Does Hitchens Have a Meta Problem?

George Packer considers:

last year he wrote a much-praised column in Vanity Fair about a soldier who joined the military in part because Hitchens’s writings inspired him to, and who was subsequently killed in Iraq. When the awful news reached Hitchens, he experienced an understandable and even terrifying shock that led him to contact the soldier’s family and, eventually, join them at a memorial ceremony. This piece had all the makings—the situation, the language, the implications—of a great essay. And it’s a good one—but Hitchens kept turning away from the darker trail of thought and feeling the original shock might have led him down. Instead, he sidetracked himself by invoking Yeats, invoking Shakespeare, invoking, of course, Orwell, as if the story was too painful not to be distanced through literary allusion.

Hmm. We do run the risk nowadays of becoming so referential and self-referential that the responsibilities of being our and only ourself get cluttered out of view. Packer’s verdict on Hitchens is the product of a split decision, and really probably rings true for all of us:

The fact that waterboarding is torture forces certain questions on anyone who has supported the war on terror as vehemently as Hitchens and who, in the past, has been far quicker to criticize its critics than its excesses. This is the beginning of an argument with himself—not craven self-denunciation, but a genuine effort to draw out and clarify the hard trade-offs and ideological confusions that the past years have forced on all thinking people.

It’s noteworthy that this process of public self-argument is an affirmative challenge to the ideologically-driven politics of today. It’s also noteworthy that it’s also an affirmative challenge to the insipid, Faustian bipartisanship of today. And finally, it’s noteworthy that this kind of public self-argument is an affirmative challenge to that other style of personal exhibitionism, managed (and often televised) group therapy. In other words, what Packer is praising is worth high and mighty praise — and is also up against three of the most powerful forces in America today. Gulp.

More super-dorky thoughts on personal responsibility and meta problems here.

Thru Andrew.