I still think like a Marxist in many ways.
Interpretation
The speaker identifies with Marxist ideas while possibly critiquing or evolving those beliefs.
Christopher Hitchens' quote reflects a continued allegiance to Marxist thought, suggesting that even as one grows and encounters new ideas, foundational beliefs can persist. This resonates with the complex nature of ideology, where past influences may inform current perspectives while allowing room for critique and intellectual development.
In practice
In a lecture on political theory, one could use this quote to illustrate the complexity of personal ideology.
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.
It’s not so much that nothing means anything but more that it keeps meaning nothing. there’s no release, just gurus and self- appointed gods and hucksters. the more people say, the less there is to say. even the best books are dry sawdust.
I would not be beholden to a tyrant, for his acts of tyranny. For it is but usurpation in him to save, as their rightful lord, the lives of men over whom he has no title to reign.
All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.
In the consciousness of the truth he has perceived, man now sees everywhere only the awfulness or the absurdity of existence and loathing seizes him.
It is within our power not to make a judgement about something, and so not disturb our minds; for nothing in itself possesses the power to form our judgements.
Humans have certain properties and characteristics which are intrinsic to them, just as every other organism does. That's human nature.
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