Hitchens is still so bracing because, unlike journalists today, he operated in a zone of fearlessness and real freedom. The smog of ” wokeness ” had not yet descended onto the West. And the years Hitchens spent as a reporter and foreign correspondent and his deep education had given him experience that made him more than a pundit. …

That’s not the reality today. Liberal journalists can’t write anything that contradicts the official orthodoxy. Conservatives are better, but they don’t cover the arts and culture the way Hitchens did. The essays in A Hitch in Time examine war and politics but also books and culture. Hitchens even reported from the 1995 Oscars. (He couldn’t stand Forrest Gump and was right.)

If you want to write as freely and as widely as Hitchens, you need to freelance for about five different outlets. Even then, there is always the lurking fear of getting canceled.

[Hitchens made himself invaluable, plus came along at the right time in the Internet revolution in media. He used that freedom to his fullest advantage before Big Tech grew powerful enough to squeeze out dissent and debate. Read on to mull over Mark’s call for conservatives to re-engage in culture as well as culture wars. — Ed]