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It was in the early years of the twentieth century that Rainer Maria Rilke wrote"Letters to a Young Poet." In essence an epistolary treatise on poetry, it is the progenitor of
Hitchens' twenty-first century epistolary treatise on dissent. Though poetry and dissent may certainly have common ground (after all, didn't Bertolt Brecht write that"Art is not a
mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it?"), the genealogy of the two has more to do with form than content.
Perhaps most interesting about this book, and about Hitchens, is that although he is a regular contributor to"the Nation," a periodical noted for its liberal leanings, he
espouses neither a liberal nor a conservative agenda, and approaches each with equal disdain and suspicion; witness this excerpt addressing the conflicting religious bases for the redress
of wrong:"The Old Testament injunction is the one to exact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth . . . . The . . . Gospels . . . says that only those without sin should cast the
first stone. The first is the moral basis for capital punishment and other barbarities: the second is so relativist and"non judgmental" that it would not allow the prosecution
of Charles Manson." Thus, he maligns both traditional conservative and liberal positions. Nothing is sacred to Hitchens.
This collection of letters is really an attempt to raise up a generation of engaged and informed"young contrarians." (Hitchens discarded many appellations before finally settling
on"contrarian" to describe the attitude of opposition he intended, e.g., he considered and discarded"dissident,""maverick,""loose
cannon,""angry young man,""gadfly,""radical," and"iconoclast," etc., etc.) By"contrarian," Hitchens means individuals committed to
developing, expressing and acting upon their own opinions, particularly when those are in opposition to the mainstream. He warns against adopting willy-nilly the opinions of others (in
the guise of the"solidarity of belonging") and elevating loyalty above all else ('the worst crimes are still committed in the name of the old traditional rubbish: of loyalty to
nation or 'order' or leadership or tribe or faith"). He counsels to revel in disputation, for to assume there is no argument contrary to your own is to abandon debate and embrace an
absolute. And finally, he argues to listen to the highest motivating instinct: dignity for oneself and others. (He wisely makes a distinction between compassion and dignity, suggesting
the traditional liberal preoccupation with compassion may focus on paternalism rather than individual self-worth.)
Applying this primer of dissent to current events, we should be lead to question those who would encourage us to adopt an"us versus them" mentality as contrary to dignity; in the
name of attaining dignity for all, can we succumb to indiscriminate name-calling and demonizing? Is it a simplification to talk of an""axis of evil," hearkening back to the
days of the"evil empire?" Those who champion the"demonizing" usually argue that opposition to this position aligns one with the opponent (just as criticism of the
death penalty aligns one with the killer): e.g."So, you don't think what the terrorists/killer did was wrong?" A crafty rhetorical trick that misses the point entirely.
Certainly, we can judge an act to be evil. It is wholesale extrapolating from that act that results in the"tyranny and tribalism" Hitchens warns against.
More locally, I cannot write about this topic of the importance of dissent without noting two bills from our most recent legislative session. The first, Senate Bill 183, a bill for which
the original intent was to penalize opponents of the Legacy Highway for their opposition to the project. The project, which is to build a highway from Davis County to Salt Lake City has
been suspended by an injunction imposed by the federal district court. Each day of work suspension has a financial impact on the state. The bill would impose a penalty upon opposition to
a state construction project if the opposition ultimately loses in court. Although the bill passed the legislature, the governor vetoed it for the reason that the bill would allow the
state to run over the small guy. The governor was quoted as saying"The government is not always right." This laudable admission allows dignity to thrive. To preclude dissent1,
as Senate Bill 183 intended, is to retreat into the"tyranny and tribalism" Hitchens refers to.
The second bill, Senate Bill 147, proposed an internal mechanism by which the
legislative branch could sanction members of the executive branch for violating laws or rules. The assumption made by proponents of this bill is that all rules and laws are sacrosanct and
should be obeyed. What is lost again is the democratic bedrock of challenge and debate.2 There is a sense of"how dare they," as proponents fall into a trap we are all prone to,
that of attaching ego to our arguments. (Hitchens describes this tendency as follows:"If you have ever argued with a religious devotee, for example, you will have noticed that his
self-esteem and pride are involved in the dispute, and that you are asking him to give up something more than a point in an argument.") The fact is, as the governor recognized in his
veto of the bill previously discussed, that not every law passed by the legislature is right or constitutional. Nor, of course, is every agency above violating just laws and rules. A
court action, however, can always be brought to enjoin an agency from acting illegally. (Just as a Rule 11 sanction would remedy the just concerns addressed in the previously discussed
bill.) The economics of this may not be attractive, but the alternative of stifling debate is no more attractive, as Hitchens argues:"[I]n life we make progress by conflict and in
mental life [and civic life] by argument and disputation."
I have in my office a poster with a quote from Dante:"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." This is
the essence of Hitchens' letters. He is annoying, arrogant and often obtuse (to all of which accusations he would agree and say"thank you"), but he is also a clarion for pointed
thought, debate and action. As he writes:"Most people, most of the time, prefer to seek approval or security. This shouldn't surprise us. Nonetheless, there are in all periods people
who feel themselves in some fashion to be apart. And it is not so much to say that humanity is very much in debt to such people, whether it chooses to acknowledge the debt or not."
Accommodating dissent is the foundation for a society that acknowledges, accepts, and indeed accredits the inherent dignity of the individual.
Footnotes
1. URCP 11 already requires a lawsuit to be filed in good faith, and provides a sanction if it is not.
2.
Though proponents would probably argue that there is a mechanism in the bill to allow the agency charged to come before a legislative committee and explain why it violated the statute or rule at issue. As noted in the house floor debate, this mechanism may run afoul of constitutional separation of powers provisions.
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