克里斯托弗·希钦斯

克里斯托弗·埃里克·希钦斯（英语：Christopher Eric Hitchens；1949年4月13日—2011年12月15日），生于英国朴茨茅斯，卒于美国休斯敦，犹太裔美国人。牛津大学贝利奥尔学院毕业。

多年以来，希钦斯是无神论者、反宗教者，社会主义者、马克思主义者、反极权活动人士。但1990年代，他因为《撒旦诗篇》、克林顿总统和波斯尼亚战争等问题与左翼建制派决裂。

他支持废除死刑，支持公民持枪的权利，反对推翻罗诉韦德案裁决（尽管他个人不赞同堕胎），支持可卡因、安非他命、大麻等精神药品合法化。他也是《新政治家》、《旗帜周刊》、《伦敦书评》、《名利场》等杂志的撰稿人。

他以苛评闻名，其在公开辩论中毫不留情且滴水不漏的说辞常常被称为“希氏打脸”（Hitchslapping），其抨击的对象包括许多共和党人士（例如亨利·基辛格、罗纳德·里根）、宗教人士（特蕾莎修女）、民主党温和派（例如比尔·克林顿）。

与山姆·哈里斯、丹尼尔‧丹尼特、道金斯及并称新无神论四骑士。

主要作品

《上帝不伟大：宗教是如何毒害一切的》（God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything）

《传教立场：理论与实践中的特蕾莎院长》（The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice）

《人之将死》（Mortality）

Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British and American author and journalist. Known as one of the "Four Horsemen" of New Atheism (along with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett), he gained prominence as a columnist and speaker. Hitchens's epistemological razor, which states that "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence", is used in philosophy and law.

Hitchens was born and educated in Britain, graduating in 1970 from the University of Oxford with a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. In the early 1980s, he emigrated to the United States and wrote for The Nation and Vanity Fair. Hitchens's political views evolved greatly throughout his life. Originally describing himself as a democratic socialist, he was a member of various socialist organisations in his early life, including the Trotskyist International Socialists.

Hitchens was critical of aspects of American foreign policy, including its involvement in Vietnam, Chile, and East Timor. However, he supported the United States in the Kosovo War, Bosnian War, and other interventions. Hitchens emphasised the centrality of the American Revolution and Constitution to his political philosophy. He held complex views on abortion: being ethically opposed to it in most instances, and believing that a foetus was entitled to personhood, while holding ambiguous, changing views on its legality. He supported gun rights and supported same-sex marriage, while opposing the war on drugs. Beginning in the 1990s, and particularly after 9/11, his politics were widely viewed as drifting to the right, but Hitchens objected to being called 'conservative' and maintained he was a 'leftist'. During the 2000s, he argued for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, endorsed George W. Bush for president in 2004 and Barack Obama in 2008, and viewed Islamism as the principal threat to the Western world.

Hitchens described himself as an antitheist and saw all religions as false, harmful, and authoritarian. He endorsed free expression, scientific scepticism, and separation of church and state, arguing science and philosophy are superior to religion as an ethical code of conduct for human civilisation. Hitchens authored 18 books on faith, religion, culture, politics, and literature. He notably wrote critical biographies of Catholic nun Mother Teresa in The Missionary Position (1995), Bill Clinton in No One Left to Lie To (1999), and American diplomat Henry Kissinger in The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001). Hitchens died from complications related to esophageal cancer in December 2011, at the age of 62.

Early life and education

Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire, the elder of two boys; his brother, Peter, became a socially conservative journalist. Their parents, Commander Eric Ernest Hitchens (1909–1987) and Yvonne Jean Hitchens (née Hickman; 1921–1973), met in Scotland when serving in the Royal Navy during World War II. His mother had been a Wren, a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service. She was of Jewish origin, something that Hitchens discovered when he was 38; he thus came to identify as a Jew.

Hitchens often referred to his father simply as 'the Commander'. Eric Hitchens was deployed on HMS Jamaica, which took part in the sinking of the Scharnhorst in the Battle of the North Cape on 26 December 1943. He paid tribute to his father's contribution to the war: "Sending a Nazi convoy-raider to the bottom is a better day's work than any I have ever done." Eric's naval career required the family to move from base to base throughout Britain and its colonies; including to Malta, where Peter Hitchens was born in Sliema in 1951. Eric later worked as a bookkeeper for boatbuilders, speed boat manufacturers, and a prep school.