Heroism breaks its heart, and idealism its back, on the intransigence of the credulous and the mediocre, manipulated by the cynical and the corrupt.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the struggle of idealism and heroism against the forces of mediocrity and cynicism in society.
Christopher Hitchens reflects on the heavy toll that idealism and heroism take when confronted by a society filled with credulous and mediocre individuals. It emphasizes how these virtues can be undermined and manipulated by those who are corrupt and cynical, pointing to a broader commentary on the challenges of aspiring for noble ideals in a flawed world.
In practice
During a speech about societal change, one might say, 'As Christopher Hitchens noted, heroism breaks its heart against the cynicism of society.'
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way — because it’s had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But you’ve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
I did not volunteer for the Waffen SS, but was, as were thousands of my year group, conscripted. I did not then know as a 17-year-old that it was a criminal unit. I thought it was an elite unit.
To suggest things may be going on in our brains that we aren't fully conscious of, that we unknowingly make classist, sexist and racist presumptions... Well, there just aren't many comfortable ways to take that. And in the face of discomfort comes the mask of defence.
Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts. There are seven words that will make a person love you. There are ten words that will break a strong man's will. But a word is nothing but a painting of a fire. A name is the fire itself.
But nothing in India is identifiable, the mere asking of a question causes it to disappear or to merge in something else.
He is unworthy of the name of man who is ignorant of the fact that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable with its side.
You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. It's not if, it's when.
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