champagnecandy answered your question: So basically the difference between a professional troll and an admirable contrarian is prose style and social standing?no. Hitchens was a professional troll. and a great writer. one can be both.Having a nice prose style is not enough to make a great writer, though it’s popular—and safer—to think so. Joanna Russ, whose death earlier this year didn’t receive anywhere near so much attention, was a great writer because she could write great sentences and because her thought went beyond provocation to actual innovation. Hitchens was a good enough writer. Moreover, misogyny and other bigotries are not only political or social justice issues but also aesthetic problems; they are limits on the sympathetic imagination which needs to be as unfettered as possible to make great writing.
I think James Joyce was also a giant douche and I think he’s a great writer; ditto T.S. Eliot and many, many other people whose petty bigotries and/or support for horrific policies do not negate their art. I just don’t think that I have to agree with someone’s politics to admire their style and creations.
I don’t think in this space it’s “safe” for me to say that I think he was one of the best writers my lifetime has seen, and a person whose politics were utterly loathsome. I think that in the social justice blogosphere I’m more likely to get excoriated for saying that I admire the skill of someone who is not on our side.
(Source: ocean-bright-wine)
