Chris Hedges (1956 - )

Tue Sep 18, 1956

Image

Chris Hedges, born on this day in 1956, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, activist, and visiting Princeton University lecturer.

Among Hedge’s works are “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning” (2002), “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (2009), “Death of the Liberal Class” (2010), “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012), “Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt” (2015), and “America: The Farewell Tour (2018)”.

Hedges was an early critic of the Iraq War. In May 2003, he delivered a commencement address at Rockford College in Rockford, Illinois, saying: “We are embarking on an occupation that, if history is any guide, will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security.”

These remarks were booed and Hedges’ microphone was shut off three minutes after he began speaking. The New York Times, his then-employer, criticized his statements and issued him a formal reprimand for “public remarks that could undermine public trust in the paper’s impartiality”.

Shortly after the incident, Hedges left The New York Times to become a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and a columnist at Truthdig, in addition to writing books and teaching inmates at a New Jersey correctional institution.

Hedges has taught college credit courses for several years in New Jersey prisons. He teaches a course through Princeton University in which the class is composed of half prisoners and half Princeton undergraduates. He has described himself as a socialist identifying with Catholic activist Dorothy Day in particular.

“I do not fight fascists because I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.”

- Chris Hedges