How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment

Born in Britain, educated at Oxford, and established in Washington, DC, in the early 1980s, Christopher Hitchens was a ferocious polemicist and public debater who quickly became a fixture in the U.S. media. By the end of his life, he was an internationally renowned champion of free inquiry, humanism, and liberal values. Despite what you may have heard, Hitchens was a man of the left to the very end. From his solidarity with the victims of repressive regimes, movements, and ideologies, to his contempt for tribalism of all kinds, to his "First Amendment absolutism," his most fundamental value was universalism. He believed all people should have the liberty to speak and write openly, to be free of authoritarian domination, and to escape the arbitrary constraints of tribe, clan, and nation. These beliefs have a long and venerable history on the left, a history that is quickly being forgotten. Hitchens's case for universal Enlightenment principles won't just help genuine liberals mount a resistance to these illiberal orthodoxies on the left and the right. It will also remind them how to think and speak fearlessly in defense of fundamental liberal values.