I was becoming post-ideological.
Interpretation
The quote reflects a shift away from rigid belief systems and ideologies towards a more flexible understanding of ideas.
Christopher Hitchens' statement about becoming post-ideological suggests a movement away from strict adherence to specific ideologies that often limit thinking. Instead, it emphasizes the importance of critical thinking and adaptability in forming oneβs beliefs, allowing for a more nuanced perspective that can embrace complexity and change without being bound by conventional labels.
In practice
In a debate on political ideologies, you might quote Hitchens to advocate for open-mindedness.
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 β because itβs had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But youβve 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.
One of the quainter quirks of life is that we shall never know who dies on the dame day as we do ourselves.
Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!
It does not matter what men say in words, so long as their activities are controlled by settled instincts. The words may ultimately destroy the instincts; but until this has occurred, words do not count.
The ascetic is often a sensualist who has reached the limit of his capacity.
The tragedy is that we cannot believe the dogmas of religion and metaphysics if we have the strict methods of truth in heart and head, but on the other hand, we have become through the development of humanity so tenderly suffering that we need the highest kind of means of salvation and consolation: whence arises the danger that man may bleed to death through the truth that he realises.
If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought, not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.
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