Christopher Hitchens

I have chosen the late Christopher Hitchens as the public intellectual of my choice because he really intrigues me as a person and writer, an intellectual of his own.  Christopher Hitchens, known as Hitch, was a truly unique figure of his time.  Some of his ideas seem extremely radical, yet make perfect sense at the same time.  He was strong in his ideals, and did not waiver in them, writing strongly about things he did not like, and praising those that he did.  He was not a fan of religion, being an atheist, in fact as one reads it is understood that he despised it, yet he also believed in the 'life' of a human fetus.  He had no fear in challenging another, and considered his most prized predecessor to be George Orwell.  If any of us have read Orwell's 1984 we can understand how advanced and revolutionary Orwell was in his understanding and thoughts of authoritarianism and utilitarianism. Hitchens did nothing short of following through in explaining his own ideals in such manners.  Though a great amount of his work is controversial, including his critiques of Mother Theresa and Bill Clinton, much of what he says in some way as stated earlier makes sense.  Overall, he was a groundbreaking journalist, author, and essayist who stood his ground on issues that others criticized him for, yet he can be considered one of the last people to stand for what they truly believe in, and as an article, that I enjoyed reading about him described him as the last nonpartisan intellectual.  This is an article that I believe describes him and the influence on his work very interestingly.  Another article I have found interesting to give insight into the type of journalist, author, and essayist that Hitch truly was is written by Robert Asher titled 'Religious' Scientists and the Legacy of Christopher Hitchens.  Christopher Hitchens has boggled my mind in many ways, but his work is excellent and to me he is the ultimate example of a public intellectual that broke ground that most writers would not have thought of, paving the way for intellectuals to truly speak their mind, shaping the political and international world, in my opinion, for the better.