The Hazlitt Comparison
You may remember that I talked about Hazlitt’s Letter to Gifford recently. I forget what made me think of it then – I think it was something I was discussing with Scott McLemee, but I misremember what. Something has put it in my head again. Memory is an odd thing. Anyway, this is what I said last time. Somehow I just feel like saying it again.
The letter to Gifford starts off briskly:
Sir, You have an ugly trick of saying what is not true of any one you do not like; and it will be the object of this letter to cure you of it.
There are so many people around who have that ugly trick, these days. How one wishes for a few Hazlitts to cure them of it.
Yes and at the same time, how few people there are around who can write like Hazlitt. Well there’s nothing surprising in that. Few people – in fact no people – could write like him at the time, either. That’s rather the point. He’s a one-off. He was, as I said last time, a brilliant, dazzling writer – so he could get away with things that just make other people look unpleasant and out of control. It is a nice point. One sees the same thing in Christopher Hitchens (who often reminds me of Hazlitt). He can say outrageous, cutting things, because he’s witty and brilliant and knows what he’s talking about. When other people, who are less witty and brilliant and don’t know what they’re talking about (and such people are legion), attempt the same kind of thing, they just look rude and self-infatuated. But they will keep trying.
There’s another thing about Hazlitt, too.
He didn’t write anonymously. When he wanted to insult people, he did it under his own name. I have an idea he would have scorned the notion of attacking people anonymously – would indeed have considered it a trick suitable for the likes of the Quarterly Review and Gifford himself. Anonymous insulting is easy enough, but it’s a mug’s game.
Indeed. We might also wonder what Hazlitt would have to say about anonymous people who claim to have positive, revolutionary ideas they want to communicate, but choose not to do so under their own names. He may wonder about the same people when they go through the time and bother of setting up a website to blog about political issues in which they claim passionate conviction, but also claim that blogging is unimportant. He’d probably find the whole thing riddled with silliness and inconsistency.
Fortunately for Hazlitt, he’s not around to witness these people in action – or the lack of it, as the case may be. If only the rest of us were as fortunate as he is, eh?
Hang in there, Ophelia. Some people’s opinions really are too childish to be taken seriously.
Phil
No, of course anonymity is not a crime. But then when it’s used to attack other people by [much-repeated] name, then it’s at least not what one would call courageous. And I learn via my email Inbox that they attack a lot of people this way. Make a habit of it.
So yes it’s true that I could and probably should have ignored them. I’ve never pretended not to be an egomaniac. But on the other hand, in a way this kind of thing is part of our subject matter. At least I think it is. Divisions in leftist opinion, disorted thinking on the left – that is part of our (self-appointed) remit. So in that sense it is worth looking at bizarre behavior.
But it would be better to do it in the case of people who are not Oneself.
(Well and then again if behavior is just so bizarre that it’s not typical of anything, then it may not really be worth looking at. We haven’t paid any attention to Lyndon LaRouche, for example…)