Chapter 2 analysis of Letters to a Young Contrarian:

In this chapter one thing stood out to me and promoted me to think under the surface. When Hitchens says "You must feel not that you want to but that you have to." This is something that I actually really agree with. You don't see people that go into the medical field to become doctors and surgeons just wanting to go through 12 years of rigorous schooling to get to their goal, the work to absolutely having to have it.

Chapter 3 analysis of Letters to a Young Contrarian:

I really liked this chapter and a few ideas stood out to me. My favorite would have to be if you are "Aspiring toward a consistent perfection [you] are aspiring toward annihilation." This is spot on. I was thinking about it and realized that there is no such thing as perfection, and striving for it will in fact ruin you. So many people look to be perfect, something they will never be because perfection doesn't exist. This whole time they are trying to be something they will never be, it would be exhausting. The author even says there is no such thing as perfection, "Wherever life exists, there also is inconsistency, division, strife."

Another relevant part would be when the author says, "in life we make progress by conflict and in mental life by argument and disputation". I take this as meaning we need to be tested to achieve process. Mentally, argument will let you see things in a new view because you are being shown the conflicting side. Conflict will do about the same thing but in a different way, with conflict you usually need to compromise and doing that is hard for a lot of people. If you are willing to compromise then you can be a little wrong, and accepting that is a good thing. He talks about the "gray area" which I believe can be reached in conflict and argument to get that compromise.

Chapter 4 Analysis of Letters to a Young Contrarian

"It is true that the odds in favor of stupidity or superstition or unchecked authority seem intimidating". After pondering this I thought that looking at it from a governmental standing: a tyranny is a very scary thing in this country. A tyrant with unlimited authority would have limitless power and no human would want to live under those circumstances...the reason that revolutions and revolts came to be. However when the author says, "injustice and irrationality are inevitable parts of the human condition". I don't agree with this. Not everyone is unjust and irrational, that is a stereotype of the human race. Hitchens can't make this statement grouping the whole human race together as unjust.