Two Hitchens, one Good and the Other a Trotskeyite

Drawn like a vulture to the scene of an accident, I've noticed a certain confluence between newly converted conservatives from Trotskeyism. This is an article about Peter Hitchens, though, the brother of our apparent former Trotskeyite, or "Trot" as they're called with some derision by the ascendant Communist Party faithful.

Understandably, both men are deeply religious, although one of them conceals this beneath a sneer and gavoling anti-clerical invective laden approach at England's leftist Guardian. Both Hitchens, although they are inveterate battlers against everyone they regard as immoral, and occasionally each other, and disagree about God, both hate the "clap-happy" pablum of the contemporary worship service available in all denominations for the disedification of many. Well, here's the article. We're going to write more about Christopher Hitchens, whom we feel has a lot more loyalty to Internatiional Socialism than his newfound conservatism indicates.

Hitchens Brothers’ Rift Starts With Religion
By MARK OPPENHEIMER
Published: July 30, 2010

Permalink Oxford, England

Chatting at a coffee shop in his hometown, Peter Hitchens is disinclined to talk about his older brother, Christopher, the famously combative journalist.

In May, Peter published the American edition of “The Rage Against God,” a pro-Christian tract meant to counter his brother’s 2007 book, the popular atheist manifesto “God Is Not Great”; last month, Christopher announced that he was starting treatment for esophageal cancer.

The two brothers have never been close, and in fact are well known to dislike each other. But Peter is obviously sad when asked about his brother’s illness, and one can imagine that, if he had known what was to come, he might have kept his sword in its scabbard.

But that is not in the Hitchens nature. Christopher is known in England, in his adopted United States and beyond as a mercurial provocateur — once a Trotskyite, now a supporter of the Iraq war, always an atheist, author of a derisive book attacking Mother Teresa — while Peter’s fame is concentrated in England. But his own books, journalism and television commentary, all very conservative, show the same frank ruthlessness, and the same ability to attract enemies. For two sons of a respectable officer in the Royal Navy, they are not very good boys.

Christopher has moved somewhat to the political right in the last few years, thus aligning the brothers’ views a bit. But they still are far apart on religion, and that is what “The Rage Against God” is about. Peter got the idea for the book after a public debate with his brother about theism, in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 2008.

“I do not think that either of us engaged properly with the other on that occasion,” Mr. Hitchens writes. Afterward, he resolved to hold no more such debates, fearing that they could only lead to enmity and further estrangement. “I am 58. He is 60. We do not necessarily have time for another brothers’ war.” (Christopher is now 61.)

Read further, here.



H/T: to Royal Cello at Royal World.