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Letters to a Young Contrarian (Art of Mentoring) | 
 enlarge | Author: Christopher Hitchens
Publisher: Basic Books
List Price: $13.95
Buy New: $11.16
You Save: $2.79 (20%)
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Rating:  40 reviews
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 160
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5 x 0.5
ISBN: 0465030335
Dewey Decimal Number: 303.32
EAN: 9780465030330
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
"Do justice, and let the skies fall." Christopher Hitchens borrows from Roman antiquity this touchstone for a career of confrontation, argument, and troublemaking. Part of the Art of Mentoring series, Letters to a Young Contrarian is a trim volume of about two dozen letters to an imaginary student of controversy. The letters are wonderfully engaging--Hitchens is an exceptional prose stylist--and from the outset they strike a self-reflective note. What Hitchens lionizes and illuminates in this book is not any particular disagreement, but a way of being perpetually at odds with the mainstream. "Humanity is very much in debt to such people," he argues. Hitchens's style is incendiary and sometimes flamboyant. He relishes the role of provocateur and fancies himself a gadfly to the drowsy American republic. One of his main strengths is his erudition, allowing him to range over vast landscapes of the humanities and politics in a single breath. But he is also sometimes glib and self-satisfied, and his penchant for referencing everything in sight can be distracting. Nonetheless, his arguments are forceful and morally important--and if the reader feels otherwise, there are few more fitting compliments to a professional dissident than dissent. --Eric de Place
Product Description
In the book that he was born to write, provocateur and best-selling author Christopher Hitchens inspires future generations of radicals, gadflies, mavericks, rebels, angry young (wo)men, and dissidents. Who better to speak to that person who finds him or herself in a contrarian position than Hitchens, who has made a career of disagreeing in profound and entertaining ways.This book explores the entire range of "contrary positions"-from noble dissident to gratuitous pain in the butt. In an age of overly polite debate bending over backward to reach a happy consensus within an increasingly centrist political dialogue, Hitchens pointedly pitches himself in contrast. He bemoans the loss of the skills of dialectical thinking evident in contemporary society. He understands the importance of disagreement-to personal integrity, to informed discussion, to true progress-heck, to democracy itself. Epigrammatic, spunky, witty, in your face, timeless and timely, this book is everything you would expect from a mentoring contrarian.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
 Hitchens' Brilliant 'Contrarian' Mind. November 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"I am not a religious believer," Christopher Hitchens writes. "In order to be absolutely honest, I should not leave you with the impression that I am part of the generalized agnosticism of our culture. I'm not even an atheist so much as I am an antitheist; I not only maintain that all religions are versions of the same untruth, but I hold that the influence of churches, and the effect of religious belief, is positively harmful . . . I am relieved to think that the whole story is a sinister fairy tale; life would be miserable if what the faithful affirmed was actually the case."
Whether you agree with Hitchens or not, Letters to a Young Contrarian is the work of a brilliant mind. Christopher Hitchens is an Oxford-educated, free-thinking Renaissance Man: author, journalist, literary critic, columnist, polemicist, intellectual, former Trotskyist, and (as of 2007), an American citizen. Although he admires George Orwell, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, James Joyce, Richard Dawkins, and Barack Obama, he is sharply critical of Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton, Jerry Falwell, and Michael Moore. As demonstrated in his best-selling book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Hitchens is an ardent believer in the Enlightenment values of secularism, humanism, and reason. "Above all," he writes in God Is Not Great, "we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man, and woman . . . And all this and more is, for the first time in our history, within the reach if not the grasp of everyone" (p. 283).
Hitchens has been recognized as one of the world's "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" and "a Tom Paine for our troubled times" (The Independent, London). In his entertaining 2001 collection of Letters to a Young Contrarian, Hitchens draws inspiriation from writers and figures including Emile Zola, Rosa Parks, George Orwell, to examine an engaging range of "contrarian" or "radical" positions on subjects such as irony, radicalism, anarchy, socialism, and solitude, and to criticize religion in a manner that he further fine tunes in his book God Is Not Great. Hitchens book offers advice to anyone interested in living a life of nonconformity and dissent. His basic premise is that "only an open conflict of ideas and principles can produce any clarity." Highly recommended.
G. Merritt
The Need to Be Irritating August 6, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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.
A Truly Interesting... May 15, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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.
Timeless Advice - Not for the Fair Weather Patriot January 29, 2008
31 out of 32 found this review helpful
This is a simple and elegant series of letters written to a hypothetical student. Only a cynical could fail to admire and value Christopher Hitchens' "Letters to a Young Contrarian". This short book contains all the advice a student of twenty first century society should want or need. We get a marvelously unadulterated dose of the author's hortative aesthetics. Every letter is marked with a characteristic polish that creates a pedagogical elegance.
The book is written as a series of letters which are timely and timeless.
I bought this book as a gift for a young writer and journalist. I read it before giving it as a gift. I am very pleased with it as a gift and hope that the advice falls on fertile soil. I am also very pleased with the book as advice for my own personal causes.
These letters continue to be a priceless source of insight and wisdom as the student continues to evolve as an activist. We can all see ourselves in these wonderful words and we can witness what we aspire to be.
These letters fill the reader with hope. There is hope that society can evolve to a rational enlightenment. Hope is alive and we are not doomed to repeat all the follies of history.
What impressed me so much was the incredible precision and care in each of the letters. The commitment to explore the unconventional and contrary positions is a commitment to personal integrity. This commitment is a social contract that is a prerequisite to democracy and to civilization.
The author's choice of examples and counter examples clearly illustrate his intention to inspire the next generation of social thinkers.
I highly recommend this book to every person who wants to become an agent of change. It will probably be more useful to aspiring journalists, scientists, mathematicians and writers. People who simply enjoy the wonder of reasoned inquiry will delight in the book also.
The advice can hardly be paraphrased with any justice to the subject in a short review. For the most part, the author be gives advice about being eternally vigilant and persistent in the face of unrelenting opposition. There is no limit to human anti-intellectualism so there must be no limit to reason. Patiently embrace the struggle and make it your own. Understand that the sources of irrationality and prejudice are petty, private, archaic and primeval urges.
All of these things he discusses with incredible wisdom and lucidity. The author centers, assures and illuminates the student.
What a delight this book turned out to be. Buy a copy of this book for every young person you care about. They can read it again and again to gain insight and create a purposeful life. Some young people will cynically dismiss the relevance of the message, but no one who reads it can miss the message. Life on autopilot, accepting standards and norms without reason, is to life without human purpose.
Even the most cynical alive person can give pause to enjoy this wonderful collection of sweepingly thought provoking letters.
The author says to "Do justice, and let the skies fall." This leads to a calling of confrontation, argument, and troublemaking. The author advocates a life of being perpetually at odds with the mainstream. "Humanity is very much in debt to such people."
I highly recommend this book.
Inspiring Advice for the Ignorers of Status Quo January 15, 2008
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
Despite the attribution to Voltaire, the famous line `I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it' was probably never stated by him. Regardless of who said it, it is difficult to muster opposition, especially when concerning Christopher Hitchens. I can safely say I disagree with Hitchens on many issues but find it hard to personally criticize a man who clearly has no concern or regard for how others perceive his eloquently expressed opinions and positions. However, `Letters to a Young Contrarian' is not a work detailing Hitchens' views but rather an attempted explanation on what drives him to be a fighter against conventionality and tenaciously attack those he feels to be harming society. Written, as the title would suggest, in letter format, we see the one-way correspondence Hitchens engages with a student, eager to learn the art of contrarianism, a choice Hitchens warns which is consuming and often self-destructive. Uncharacteristic of Hitchens, he offers some rather poignant reflections of his own experience and offers no sugar for the consternation of serious readers. Nevertheless, the emphasis is that, regardless of the pain, `dark nights of the soul' or apparent lack of reward that are guaranteed to make up the life of a contrarian, it is life worth living and one which hopefully more people shall feel obliged into.
An excellent piece of writing which should offer valued mentoring for anyone, regardless of affiliated opinions, who is repulsed by the idea of staying silent.
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