Matt Johnson – The Lessons of Christopher Hitchens

0:00 How Matt first encountered Christopher Hitchens

6:07 Matt’s new book, How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment

8:00 Why Matt thinks Cornel West’s Vietnam-Afghanistan analogy is flawed

14:21 What’s worth preserving in the left-liberal tradition?

21:38 Matt: Identity politics is a “toxin”

27:20 Was affirmative action ever necessary?

35:29 Matt: I wish the left would rediscover Hitchens’s universalism

45:04 Hitchens’s “fearless liberalism”

Recorded July 6, 2023

Links and Readings

Matt’s new book, How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment

Hitchens’s NYRB review of Douglas Murray’s Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas

Hitchens’s book, Why Orwell Matters

George Orwell’s book, Keep The Aspidistra Flying

Glenn’s recent conversation with Cornel West

Matt’s Quilette essay on John Mearsheimer

Matt’s Quillette essay on Bayard Rustin

Jonathan Eig’s King: A Life

Nathan Glazer’s book, Affirmative Discrimination: Ethnic Inequality and Public Policy

Roland Fryer’s NYT oped, “How to Fix College Admissions Now”

Glenn’s debate with Hitchens

Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Atlantic essay, “The Case for Reparations”

Bayard Rustin’s 1965 Commentary essay, “From Protest to Politics: The Future of the Civil Rights Movement”

Norman Finkelstein’s book, I’ll Burn That Bridge When I Come to It!: Heretical Thoughts on Identity Politics, Cancel Culture, and Academic Freedom

Glenn’s conversation with Norman Finkelstein

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