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Letters to a Young Contrarian
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 3 hrs and 40 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Essays
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Discover magazine recently called Richard Dawkins "Darwin's Rottweiler" for his fierce and effective defense of evolution. Prospect magazine voted him among the top three public intellectuals in the world (along with Umberto Eco and Noam Chomsky). Now Dawkins turns his considerable intellect on religion, denouncing its faulty logic and the suffering it causes.
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Publisher's Summary
Art of Mentoring series
In the book that he was born to write, provocateur and best-selling author Christopher Hitchens inspires future generations of radicals, gadflies, mavericks, rebels, angry young (wo)men, and dissidents. Who better to speak to that person who finds him or herself in a contrarian position than Hitchens, who has made a career of disagreeing in profound and entertaining ways.
This book explores the entire range of "contrary positions" - from noble dissident to gratuitous pain in the butt. In an age of overly polite debate bending over backward to reach a happy consensus within an increasingly centrist political dialogue, Hitchens pointedly pitches himself in contrast. He bemoans the loss of the skills of dialectical thinking evident in contemporary society. He understands the importance of disagreement - to personal integrity, to informed discussion, to true progress - heck, to democracy itself.
Epigrammatic, spunky, witty, in your face, timeless and timely, this book is everything you would expect from a mentoring contrarian.
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What listeners say about Letters to a Young Contrarian
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- erin hawk
- 12-07-20
Independent Thinkers & Those Seeking Truth
For those disgusted and exhausted with the extreme anti-intellectualism of party politics, this is for you. Speak your mind or you will lose it. The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
There are days when I miss my old convictions as if they were an amputated limb. But in general I feel better, and no less radical, and you will feel better too, I guarantee, once you leave hold of the doctrinaire and allow your chainless mind to do its own thinking.
3 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Arno
- 04-07-21
The pleasure of being contrarian
I remember Susan Sontag very bravely in front of an audience, that was heavily turkish, insisting on parallel with Armenian Genocide. #ChristopherHitchens #LettersToAYoungContrarian
In the 20th century, which was forced to invent the term of #Genocide, the ottoman turks exterminated Christian Armenians under the cover of the war and in occupied territories, where there were few independent witnesses. #ChristopherHitchens #LettersToAYoungContrarian
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance1 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Jonathan Podborsek
- 03-13-21
Enlightening in a Hitch kind of way
And exquisite exposé of how fight on both sides of the battle at the same time. Wish I had read it years ago.