against, as such shows tend to do; he was on the pro-invasion side. At one point, the moderator asked each panel member to name a book that would be relevant to the debate. The editor of the "Rolling Stone" magazine, who was in the "anti-"camp, simply held up this book. Hitchens had difficulty hiding his "sheepish look."

Almost for that reason alone, this book is well-worth a read, and for those who think Vidal lost his way in his dotage, so too did his dauphin. Let's celebrate the acerbic and contrarian observations of their youth. 5-stars.

After a fall-out with Communism in his youth Hitchens attempts to enlighten greater and carry the torch of Thomas Jefferson and George Orwell - a worthy effort - despite other possible disagreements one may have with him.

Hitchens argues for arguing when arguing has its due. Putting up the fight, giving rational to when a fight might be apropos and when not. Hitchens is a freedom fighter against the bounds of race, class, sloganisms, We-isms - he is for the individual and individual freedoms. He takes Voltaires' "Sir, I don't agree with a word you say but I shall defend to the death your right to say it" to new levels - letting others' freedoms be trampled and yours eventually will be as well - and he made a world - wide fight of it. He also gives cause for what living is all about and depicts deceits that have conned humanity into subservience rather than provoked individual liberation. Hitchens approaches most every argument in terms of liberation and especially taking Occam's razor and cutting out the... myth, illusions, deceitfully complex. Hitchens is often respected across this or that divide because solidly and authentically sees himself as an across the board liberator not as one with a mere chip on his shoulder; plus also speaks genuinely although immodestly. If you are looking for someone to totally agree with about everything - Hitchens is not your man - nor if that is what you are looking for would he likely have had not any desire to be. He is a worthy challenge to notions that one may hold; one will likely strengthen their convictions and give increased light to them or ditch them way side altogether.

Ever felt a seething, internal rage at some action, or policy one of your colleagues or bosses at work has followed, knowing deep down it is unjust, yet not having the courage to speak out?

Ever perused a yearbook of your college alumni and felt weariness, leading to frustration, leading to pervasive misantropy at the tedious,humanity sapping remunerative careers your peers have been pursuing in the last few years (corporate lawyer, business consultant etc...).

Ever felt yourself standing apart from society in some way you can't quite pin down or articulate?

If so, then this is the book for you. A slim volume of some two dozen letters to X - a hypothetical person, presumably young given the title (though not necessarily - many great figures have only come to their contrarian stand late in life), who, as Hitch puts it, are one of the rare people in an era who 'feel themselves in some fashion to be apart'. And, he continues: 'it is not so much to say that humanity is very much in debt to such people, whether it chooses to acknowledge that debt or not. It's too much to expect to live in an age which is actually propituous for dissent.'

Indeed it is. Those who pursue the path of the contrarian are unlikely to be universally liked (think Mandela, Churchill, Vaclav Havel). They will certainly not have a smooth passage through life; they are unlikely to reach the top of a safe, professional career path. Quoting extensively from his political, scientific and literary heros, Hitchens examines great contrarians from history - Zola, a staunch defendant of individual liberty in the Dreyfus case (and murdered in his bed for his troubles), Martin Luther King - engaged in some vigorous fornication the night before his death. Great figures from history who have held steadfast to their convictions and not been coerced into going along with prevailing, unjust attitudes and thought patterns.

But, as Hitch says, being a contrarian is not something you do, it is something you are. There is no set career path. You don't have to be a great public intellectual - take the case of Rosa Parks, who, in 1960s Alabama, acted 'as if a hardworking black woman could sit down on a bus at the end of the day's labour'. Hitch valourises the qualities he thinks make for a contrarian - intellectual rigour, faith in one's own opinions, courage, wit, secular rationality; and he takes pot shots at long standing targets - religion, media critics and especially Bill Clinton, whose condemnation to death of a retarded man to win him votes in the 1992 electoral campaign is reprised in these pages. Yep, Hitch likes nothing better than to puncture liberal hypocrisy and sloppy, herd thinking - whether it be left or right wing.

This book is a tonic, a swift, heady menthol rub to the brain. The life of a contrarian is a tough one, you need fortitude and courage 'to keep your powder dry for the battles ahead'. This book will not give you all the answers (to expect answers is not to think in the manner of a contrarian - for it is how you think not what you think that counts), though at the end Hitchens identifies what he believes is the (immense) struggle of the next epoch - the fight to extend the concept of universal human rights, and to match the globalization of production by the globalization of a common standard for justice and ethics.

Read this book with care and close attention; it will clear away the cobwebs of your cognition, and re-confirm your resolve to engage clearly with the injustices of the world, however large or small.

Christopher Hitchens is a great writer who I follow with interest, making a point to read him whenever I can. For example, I never miss his currently regular column in Vanity Fair which generally tends to be interesting and provocative. In fact, I find most of his work to be interesting and provocative, even when I find him irritating and we disagree. (Though, to be honest, I sometimes find him irritating even when we do agree.)

Of course, isn't it the job of a "contrarian" to be irritating? I'm not sure Hitchens would put it so blatantly, but he isn't afraid to give his opinions in the most explosive way possible, even as he back-pedals and occasionally puts on a show of (false?) modesty to remind us that he could be (and has been) wrong. I have to admit, I find these displays of fallibility somewhat jarring in the face of his general unflappability but it does have the effect of humanizing him somewhat.

In any case, he does a good job of doing what this book requires: asserting the importance of what he does and encouraging others to do the same. He uses people he admires well to support his arguments and I find I admire many of the same people he does. He also is willing to poke holes in the universally worshiped and keep forgotten atrocities in front of our faces, both qualities that deserve admiration.

If his form of atheism is as useless and closed-minded as a fundamentalist's in a religious sect--well, I can take it. It serves as a reminder that, though passionate, single-minded people can often cut right to the heart of an issue, they are rarely looking for debate. And yet, they provide those of us who are continually searching with the fuel for our intellectual fires. Hitchens always provides fuel that burns well and hot.

There is a wonderful line in this book which sums up my respect for Christopher Hitchens. He advises his promising young contrarian that what really matters about any individual is ‘not what he thinks, but how he thinks’. It could have been somewhat sullied for me, a Catholic, by Hitchens’ subsequent comment that this cannot be practiced in a kneeling or prostrate position and thus excludes the religious from his ideal definition of a contrarian. No matter, it doesn’t change the fact that despite disagreeing with Hitchens on a great many issues, I find his determination to speak his mind, exercise his intellect and challenge any imposed idols to be exactly what is needed today more than ever.

Hitchens has had a colourful journalistic career and has managed to ruffle many feathers along the way. In this book, presented as a series of letters to someone eager to follow in the long tradition of rebels and mavericks that have persistently menaced the establishment, Hitchens dispenses his own advice on how best to live a fulfilling life of being non-conformist in the genuine sense of the world. When asked once why he wanted to become a journalist, he responded that he didn’t want to rely on others for his information. This independence of thought and willingness to challenge consensus, even if it is in your ‘party interest’ is a point that Hitchens repeatedly emphasises. His own scathing attacks on prominent figures on both the Right and the Left is a testimony to his commitment and sincerity to his own advice.

As is customary with most things written by Hitchens, this book is an engaging, entertaining and enlightening read. In an era of increasing credulity and where emotion and offense are valued over fact and reason intelligent mavericks like Hitchens are needed all the more. Hopefully this book will inspire more to step up to the challenge.

In Immanuel Kant's famous 1784 monograph entitled What is Enlightenment, he wrote that Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!

He goes on to say that the reason for lack of Enlightenment is "laziness and cowardice". Kant rails against paternalistic church and state, which insists that each individual assume and maintain an immature dependent posture. If complacency and cowardice is the disease then Christopher Hitchens offers the cure in Letters to a Young Contrarian, or at least he helps point the way even if he can't walk the path for you. Hitchens, as always, speaks in beautifully arranged prose and offers his arguments and "opposition to arbitrary authority and witless mass opinion" just as he appears to live his life...completely without apology. I'd recommend this book, not to anyone, but to those predisposed to thinking rather than following, and not to those who consider following blindly the greatest form of public service.

Christopher Hitchens is often wonderful to listen to, while at other times he can be aggravating. But he presents his opinions directly, honestly, and intellectually, and this makes him entertaining... always.
In this short book, Hitchens gives his thoughts on what it means to be contrarian. He advises his audience on why it is often important to stand contrary to the mainstream, and he gives numerous examples to support this argument. Hitchens' writing is witty, and all readers will find several areas of agreement and disagreement with the author, but whatever the degree to which one agrees with Hitchens, it is impossible to argue that he is not thought-provoking.
Several reviewers here believe Hitchens to be contrarian simply for the sake of being contrarian, but this is not the case, and he actually cautions the reader several times not to be contrarian simply for argumentitive reasons. Hitchens follows his own advice, and this is best demonstrated in his discussions of religion. Despite the oft-cited polls (another item Hitchens lambastes), most people in our secular modern world do not truly believe in any religion. Many will say they are members of a certain religion, but the slightest interrogation never ceases to fail in demonstrating that very few have more than a shallow understanding of what their respective religious books have to say. Instead, in today's world, all religions are usually twisted and distorted into something that is convenient or much easier to believe. So in his disbelief and general distrust of all (not just Christianity) religions, Hitchens is not contrarian. What is contrarian though, is his refusal to make apologies for this stance. Christopher Hitchens does not take several religions and pick and choose the parts he likes (as does the Hollywood crowd), he does not make some lame explanation about being "spiritual, not religious", he does not claim to be "...still a Christian, though", nor does he take the religion in which he was raised and distort it (i.e. the "that one is just a story... oh, but that one there actually happened..." defense). Quite simply, and very easily, he dismisses them all, and defenestrates respect for their leaders as well. And THAT is contrarian.
I highly recommend this book, even though it comes from an author with whom I have multiple disagreements. It is a quick read, but it is thought-provoking and encouraging. Above all, any honest reader will appreciate Hitchens' refusal to make excuses for popular figures such as the Dalai Lama and Bill Clinton.

Most writers who claim the title "curmudgeon" are merely posers (one thinks of Andy Rooney, who is really as toothless and establishment as can be.) Christopher Hitchens is the real deal. He says what he thinks, "and let the heavens fall." Hitchens proclaims himself a man of the left. But the more you read him, the more you get that he has real faith in humanity--that as stupid and evil as we can be, we also have the capacity to rise to the occasion and do good. We can do this because we have the ability to reason things out (I would say the "God-given ability"--Hitchens would sneer.) We can even discover truth (something the post-modern left denies.) Hitchens' prose style is like George Orwell crossed with the hardest-hitting linebacker you ever saw. And he is unafraid to cross party lines when necessary. In "Letters" he continues to savage Bill Clinton, and he acknowledges it was two "right-wingers"--Alan Greenspan and Milton Friedman--who helped end the draft during the Vietnam war. If you don't want to join "the herd of independent minds" that passes for thought in the media, this book is for you.

It's easy to forget sometimes, based on the flair and panache he exudes on the television screen, just how educated Christopher Hitchens actually is. In this book, you'll be treated to a lifetime's worth of insight and scholarship as he provides the reader with some of the best citations you'll ever come across, including, "Here I stand I can do no other" by Martin Luther.

Hitchens is a contrarian but these Letters will appeal to anyone as they are the celebration of the mind via reason. When he first heard "the personal is political," he knew it was poison and he rails against the emotional approach to deciding issues in these pages. I am very glad he did. I couldn't help but think what I've thought about him so many times, "This is such a brave man."

Regardless of what one believes regarding his arguments and positions, the author always puts forth sound rationale for why he thinks the way he does. His critique of conformists is absolutely precious and I would be only too happy to give this book to any young person. It's an education in itself.

The headline is a bit simplistic, but basically this is Hitchins expanding on the thought processes of the great minds he recalls. Which I see as a good thing, since variety (in thought and belief) is the essence of learning, as long as you are open minded. Which I believe some of the reviewers were not. I disagreed with about 30% of the book, but at no point was turned off by Hitchins views since it stimulated my own thoughts on previously untapped but timeless subjects. The text sampled from author authors are not simply given, Hitchins does a great job of building or deconstructing the quotes of the authors. Hitchins writes as you see him on TV, it flows and makes one envious of his vocabulary and even the obvious breadth of classic education. It lacks a five star rating simply because it relies too much on thoughts of others, instead of that of the man I bought the book from.

I find it a pleasure that Christopher Hitchens writes as eloquently in praise (his books on Orwell and Thomas Paine) as he does in damnation (everything else). His book LETTERS TO A YOUNG CONTRARIAN (Basic Books, 2001), with its open allusion to Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet (which passes under Hitchens's eye with a few but relatively light scorch marks) is a discussion of the role of contrarian or, as the cynics might have it, professional nay-sayer: "A disposition for resistance, however slight, against arbitrary authority or witless mass opinion, or a thrill of recognition when you encounter some well-wrought phrase from a free intelligence....To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist. And there is no decent or charted way of making a living at it. It is something you are, not something you do." The role has its temptations and dangers, of which Hitchens is gratifyingly aware--the book serves as an assurance, if you are thrown by consistent nay-sayers, that Hitchens writes in skeptic good faith. And it presents, in brief and effectively restrained form, Hitchens's objections to religious thought. These are questions, if you pretend to faith, that you have to answer, but in form beside which Hitchens's much-discussed GOD IS NOT GREAT is a slack and over-insistent piece of writing. Being Hitchens, the book is full of questions you should be answering (this is the twenty-first century, if you had not noticed) and plenty of humor; one story is offered "as part of my recommendation that one acts bloody-minded as often as the odds are favorable and even sometimes when they are not; it's good exercise." LETTERS is a spirited and enlivening book that delivers the bad news with a maximum of precision and zest.

Glenn Shea, from Glenn's Book Notes at www.bookbarnniantic.com

Hitchen has always come across as a bully. Sometimes he reminds me of religious scholars who fill up the auditorium with fellow fanatics and then debate someone who opposes their ideas. There is no prize for guessing that the opponent is a dead duck and is tossed around like a salad under construction. This is what Hitchens comes across as when answering questions and debating people. But his arrogance should not be used to measure his intelligence or the fact that, even though he was a bully, he was an educated bully. His arguments were not pulled out of thin air and, in most cases, had a semblence of thought and intellectual reaction in them.

In order to appreciate the works of such men, it is important to focus on the mental models they cultivate and share. Granted that his mental models (such as don't be afraid to be bold, brash, in people's face etc to make a difference) are nothing new but this should not diminish the importance of his message. Maybe its old news in new clothes but then again, he is a more recent figure and young readers are more likely to trust the radical they can see and hear over someone who is dead and buried.

I recommend this book to any one who is willing to engage in silent argument with himself. You can agree or disagree with Hitchens, but in any case, you will have formed your strong opinions on how to live and what to do to live that way.

Dialectic is a form of dialogue in thought that exists as a transient life form, appearing and disappearing at various times in the cultural and philosophical ethos, usually coinciding with the threat of decline of a civilisation, or in its complacent self-assurance. Between the two, it has little function, and wanes as an intellectual force. Perhaps our times will arguably be defined as a mixture of both of these by the long view of history looking back, so it is appropriate that this little book should appear now and be written in the form of correspondence.
A young contrarian has little in common with the `angry young man' perspective, although it must surely have its roots in the spirit of rebellion, which is associated wrongly with the stamp of youth. This is no text for the angry young man or woman. That, at best, is a starting point, revealing that the spirit of dissent is most probably hard-wired into us, and that it must be accommodated. By its existence, it guarantees the emergence of the critical spirit and the enquiring mind, and at the same time protects against the ossification of thought that can threaten these two. This hardening of thought turns into dogma and represents a calcification of spirit that reflects itself in a non-participative politik. Consequently, it cannot take a position and speak from on high, or pronounce truths, by which means it would become the very thing it judges or criticises. To write the main thrust of this book in the form of letters means that we readers are keyhole observers, peeping toms and no better than that, and this is a more advantageous position since one never feels preached to.
However, dialectical thought is not for the faint-hearted in that it never reaches a point of satisfaction. It is, after all, derived from a permanent state of dissatisfaction. But ironically, this book demonstrates what can happen when this dissent picks on soft targets and takes a position. It is, for instance, a simple task to be opposed to religious dogma and point at the wars of history fought in the defence of it, and it is just as easy to extol the virtues of science. Neither of these represent the dialectical position, since it would be the responsibility of the contrarian to take the opposite view of this and reverse this trend. Science, after all, has no serious critics, while religion is more or less permanently on the defensive. In effect, one feels that the task of the dialectician is being subverted to vent a personal view, which is not the purpose of dialectic. In this form it becomes all bombast and bluster and becomes rigidified, reflecting its transmutation and becoming the thing it should be opposed to.
However, any book that attempts to reactivate this important function at a time when the individual voice is becoming more and more scarce is worth looking at, for all its faults. There is much else in these few pages to commend it.

At the risk of sounding like an overly exuberant Teen meeting Justin Timberlake for the first time-let me say I love this book. While I might not entirely agree with him philosophically, and while he may border on insufferableness at points in the book(too much name dropping), it was, and remains an excellent read. It's really an antithesis to self help society and the idea that internal angst should be stifled and isn't healthy. Living in the bay area, the exhippy/pseudo zen capital of the world, where everyone is enlightened and drives an SUV to yoga,and is never really upest by anything because that would be indicative of a need for more paxil and meditation,(unless it's some sort of low income housing development going in, or a large sign being placed next to the freeway), this book especially spoke to me. At it's core is the conviction that conflict has to happen for any sort of clarity. Which, given our saccharine and often times numbing pop culture-is revolutionary in and of itself. He's not preaching nihilism, just the embrace of irony-and unlike many other pomo philiosophers that I've read, he seems cautiously optimistic about the future and human beings. Again, I disagree with him on several points, but this book has to be apprecciated for it's refusal to accept lackisdasical intellectualism no matter what side of the spectrum it comes from and for encouraging people to think for themselves, in meaningful ways. He may be an elitist, but so what?

Hitchens' "Letters to a Young Contrarian" is a short book- 141 pages of widely spaced text- in the form of short essays in the form of "letters." The first two letters, consisting of some rambling thoughts on Zola and Rilke, got the book off to a bad start and I almost stopped reading because of them. But starting with Letter III Hitchens abruptly picks up steam and the book progressively improves from that point on. If you've read other books by Hitchens, you probably won't find much new here- and I mean that literally, since Hitchens recycles a substantial number of the anecdotes from this book almost verbatim just within "God is Not Great." He also seems to have written the book pretty much off the top of his head, with a lack or research or fact-checking sometimes showing through (such as when he places Rosa Parks' 1955 refusal to move to the back of the bus in the "early 1960's"). Still, Hitchens is at his best when he's worked himself into a state of indignity or anger about an injustice or perceived phony public figure, and he gets to display those emotions here.

This was a fascinating read, for the primary reason of discovering how the mind of one of the most controversial writers around today functions and processes information. Truly interesting

Hitchens constantly reminds his students that their primary targets for derision and out right rejection are those who "come from authority" or otherwise claim to have authority and only use it for conservative and reactionary purposes.

Without getting into a discussion of how this book may contradict his later writings about the Iraq War, both sides of his writing provides interesting insight.

I recommend this short book.

Hitchens has practiced and advocates the practice of behaving "as if" ... as if repression did not prevail when it clearly does, speaking one's mind, writing, acting poeticizing when such activity may well inspire reprisal and retaliation. It is, he explains, quite easy to make acts of despotism look very foolish.

He tilts his lance and the big criminals not the little ones, the ones who establish state policy and manipulate the system, not the little ones who merely seek to defy it. He targets the Kissingers, Pinochets and Ayatollas of the world.

Were more people to follow his lead, serious wickedness wouldn't stand a chance.

I think this is intended for people slightly younger than I am, but I still greatly appreciate Hitchens' passion and defense for being an independent thinker and for pointing out some of the pitfalls and pride that come with the territory. He had a fiercely humanistic outlook that often takes a backseat to his unreserved loathing and mockery of theism, but which is very well-represented here. This is a good book to give to a punky teenage rebel. With any luck, it will help them transition into becoming a thoughtful, sophisticated rebel down the road.

I don't think it is possible to understand Hitchens' writing until you understand what motivates him. He is a contrarian. So, if he is arguing a position you don't agree with as a liberal - that is the point! We don't need our views re-inforced, we need them challenged. And Hitchens does that from a Humanist perspective, which is why I value his work. I found this book to be a wonderful and enlightening read. You learn about his past, what brought him to contrarianism and why he persists as a contrarian. If you like Hitch, or just want to understand him better, read this book.

Recently stumbled onto this little book that wants to make a stir, somewhere, somehow. I think that wanting to become a national best-seller is on the list for Hitchens, i.e., to write something intellectual, controversial and garner broad public attention (like the Closing of the American Mind was for Mr. Bloom). Both authors are roughly in the same camp and enjoy the fine art of biting.

But I could be wrong in my impression and perhaps this is just for those rebels on the fringe who enjoy free thought. But there is something ambitious about this book. If Thomas Paine could write pamphlets and be famous, why not Hitchens! Not to detract from what Hitchens is saying throughout the book, it is a good message, and the cover gives us the right image of the rebel (Bogey and Dean). But will America be stirred, provoked? Probably not and controversy remains more in the hands of the irrationally rational, eg., somebody like a David Lynch. Still a good biting message!

"Letters To A Contrarian" is really a book of letter Hitchins writes to himself about, primarily, how to maintain his radical values. It is really a book about who Christopher is. His books are perhaps the most interesting and original books (who else would vilify Mother Theresa and Henry Kissinger?) written on current history and politics; yet the most irrelevant too. Hitchens is extremely bright (even in an extremely bright profession) , controversial, radical, iconoclastic, educated, experienced, and still astonishingly irrelevant. One time he is taking on Mother Teresa, then appearing as a leftist on C-SPAN against his conservative British brother, then he turns up on Charlie Rose saying he is a libertarian, then he writes regularly for The Nation (while preferring globalization), and finally he applauds an article in the National Review or the Weekly Standard. This latest book is the most scattered of all amounting to little more than a general pep talk about how to keep up your radical credentials (don't follow the crowd, etc.), or, how to be Christopher Hitchens. Being so independent, cool, intellectual, and affected (unshaven, trench coat, chain smoking, intellectual verbal cadence) may be good for ones' image and career but how does it really help the reader who time and again is given only the choice of voting for a Democrat or Republican?
In the beginning there was Thomas Jefferson arguing for freedom and Alexander Hamilton arguing for Government. Today the Democrats and Republicans are still arguing about the same issue, while Mr. Hitchens is oddly arguing about something else not even defined, let alone on the ballot? Why doesn't he write a book on why Trent Lott and Sam Daschel have split the United States gov't along stupid or irrelevant lines? Why doesn't he address the issue every American faces every time he enters a voting booth? In truth, the more relevant and central an issue is to World History the more Mr. Hitchens stays away from it. So, if you want to be a proud but harmless radical, read this book. But, please consider that when you are done, like Marlon Brando in "The Wild Ones" you'll still have to figure out what it is that you want to be radical about, if that should matter to you at all. The scattershot Hitchins/Brando approach is just not relevant to the choice voters face. The non-intellectual mass media keeps America divided and in the middle because that is how the they make the most money and find the biggest audience while the very intellectual Christopher Hitchens does the same thing because that is how he too makes the most money. Or, perhaps in an existential world "cool and independent" has a value all by itself? But, if you want to read a book that seeks to be relevant as much as this book seeks to avoid relevancy try "Understanding The Difference Between Democrats And Republicans"

This small book by Christopher Hitchens is written as a series of letters to a young protege. The beginning of each letter begins by pretending to answer a question, which provides Hitchens with a jumping-off point for his own observations. Hitchens is extremely well read and his letters are peppered with quotations and allusions.
The point of this book is to instruct others in how to follow his skepticism. In one "letter" he writes, "For the dissenter, the skeptical mentality is at least as important as any armor of principle." As a college professor, I could not agree more that a critical stance is absolutely necessary. For him, skepticism must equal protracted and painful conflict. He considers compromise and deliberation as a means to resolving disputes, but rejects them in the end, calling them "pointless" and "mindless." He argues that "in life we make progress by conflict and disputation," a point with which many would agree, but he puts his own unique stamp on it by casting normal debate as a fight to the death.
Although the aim of the book is to create young social critics, it's not likely that one should surpass Hitchens himself in being refractory. Hitchens has turned contrariness into an art form. As a journalist, he has criticized Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, as well as efforts to bring Serbian strongman Slobodon Milosevic to justice. For Hitchens, the more sacred the cow, the more attractive it is as the target for his barbs. It will be interesting to see if he will long remain silent on President Bush and his administration's handling of America's "New War."
In the course of the letters, Hitchens offers a few nuggets of advice that are actually constructive. For example, he urges the young to live "as if." Live "as if" racism, sexism, or any other prejudice do not inform one's actions, he advises. This advice seems particularly naive coming from America's leading curmudgeon. He would have laughed if anyone else had suggested it.

This small book by Christopher Hitchens is written as a series of letters to a young protege. The beginning of each letter begins by pretending to answer a question, which provides Hitchens with a jumping-off point for his own observations. Hitchens is extremely well read and his letters are peppered with quotations and allusions.
The point of this book is to instruct others in how to follow his skepticism. In one "letter" he writes, "For the dissenter, the skeptical mentality is at least as important as any armor of principle." As a college professor, I could not agree more that a critical stance is absolutely necessary. For him, skepticism must equal protracted and painful conflict. He considers compromise and deliberation as a means to resolving disputes, but rejects them in the end, calling them "pointless" and "mindless." He argues that "in life we make progress by conflict and disputation," a point with which many would agree, but he puts his own unique stamp on it by casting normal debate as a fight to the death.
Although the aim of the book is to create young social critics, it's not likely that one should surpass Hitchens himself in being refractory. Hitchens has turned contrariness into an art form. As a journalist, he has criticized Mother Teresa, Princess Diana, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, as well as efforts to bring Serbian strongman Slobodon Milosevic to justice. For Hitchens, the more sacred the cow, the more attractive it is as the target for his barbs. It will be interesting to see if he will long remain silent on President Bush and his administration's handling of America's "New War."
In the course of the letters, Hitchens offers a few nuggets of advice that are actually constructive. For example, he urges the young to live "as if." Live "as if" racism, sexism, or any other prejudice do not inform one's actions, he advises. This advice seems particularly naive coming from America's leading curmudgeon. He would have laughed if anyone else had suggested it.

Christopher Hitchens politics are often annoying--and occasionally bizarre--and his personality can be grating, to say the least.
But man, can he write.
He's a great thinker, no doubt about it. Unfortunately, his incredible brain has been turned off onto some weird side road, filled with illogical conspiracy theories, debunct claims, and unfounded, illogical, and slanderous accusations. His incredible mind has often been wasted forming a proposterous universe that simply doesn't exist.
When he keeps himself on the plane of reality, he's a fascinating genius. He's been everywhere and done everything--though he seems to spend all of his time with crackpots and political hucksters--and he can tell a hell of a story. This is a fascinating book, when it steers clear of calling Mother Teresa names or referring to idiotic plots by Kissenger and Ghandi.
Of course, one of the signs of Hitchens crackpot-genius is the fact that he has innoculated himself against criticisms like mine: I'm just a brainwashed victim of the worldwide conspiracy...

I have a bookshelf where my favorite "desert island" books are lined up. This jewel will soon be there. It is a polemic against on that fuzzy thinking that dominates so much of the chattering classes. It is a constant warning that we must be on our guard against mediocrity. And yes, it is an ode to Orwell and his relevance today.

It is written in an economical style that is a pleasure to read. It makes it points -- the danger of intellectual compromise, the fakeness of religion -- clearly without falling into the pitfalls of heavy theory.

My only quibble is with the title. "Young Contrarian?". This is a wakeup call to all those readers, many of them a little older than "young" -- who have found an intellectual comfort zone that offends nobody.

This book offers great advice for any credulous youngsters who have followed their parents into the same political, religious and social mould and found themselves left wanting. I read it on the plane and it made the 3 hour trip to Perth a pleasure. Hitchens take on original sin - and a deity dying for sins that we may have committed millenia before we were concieved - as a travesty of personal accountability, is thought provoking as are numerous other observations. If you don't agree with CH read this book, if you generally do, you wont agree with everything in here. Highly recommended and guaranteed to make you think.

Hitchens was the greatest essayist of his generation. This is another fascinating, wide ranging book from him. Although I did think it could have been helped if he had provided at least snippets from the young contrarian to whom he is offering advice here. I sometimes felt like I was listening to one half of a conversation.

Praise:
"Letters to a Young Contrarian" is a fun mental strength building exercise; a thought provoking read! Hitchens' letters on religion, arrogance and the life of the contrarian are brilliant; every one of his essays inspires introspection and reflection. At times you will wholeheartedly agree with Hitchens' beautiful aureate prose and then, just as ardently, you will find yourself disagreeing with every idea he puts to paper. Whether you agree or disagree with Hitchens, he will refine your own views and opinions.
Criticism:
The book seems a little rushed and annoyingly desultory and at times I found Hitchens' language to be verbose, prolix and at its worst, euphuistic; he often makes obscure and, in my opinion unnecessary references to esoteric literature or (tragically) overlooked history and current events, not to mention his avid use of recondite Latin and French aphorisms.
Conclusion:
The book is obviously not for everyone, but for those young (or old) contrarians struggling with their solitude, identity, methods and purpose, the book is a must.

christopher sets out to generate incentive to writers to critisize those in power or those held in high esteem--his forte. this book is very well written and i advise should be used in higher learning journalism classes

Other reviewers have certainly pointed out the book's and Hitchen's stong points, but I think that they're too generous. The remarkable thing about Hitchens is his rise to such great fame and authority on what is really a meagre spread. He likes to tout his receipt of the mantle from Gore Vidal, but he's neither as gifted as a writer nor as searching in his critique. It's possibly an unfair comparison, but it's one that we're invited to make, and given the contrast, the invitation seems more aggrandizing than accurate.
This book, while fun, ... Well, to my eye, that's its strong point. It seems a bit of a knock-off and perhaps has it's audience among the fresh-faced and fawning.
If I were looking for someone more in the line of Gore Vidal I'd suggest John Ralston Saul. Compared to Hitchens, Saul's observations and analyses are often more readable, delivered without the abrasion, and are part of a larger, coherent fabric.

Hitch is intrinsically honest, whether you agree with his tenets or not you will find a sense of conviction, reactionary freedom, and plenty of intellectual fodder. A mind most would envy and wish they had. Great book.

This is a terrible book.

If you have any experience (i.e., if you've ever heard of the stereotypical "fault finding man of words"), you can realize where the book is going before it even starts.

1. Hitchens comes across as someone for whom protesting/ being contrary is a state of being rather than a tool to achieve some end. So, I can imagine that if someone is fighting for higher wages, then they have a finite goal in mind. But it's not hard to imagine that if someone walked up and told Hitchens that 2+2=4, then he would find some reason to argue.

2. It's also true that Hitchens tried quite a few religions earlier in his life. Marxist. Methodist. Anglican. Jewish. And after all the smoke and dust cleared, he settled on being Eternally Angry.

I just have SO many questions.

1. Is there any benefit in spending a life protesting for its own sake? One thing that Hitches protested a lot was the Church. But the Church is still going strong (and the mosque and the shul), and Hitchens is dead. And if we wait long enough, his name will grow fainter and fainter until it finally vanishes from the collective conscious. And the church/ mosque/ shul will still be here with us. There have been whole books written about Intellectuals (Intellectuals: From Marx and Tolstoy to Sartre and Chomsky) and some of them have been dead for less than a century-- and are totally forgotten. Would the author tell people to not enjoy the time that they have focusing on what they can control? (Kids. A mortgage.)

2. Is there any benefit to having doxastic commitment to anything? The author has the ability to get his message heard in a universal language (English). But that only happened because some people decided that they believed in spreading the Queen's Empire. Vietnam lived under 1,000 years of Chinese occupation --and came out of it-- because people believed in themselves.

3. Hitchens babbles the predictable banality that "religion is a form of control." But the question is: Is there any life anywhere that is free of being controlled by *something*? We all have to die, but can't say when or how. We all have to work for a living, but can't say what wage we get (outside of market prices). We might have to go to work and encounter psychotic bosses and coworkers whose mental illness we have no hand in *other* that being forced to work for them.

4. What does the world look like that Hitchens wants? I think if you could bring him back to life, he wouldn't be able to tell you. Is this pushing a noun against a verb *just* for the sake of blowing up something? Is it that once there is total chaos, he would be happy? Is a world with high order hellish?

It seems like this author lives nowhere in the real world. If you have too much dissent, then you have Africa and the Balkans. If you have a well oiled machine, then you have Japan or China. (Monolithic China is quietly colonizing fractured/ fractious/ dissent-heavy Africa even as we speak.)

Prose: This author needs two things.

1. An editor;
2. The suggestions of David Berlinski.

It is just so hard to find the point of these 4- and 5-page chapters that I had to go back and write down (in one sentence) what I thought he was driving at.

The prose is so windy that I think that this will be my last Hitchens book. (And it was the first, found on my mother's shelf in the basement.)

The book was only 141 pages, but it read more like it was 500.

Verdict: Not worth the time. Not worth the money. Not recommended.

This is another brilliant work by Hitchens. As I was reading this, I though I really should have read this in college. But soon realized, it's probably never too late to fight the good fight. Do yourself a favor and read this... Christopher Hitchens is always entertaining and enlightening.

In his much better book Prepared for the Worst, Christopher Hitchens reviewed Norman Podhoretz's gruesome memoir Breaking Ranks, and noted among that book's many vices the way that it presented itself as an affected series of letters to Podhoretz's son. Now years later Hitchens himself has written a series of letters to an imaginary radical who wants good advice on how to be an intelligent principled radical. Well, anyone who really does want to be a principled radical could find worse guides than this one. In case anyone doesn't already know it, Hitchens reminds us that the essence of politics is vigorous controversy and not smothering consensus. One should also question the obvious, one should never be blackmailed by loyalty to one's own side into supporting the vicious, and one should be particularly contemptuous of religion. One should not be bullied by public opinion, one should always have libertarian prejudices, and one should be aware of the trap of identity politics. There are many admirable radicals who have an excellent sense of humor, and there are other admirable radicals who take their views with the proper seriousness. In the end Hitchens praises a radicalism, if not a socialism, that seeks a globalization of liberty, and a maximum of skepticism, indignation and self-criticism.
Well, good advice, at least most of it. But there is something lazy about the whole enterprise. Not only is the format artificial (couldn't Basic Books sprung for a real young contrarian?) but the style is as well. I might add that the absence of a real conversation only emphasizes the similarity to the Screwtape letters. There is one really fine passage in which Hitchens remembers about all the former political prisoners he met who have now been liberated. But then he reminds us that the Indian Socialist Fernandes, once Indira Gandhi's prisoner, is now the defense minister of a nuclear Hindu fundamentalist government, that President Havel is less than honest about the Czech republic's Gypsies, and President Mbeki is less than sane about AIDS.
Unfortunately the rest of this book is less self-critical, it has the odour of a smuggly swallowed sherry. It badly needs a spectre at its banquet. For a start, who does Hitchens think he is arguing against when he invokes Aeropygytica or On Liberty? (Hillary Clinton perhaps?) Twelve years ago Conor Cruise O'Brien noted a tendency of Hitchens to refer to other people in excessively chummy terms. And in this book this tendency is becoming a bit of a nuisance, as about twenty people are offhandedly referred to as Hitchens' friend. At one point Hitchens speaks of enthusiasm of Havel and Solzhensityn's idea that we act "as if" we already lived in a just society. Looking now at the grim state of Russia in 2001, I think its politics needs something more than the inspiring examples of these saints for six o'clock. And in rightly praising Michnik and Konrad, should not some mention be made of the fact that both Poland and Hungary have freely returned the ex-Communists to power? And while one would ordinarily be sympathetic to his bold support of controversy and partisanship in contrast to consensus and moderation, I distinctly recall such an angry column during the Clinton impeachment trial (Feb 15, 1999, The Nation). Maybe it's just me, but during a trial one expects, no demands, impartiality and neutrality from the jurors of a trial.
Since Hitchens' next major project is to be a new hagiography (sorry, biography) of Orwell, I might make some critical comments about his invocation as a model. People may invoke Mother Theresa or the Virgin Mary or St. Francis of Assissi as a model because, rightly or wrongly, they believe these three people possess virtues which they themselves do not have. But when the Murdochian press or the Likudian lumpenintelligentsia see in Orwell, not just a model of intellectual courage, but a vindication of their own crassness and hypocrisy, I think we have a problem. When everyone from Chomsky to Fussell, from Dwight MacDonald to Robert Conquest, from Bernard Crick to Martin Peretz views Orwell as a saint, only without any of those declasse Catholic connotations, and when only the late Raymond Williams stands condemned, is Orwell really the model for the contrarian of our time?
Likewise, I have to dissent from Hitchens' treatment of religion. No doubt it is true that much religious discourse in the United States is vacuous or dishonest. But to sneer at Rilke, to condemn Pascal, and to drag in Tertullian's comments about the saved gloating over the damned strikes me as lazy. Even the gruesome cult of Ayn Rand gets more respect than the Roman Catholic Church (for opposing conscription). It is perfectly proper to praise Zola at the expense of the Church and the anti-Dreyfussards, but surely some mention should be made of French anticlericalism's tendencies towards paranoia, demagoguery and misogyny. And in response to a column of his written earlier this year in praise of iconoclasm, I can't help but respond that Richard Pipes has shown that the Leninist campaign against the church was an unmitigated human and moral disaster.
The book contains many interesting anecdotes about Brecht, Bosnia, Milosz, Debs, and Paine, most of which have appeared in Prepared for the Worst, or For the Sake of Argument. Readers who admire Hitchens should turn to those books to see Hitchens at his best.

First, the publisher should get high marks for producing such a good-looking book: its decipherable typeface and neat margins, made for a pleasant reading experience. Mr. Hitchens complements its production by his smoothly-written text. Hullo!: a man who makes you look up the word "repine" cannot be all bad. He cannot be all good either. When he writes: "It doesn't matter what one thinks, but how one thinks." the mind reels. (At least this mind.) This formulation cannot stand. When Noam Chomsky remarks to an interlocutor that he esteems Angela Davis higher than Alexandr I. Solzenhitsyn, it is of no interest to me how he arrived at such a silly opinion, only that he held it. This formulation also misses the very virtue of Orwell's writings (which Mr. Hitchens has extolled elsewhere): that intellectuals (like non-intellectuals) can at times be right (e.g., J.M. Keynes' claim that the terms of the Treaty of Versailles were too harsh) and some times be wrong (pardon any blows to amour-propre).
Dissent is necessary in a free and democratic society [especially during a Republican administration which loves, among other things, the Fallacy of the Shifting Rationale]; a global distribution of Little Miss Marys,though, riding not "high horses" but particular hobbyhorses is as dispiriting as one filled with dogmatists.

This book is an excellent introduction to Christopher Hitchens's mantra: it's not about what you think, it's about how you think. These few pages provide a brief but effective lesson in how to think better.

I love the idea and philospphy hitchens has but in his writing he gets to fancy and tries to bump up is writing with unnessasary fancy vocab you kind of get lost in this book becasue he uses at least 5 words per sentence you have to look up. im very good with vocab and nkow more words than my graduating class combined but hitchens overdoes it with this one , im dissipointed because i love the central idea and as a young dissenter i want all the advice adn knowledge possible but he makes it difficult to get throught a capter without being confused and have to think about what that might mean.

Christopher Hitchens places himself as a radical political contraire, desperately seeking to impart his wisdom to youthful students of foreign affairs; he gives answers to unasked questions and revels in his own glorious self. I like Hitchens and think he was once one of the great journalists in the world, but lately his egoism and opportunism have gotten a little hard to take. Listen, to brashly and stupidly apologize for the crimes of George W. Bush when you were once a self-proclaimed Trotskyite is not being "independent-minded," it's selling out. Notice how polemicists who change their worldview always seem to migrate towards the center of power, never the other way around. This is a rather useless little book in which Hitchens is constantly making love and equating his style to George Orwell which is just pitiful, Orwell never had to directly impart his virtue to others in letter form, it was always right there in his novels and essays, and that is what Hitchens cant seem to understand, a true journalistic dissident does not have to expound his views, they're right there on the page, let the readers think for themselves. I'd like to see Hitchens return to the valuable work he has done in the past and stop trying to make a cheap buck off this schlock.