Letters to a Young Contrarian: Preface, Introduction, and Chapter One response

In Letters of a Young Contrarian, Christopher Hitchens talks about how society reacts when people share there opinions about something that can be considered not a part of the social norm. In Chapter One he writes, "It could be understood from them that society, like a benign family, tolerates and even admires eccentricity". In my opinion this means that society's attention is caught when something debatable is brought forward, something that grabs attention. In another part of the chapter, Hitchens makes a relevant point. Referring to the term "free thinker", "they thought that they were defending an organic, harmonious and ordered society against nihilism, and they deployed this contemptuous word against those they regarded as the diseased, the introspective the disloyal and the unsound. The word hasn't completely lost this association and even now, though it is less frequently used as an insult". He makes a great point with this statement. It is true that people today are still criticized for their opinion's. Although you are not considered "diseased" or "disloyal" by society for stating your opinion, people are still patronized. In the last paragraph of Chapter One, Hitchens makes a valid point that you can't control what your opinion is, its just a part of who you are.