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Letters to a Young Contrarian

by Sarahana | July 2005

"It is a strange thing," writes Christopher Hitchens in Letters to a Young Contrarian, "but it remains true that our language and culture contain no proper word for your aspiration." Indeed the word "contrarian"—someone who is disposed to taking a contrary position against what is habitual—is not entirely useful with its emphasis on the symptom rather than the modus operandi; after all, Hitchens' tenet is the importance of how you think, not what you think—he has stated elsewhere that he became a journalist in order to avoid relying on newspapers for information. A contrarian's aspiration is therefore marked not merely by opposition but more importantly by an independent mind—the terms "freethinker" and "independent thinker" may supplement in modest amount.

Hitchens avoids drawing heavily from his own experiences, and chooses to rely instead on the wealth of reading he has acquired over the years. While this can be attributed to his academic training in Philosophy (along with Politics and Economy), it is also a reflection of a contrarian's interest in arguments and theory, not necessarily in immediate consequences. For questions that demand to know what the point of this site is, or in response to those who have advised us not to "fight against each other," Hitchens would argue that argument is essential for its own sake. "In life," he writes, "we make progress by conflict and in mental life by argument and disputation." Arguments may produce more heat than light, but heat happens to be the chief source of light. A state of perpetual happiness and harmony—a "Disneyland of the mind"—would be pointlessness, "the apotheosis of the ostrich." There is a weariness of "politics of division" although politics by definition is division. So even if everyone but one agreed, the sole dissenter would need to be heard in case we forget our original argument; a skeptical mentality must be embraced and zealotry shunned—especially because any attempt to make the world a Utopian reality or to entirely transform humans would result in destruction.

That is not to say that the imperfections of the world must be left as they are—just as injustice and irrationality are inevitable, so are opposition to them. Hitchens consciously measures how much (or "how little") he has been able to do—from Vietnam to Bosnia. Contrarians are in the minority, but "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil," and here the opposition itself is the action, as is the contrarian need to live "as if." Vaclav Havel proposed living "as if" he were a citizen of a free society—Rosa Parks sat on the bus as if she could perfectly do so, and radios in Nepal have broadcasted news as if they were free to. "If you have a political loyalty, you may be offered a shady reason for agreeing to a lie or a half-truth that serves some short-term purpose. Everybody devises tactics for getting through such moments; try behaving 'as if' they need not be tolerated and are not inevitable," he suggests. A common accusation is that by defying or dissenting, one feeds ammunition to the enemy—a free press would encourage the Maoists, we have been told; George Orwell would ask, Is the suppression and distortion of known facts the highest duty of a journalist then? Further, individuals with an opinion are challenged, "Who do you think you are?" Hitchens suggests a calm response, "Who is asking?"

Although a degree of intellect allows one to recognize that things are far more complicated than they appear to be, we are advised to continue questioning the obvious—adapting to certain dangers to a point where we fail to recognize them can prove to be disastrous. It would also help to remember that humans are mammals, not "sexless plaster saints," and because every dissident worth looking up to has also been a mere mammal, it only means that everyone can do something—"the more fallible the mammal, the truer the example." Hitchens also offers several letters addressing the problematic nature of religion for someone who cannot but think independently.

Like Letters to a Young Activist, Letters to a Young Contrarian is part of "the Art of Menotring" series, based on Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. Because Hitchens is not quite convinced that he has full authority to mentor a young reader on contrarianism (or maybe because a contrarian never believes in such authority), the book reads not like a lecture, but like a conversation. Rather than shooting letters into a void, he has chosen to write to one of his students in a "distilled" form, and some fun has been had with Rilke's epistolary format.

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