I think the way to read Hitchens' role in the media would be through the lens of Umberto Eco or Baudrillard's semiotics and critique of simulacra. They wrote about how, in a world saturated by corporate media, the fake always drives out the real.
(Remember Baudrillard's joke that America needs the fake level of Disneyland in order to maintain the illusion that the rest of the country is real.)
So there is a niche for a bold truth-teller, a harsh social critic, and a killer of sacred cows. We are eager for someone to take that role. The trouble is that anyone who can sell books and get famous can't really do those things. So the media promotes a fake or fetish, who appears to take that role but in the long run supports the corporate status quo. He's not a gadfly, but he plays one on TV.
So Hitchens attacks the easiest possible version of some big amorphous thing called "religion," which he never defines. He takes the worst examples, which anyone who reads books already hates. He flatters his audience into thinking that we are superior to those dumb Christians and terrorist Muslims, by pretending that all Christians and Muslims are as he portrays them.
He works hard to belittle just about the only system in the world which could possibly provide an alternative to capitalism. (And the fact that religion barely even does that any more just shows how trivial his attacks are in the long run.)
But in the end what does he support? The Neoliberal status quo, George Bush's wars, our own smugness.
(Remember Baudrillard's joke that America needs the fake level of Disneyland in order to maintain the illusion that the rest of the country is real.)
So there is a niche for a bold truth-teller, a harsh social critic, and a killer of sacred cows. We are eager for someone to take that role. The trouble is that anyone who can sell books and get famous can't really do those things. So the media promotes a fake or fetish, who appears to take that role but in the long run supports the corporate status quo. He's not a gadfly, but he plays one on TV.
So Hitchens attacks the easiest possible version of some big amorphous thing called "religion," which he never defines. He takes the worst examples, which anyone who reads books already hates. He flatters his audience into thinking that we are superior to those dumb Christians and terrorist Muslims, by pretending that all Christians and Muslims are as he portrays them.
He works hard to belittle just about the only system in the world which could possibly provide an alternative to capitalism. (And the fact that religion barely even does that any more just shows how trivial his attacks are in the long run.)
But in the end what does he support? The Neoliberal status quo, George Bush's wars, our own smugness.
