Shallow, selfish schmuck: Afterthoughts on
Hunter S Thompson
Hunter S Thompson was a shallow, selfish schmuck. Now, he made some at least
moderately valuable contribution to the art of letters. His first person
narrative style was innovative, and highly readable. His adventures and rants
were often more interesting than the idiot politicians he was writing about.
Hunter Thompson's work is real fun stuff for college boys to read while they're stoned, full of rebellion, and looking for cheap laughs. The guy could really sling some words in a highly entertaining fashion. It's easy to relate to him as a crazed, gun-totin' Kentuckian character, but indulgence has its limits.
Really, his behavior was pure childish narcissm and acting out. For example,
take this typical adventure recounted lovingly by Tom
Wolfe in his HST obit:
When we reached the tent, the flap-keepers refused to let him enter with the whiskey. A loud argument broke out. I whispered to Hunter. "Just give me the glass and I'll hold under my jacket and give it back to you inside." That didn't interest him in the slightest. What I failed to realize was that it was not about getting into the tent or drinking whiskey. It was the grand finale of an event, a happening aimed at turning the conventional order of things upside down. By and by we were all ejected from the premises, and Hunter couldn't have been happier. The curtain came down for the evening.
Perhaps a teenager or college student might be considered mischievously charming for behaving like this. Thompson, however, was nearly 30 years old by this time. By that point, it's just getting to be pathetic and asinine- and that was his MO right through to the end.
His basic schtick got old real fast, but it was good for a yuck. HST gets assignment to cover a presidential campaign. He checks into hotel, and proceeds to see how many drugs he can take at once, while showing up and making big public displays of drunk and disorderly conduct. Throw in lots of vague, dark denunciations of "greedheads" and some apocalyptic crap about how the country's going down for the count. Voila! Genius!
Not really. Really not at all. Other than as an exercise in style, his work mostly had minimal intellectual worth. For starters, it wasn't very good as journalism. He could write well, but he didn't have any more respect for facts than he did for other people's property. He didn't feel any particular need to actually tell the truth. How much is a journalist worth who doesn't care about telling the truth? He largely ruined any journalistic worth his work might have had by simple, dumb dishonesty.
For example, take his famous obituary of Richard Nixon. He wrote a long, scathing takedown. Hey, Nixon had it coming. But he couldn't stick to things that Nixon actually did - as if there wasn't enough bad stuff there to work with. No, he had to ruin the entire credibility and impact by just making crap up: "When students at Kent State University, in Ohio, protested the bombing, he connived to have them attacked and slain by troops from the National Guard." Well, NO he did not. By that point, he's simply not making any attack on the real and fairly monstrous Nixon, but just railing on about some fictional character that he's made up in his mind. That's nothing more than cheap slander.
He liked to pretend that he was some dangerous enemy of the state, but he was really just a drunken fool. He never did anything to really shake up the status quo. What did he ever actually do to hurt Nixon? Woodward and Bernstein took the bastard down, but Thompson was too busy indulging himself to ever actually do anything effective.
What he WAS good at was making life miserable for the poor schmucks that had to deal with his petty foolishness. He trashed out his hotel room? Ha, ha. That'll learn them stupid maids that have to clean up behind him! He was never going to bring down the president, but he sure was good at making life difficult for hotel security. That's stickin' it to the man!
He oft claimed that his journalistic beat was "the death of the American dream." Thing is, the American dream isn't dying or dead. It's in somewhere near as good a shape as ever.
What is this "American dream" whose death was his beat? That's a nice catch phrase for him, but it's not obvious that he was cognizant of any American dream other than his right to take dope and disturb the peace. Not that there's anything wrong with a little of that, but there's more to life than that.
His whole act amounted to cheap blanket nihilism. Everybody and everything is base and corrupt. Basically, it's just misanthropy. He was into death and destruction. Other than intoxicants, he was not positively in favor of much- except the Revelation of St John. He just couldn't get enough of that apocalypse stuff.
This nihilistic misanthropy does not reflect much real sophistication. Simply claiming again and again that the whole world's going to hell in a handbasket does not automatically constitute genius.
Thompson was selfish, in the worst stupid use of the term. He wanted what he wanted for him right now and all of the time, and screw all else. He really was what people often accuse libertarians or Ayn Rand of being. Contrast objectivist ideas of enlightened self interest against Thompson's pure thoughtless self indulgence.
Of course, Thompson was a leftist. Mostly that means that he hated rich people and Republicans, and that he had no respect for other people's property. Indeed, best I can tell he never even pretended to care about the poor and oppressed. He just hated rich folks- pure Nietzchean resentment.
What did Hunter Thompson propose to do to make the world work better? What would he have proposed to do about fixing Social Security, stopping terrorists, or reconciling the races?
Nothing, of course. It's not as if he cared about any of that. Other than spiting rich greedheads, and really everyone else, he had no political agenda. His proposal as a candidate for sheriff to put dishonest drug dealers in public stockades was highly amusing, but it also underscored that he had nothing positive to advocate.
In the end, what was his profound insight as a writer? What new insight did he provide into human nature, or the nature of government and human relations? Other than (very good) cheap entertainment, what was his intellectual accomplishment?
Now, I'm all in favor of getting high and having a good time, but HST gave dope fiends a bad name. In fairness though, it'd be more accurate to describe him as an alcoholic rather than as primarily a dope fiend. By the time you get to injecting needles in yourself so you can pour pints of liquor directly into your stomach without tasting them, it's not even vaguely cool. That sounds to me more like a cheap expression of self-loathing.
Ultimately, the main thing which Thompson had reason to fear and loathe was himself.
UNCLE DUKE HAS LEFT THE BUILDING
HUNTER THOMPSON VS PJ O'ROURKE