Since becoming a conservative in the 1980s David Horowitz has written or co-authored fifteen books that will serve as the basis for my analysis of his work. Before shifting to his current intellectual identity as a conservative intellectual Horowitz was known first as a Marxist author and then as a nonfiction writer. His primary leftist texts include 1962's Student: The Political Activities of the Berkeley Students, 1965's The Free World Colossus, 1969's Empire and Revolution: A Radical Interpretation of Contemporary History, and 1973's The Fate of Midas and Other Essays. The primary idea to take from Horowitz's period as one of the most consequential writers of the New Left was how he sought to reinvent Marxist theory. Horowitz sought a Left that had broken away from Stalinism, that was not brutal, violent, and totalitarian -- hence, a "New Left." Horowitz became disillusioned with this idea for many reasons both personal and historical, but what it boils down to is this: totalitarianism within the Left could not be avoided because its origins were in Marx. The conclusion Horowitz reached was that Stalinism was not a perversion but a logical consequence of Marxism.
For a 10 year period from the mid '70s through the mid '80s Horowitz withdrew from politics as he struggled to reconcile his radical political dreams with what he'd discovered to be their horrific practical consequences. During this period he wrote 1978's The First Frontier: The Indian Wars and America's Origins, 1607-1776 and co-authored with Peter Collier several critically acclaimed dynastic biographies of the Kennedy, Ford, Roosevelt, and Rockefeller families. I'm primarily interested in focusing on the Horowitz texts that come after these -- those in which he articulates the philosophy he's developed from his experiences. In this post I'd like to describe and introduce these texts:
1989: Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties (co-authored with Peter Collier)
During the 1980s Horowitz and his writing partner, Collier, used the journalistic skills they had developed in the '60s and '70s as editors for the New Left magazine Ramparts to write some of the first pieces revealing the darker side of their generation. They explored the death of radical lawyer Fay Stender, the terrorism of the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, and other subjects. This text collects those pieces as well as several others and serves as the first and most important critical portrait of the New Left. I've recently started reading it and hope to write some posts discussing it in the future.
1997: Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey
Horowitz's memoir describes his upbringing in a communist household, his troubled relationship with his father, his career as a founder of the New Left, his involvement with the Black Panther Party, and his reinvention of himself as a conservative intellectual. I've read it once and plan to reread it again more carefully. It's without question his most important book.
1998: The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America's Future
This collection of essays is a companion piece to Radical Son. It's my favorite Horowitz book because its central theme is what I view to be one of his most important philosophical arguments. Horowitz argues that the political Left is a religious movement and that the hope that the world can be redeemed and perfected is a religious faith.
1998: Sex, Lies & Vast Conspiracies
I'm not very familiar with this early collection of Horowitz essays. It seems to be less prominent than some of his other collections. I'll certainly get around to it eventually.
1999: Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes
This is a collection of Horowitz's essays from the mid-to-late '90s, originally published in his journal Heterodoxy and the internet site Salon. I've just completed reading it. Approximately the first half of the book is focused on the issue of race. In it Horowitz discusses black racism toward whites, hate crimes, affirmative action, the Black Panthers, and other related subjects. Throughout all of his critique and analysis of racial issues Horowitz proposes a vision drawn from one of his heroes, Martin Luther King, Jr. He argues that most modern "civil rights" figures and intellectuals follow the militant, racist tradition of the Black Panthers and the Nation of Islam.
The second half of the book explores subjects apart from race. Sections four and five of the book are critiques of academia and various leftists. In it you see the seeds of the broader challenge to academia that Horowitz would mount in his Academic Freedom Campaign, the founding of Students for Academic Freedom, and his books The Professors and Indoctrination U. The final section looks at foreign policy with a focus on the Clinton administration and China.
2000: The Art of Political War And Other Radical Pursuits
2002: How to Beat the Democrats and Other Subversive Ideas
I haven't gotten to these two follow-ups to Hating Whitey. Each include additional pieces that were originally published on Salon. The central essays for each book are those of the titles. The Art of Political War and How to Beat the Democrats are each sets of instructions for how the Republican Party can defeat the Democrats. (I have read these two essays which are included in Left Illusions.) That Horowitz would apply his skills in this avenue -- going from politics in theory to politics in practice -- is a common thread throughout his career. He's not content to just write books and articulate ideas. You see this tendency going back to when he was a leftist and was instrumental in creating the Oakland Community Learning Center with the Black Panther Party.
2002: Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations For Slavery
This is another of my favorite Horowitz texts, one that really demonstrates why he should be taken seriously. The book chronicles his campaign against the reparations movement. He describes his attempts to place ads in college newspapers and to initiate a dialogue on the issue. That's only a part of it, though. The book also acts as the definitive take-down of the reparations argument, dismantling the idea piece by piece well beyond the ten ideas he articulated in the original ad. His approach to the issue of reparations could be seen as a continuation of the ideas he first articulated about race in Hating Whitey.
The heart of the book, though, isn't about reparations, free speech, race, or the Left. Uncivil Wars is principally a statement about America and the nature of the American Idea. For that reason it's one of Horowitz's most vital texts.
2003: Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey
Left Illusions could be considered the David Horowitz Reader. It collects consequential pieces from his books -- including some of his leftist texts -- and also reprints previously unpublished articles. It's a fantastic introduction to his work. The book is edited and introduced by Jamie Glazov, the managing editor of Horowitz's Front Page Magazine. The introduction by Glazov provides the best description of Horowitz's intellectual work currently available.
2004: Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left
This concept -- similarities and even working relationships between Islamists and leftists -- is a difficult one for many people, especially progressives, to grasp. It's the kind of provocative, counterintuitive argument for which Horowitz is known. When you actually read the book, though, and take a look at the arguments, his analysis makes sense.
In addition to discussing the similarities between these two groups, Unholy Alliance also provides a fresh, ordered dissection the Left. The book featured a website companion -- Discover the Networks -- which serves to define and describe the Left in even further detail.
2005: The End of Time
In this book Horowitz returns to the memoir. The central narrative of the book describes his battle with prostrate cancer. Around this episode Horowitz frames a philosophical discussion of death. The subject of Unholy Alliance is also presented in a fashion that's perhaps a little easier to swallow. For those on the left who absolutely despise Horowitz (and there are many) this is the book to start with to see that there's much more to him. The prose of the book could also be considered his best.
2006: Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and the Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party (co-authored with Richard Poe)
This is another Horowitz text I have not gotten to yet. Its title is pretty self-explanatory. It's a focus on Democrat Party politics.
2006: The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America
This book accompanied Horowitz as he waged his Academic Freedom Campaign. It articulates his argument about the problem of academia today -- that perhaps 10% of professors "indoctrinate" their students by pushing their political position on them. The book was received with hostility by most professors, in particular they were stung by the subtitle which labeled the profiled professors as "dangerous." As Horowitz describes in his follow-up book, Indoctrination U, the subtitle was slapped on by his publisher against his wishes.
For many reasons I'm not going to get into here, I have mixed feelings about The Professors. Before making any pronouncements or final judgments on it I think it deserves a second reading.
2007: Indoctrination U: The Left's War Against Academic Freedom
Indoctrination U was written in the style of Uncivil Wars and perhaps should be thought of as a sequel. Like its predecessor it features a personal narrative chronicling one of Horowitz's campus campaigns. Also like Uncivil Wars, while on the surface it's about one thing, at its heart it's really about something different. Where Uncivil Wars articulated a vision of America, Indoctrination U describes critical attributes in Horowitz's conception of the Left. In it Horowitz argues two of his most important points about the Left. First, that it lies about itself. Second, that it does not tolerate dissent or challenges and will destroy the character of whoever stands against it.
2008: Party of Defeat: How Democrats and Radicals Undermined America's War on Terror Before and After 9-11 (co-authored with Ben Johnson)
Party of Defeat is Horowitz's most recent book, which I have not read yet. It's co-authored by Johnson, who serves as Front Page Magazine's associate editor. The book argues that prominent Democrats and radicals went beyond the acceptable political practice of dissent to the intolerable action of sabotage. This fall Horowitz and Johnson engaged numerous writers in debates about the thesis of their book. These critics include Michael Isikoff, William Blum, Nick Cohen, and Bruce Thornton.
In addition to Horowitz's books its important to have a familiarity with the recent publications which he founded.
Heterodoxy
In the early '90s Horowitz and Collier launched this conservative journal in the style of a '60s alternative publication. The goal was to be brash, irreverent, and confrontational instead of dry and scholarly. The principle target was the university and political correctness. All issues are archived and available for download online.
Front Page Magazine
The successor to Heterodoxy is Front Page, an online instead of print publication. Shifting its focus with the needs of the time, Front Page's primary subject is on foreign policy and the war on terror. Horowitz blogs regularly and the site features frequent articles by Glazov, Johnson, Jacob Laksin, Robert Spencer, Ron Radosh, and other columnists.
One can look at Horowitz's publications and books individually but I argue that to really understand the work it's necessary to consider this collection of writings in whole. Each text logically connects to and complements the other.
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5 comments:
Hello,
Ideological believers typically create their outlooks through
theoretical extrapolation from a given set of assumptions.
Therefore, its not surprising that Hitchens and Horowitz find
themselves as contrarians often. Their theory is important to them, but sometimes reality throws curve balls at them that do not fit the theory. At that time, they must decide, do I ignore reality and continue to push my theory, or do I admit that my theory isn't perfect?
Both Hitches and Horowitz seem to be honest enough, and care about actual outcomes with actual humans enough, to let their theories bend when results do not match predictions.
This is actually tough to do in the physical sciences. Its nearly impossible to do in political theory, since so many relationships and alliances exist which are based on allegience to a theory. In David's book "Radical Son", he talks about the
punishment sent to him by his leftist friends when he left the movement. He claims that its main purpose was to warn others that his path was a bad idea.
In my opinion, political theories are driven by a basic problem. Its what I call the fundamental problem of government:
1) Government is granted a legitimate use of violence.
Sometimes non-government citizens are granted some use of violence, but this is heavily restricted.
2) Government uses its violent power to create rules and then ensure compliance.
3) Government controls people in this way to make a better society.
4) Government is made up of people.
This problem, is of course unsolvable. Its key characteristic is circularity. People are granted power to use power over another set of people. Its not guaranteed that the people given the power over others are better or worse than the people they control. Is also not guaranteed that the people
given the power have the knowledge to make good decisions about when to use the power, even if they are better people.
Two main branches of belief exist regarding the fundamental problem. Both branches are explained by an understanding of human nature. There is a third belief known as Marxism, but
I'll skip that belief due to rrelevance.
The first branch says that people are essentially unpredictable. They have free will, and will choose in no predictable way the path of their lives. You can call this the conservative view or the free-market view.
The second branch says that a certain group of people can be trained to control the rest in a beneficial way - while the controlled group is trained to be controlled. You can call
this the progressive or liberal vision.
From these two assumptions, policy can flow pretty easily.
The first branch (in its pure form) creates a world where people
are controlled through voluntary interactions with others. The
violence of the state exists only to enforce agreements made between
individuals and to protect any individual from the violence or theft of property from another.
The second branch (in its pure form) creates a world where the controlled group (90%+ of the population) lives their livesin accordance with the dictates of the controlling group. The
controlling group does scientific studies periodically to find problems in their control process, and makes adjustments in orderto make life better for the controlled group.
In practice, neither of these pure forms ever really exist. They are just formulations. Neither can probably ever exist. Each suffers from its own set of problems.
The conservative vision has the problem of reasonable assumptions leading to unreasonable and inequitable results. Agreements between the week and the strong inevitably end in some tragedy, at least in some cases. People who make mistakes in their lives at the
wrong moment end up with lost lives more often than should happen.
The liberal vision has the problem of reasonable policy prescriptions built upon ridiculous assumptions. Because humans really aren't trainable in the progressive sense, the controllers inevitably become corrupt. The controlled inevitably stop living their lives in accordance with the planners, and spend their days looking for
ways to escape the control.
Each vision also suffers from the problem of building a power base. Sometimes, it is necessary to reject the principles of a vision in order to win power. Hitches had to "leave" the left to support the Iraq war because the principles at stake, the liberation of 25 million people from absolute tyrany was too hard to ignore. The left theoretically cared about the Iraqi people, but not if it meant building up George Bush who might kill other parts of the progressive dream - such as implementing private accounts
for social security. Hitchens ultimately cared more about the people of Iraq than he cared about domestic ideological battles in the US or even Europe.
Given all this - what does it mean to be a centrist? Do you pick a road half way down the middle from the two visions? Which middle do you choose - there is probably more than one.
Does it mean that you are pragmatic - ie. emperical? You run experiments and see how they go? How would that work with Iraq? Start the war - see how it goes, then install Hussein back in
power and see how that works out, and then choose the best option?
It seems to me that Hitches has essentially kept his progressive vision, but is willing to throw pieces of it out where it doesn't seem to work. I've never heard him talk about it, but maybe he thinks the British health service is bad enough that some
British medicine should be outsourced to private doctors. Just a guess though.
Meanwhile, Horowitz has clung to the conservative vision and is willing to compromise where the results are too extreme. He hasn't talked about it that I've seen, but he probably finds
Medicaid acceptable, but maybe people should just be given the money and then let be to find their own medical solutions. Also just a guess.
For you, I think they provide reasonable (opposite) goal posts to observe and think about. They each are honest about the vision they believe. And they each see the limitations in their respective visions.
James
Hello,
Sorry about placing my above comment in the wrong thread. I thought I was placing it in the Horowitz/Hitchens post.
You can move it if you like.
James
James,
Thank you for your thoughts.
You have so many interesting ideas I'm not quite sure where to begin. Perhaps your question that leaps out at me the most is this one:
"Given all this - what does it mean to be a centrist? Do you pick a road half way down the middle from the two visions? Which middle do you choose - there is probably more than one."
This is a subject I've been thinking about a lot lately since it's one of the major themes of one of the books I'm working on. I'm trying to articulate a political vision of centrism. I'm calling it the New Center in homage to Horowitz's role in the New Left and his influence on me.
I'd point you toward the blog post I did here in which I voiced support for Barack Obama on ideological grounds, making the argument that he was fundamentally centrist in his politics, not the leftist boogeyman many conservatives feared.
http://davidswindle.blogspot.com/2008/09/barack-obama-future-of-liberalism-and.html
Lately I've been shying away from using "liberal" and "liberalism," though because the term has been so abused by both Left and Right. Instead I'm just using the term New Centrist.
In the post I describe a different way of determining ideology than the one you described. The pivotal question is this: "Should we use government as a force to remake the world?" There are only 3 answers to that question: Yes, No, and Maybe.
To answer "Yes" is to be a Radical or a Political Believer. Such people want to enact programs and laws to "improve" the world. And you can have radicals of many stripes. The Democratic Party has its leftist radicals and the GOP has its Christian radicals.
To answer "no" is to be a Conservative or a Political Atheist. You don't want a government that's trying to remake and radically improve the world.
To answer "maybe" is to be a New Centrist or a Political Agnostic. Should government improve the world? Sometimes. Maybe a little bit. Other times not. This is the category into which I fall and advocate.
Hi David,
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you, things have been busy.
I don't have much to say about Barack Obama except that he seems to be a consummate actor/performer. According to his "Dreams" book, he sees himself as a blank slate. His supporters write their hopes and dreams onto him, and then he gets their support. Obviously, many of these dreams conflict, so he will disappoint some people. Who those people will be isn't predictable. Its possible that he doesn't even know.
In regards to your model of centrism, I think it suffers from the problem of initial conditions. At what state of system can the government do things to make it better? At a state of complete communism? At a state of complete anarchy? Obviously, government can do nothing to make the world better at a state of complete communism. It already does absolutely everything. Likewise at a state of complete anarchy, almost anything the government does (assuming non-malignant intent) will make things better, since it currently does nothing.
So it seems to me that the ultimate question is roughly where in the continuum you'd like to say that the government does roughly the right amount. If you can't do that, then all you can do is hope for a trend from present conditions - but how do you decide on that trend without knowing initial conditions and a desired end-point?
I'll give a small example of a problem to think about. Then I'll ask you what should be done.
Currently, most people who carry health insurance have the option of adding tax-free money to be added to a medical expense account. So if a person has a medical expense not covered by insurance, or a co-pay, they can use the money from this account to pay for it.
At the end of the year, if they have not spent the money, any remaining money is lost (to where? I don't know). For several years, Republicans in congress have been trying to change this rule so that if a person doesn't spend all of the money, he can keep the money for future years. If he doesn't spend it for many years, the money will eventually belong to that person at retirement for any retirement expense.
The democrats have consistently blocked this rule change. The Republicans never had the votes (60 in the Senate) to make this change even in the Bush years when they held a 53 seat majority. Fillibusters held in all cases, so they could never find 7 democrats to break ranks and vote for the change.
So for some reason, this change must have been pretty important to Democrats, even fairly "conservative" ones. This leaves me with two questions.
How do you apply your centrist, agnostic philosophy to answer this question? Should people be able to build up private accounts over time, or not? You can't argue that they might lose the money in the stock market, since losing the money is the whole point of the Democrats position.
Conservatives answer the question: Yes, having private accounts build responsibility and provides independent sources of power which then drive the medical system to improve.
Leftists (your liberals?) say no. Independent sources of power are bad. The government is best suited to drive the medical system and keep things fair. If someone builds up too much money in their medical account, they can jump the queue and get better service than someone less fortunate.
So how do you decide between these two philosophies? And if you don't like either, how do apply your philosophy to get an answer? Once you have that answer, then can you apply that answer to other sorts of issues - such as the current "Medical Savings Accounts" and "School Vouchers"?
James
James,
Perfectly OK to take your time. I'm very busy as well.
1. My model of political centrism is related to our current political culture in America. It has nothing to do with living under communism or anarchism. If that was the case then I'd have a different philosophy. If I were under communism (a Stalinist dictatorship, right?) the answer would be to be a radical of some sort and try and change the system (or just move somewhere else.) If we were in a state of anarchy then the proper course would be to establish a government of some sort. We need a balance between those two extremes (total government and no government) and we have that in the kind of Democratic Capitalism of the United States. The systems you describe are ones without balance and were I under either my philosophy would shift to help produce a balance.
2. Put in other systems, though, my model of political centrism flows out of a more general philosophy of agnosticism that can be applied to all issues.
3. I'd want to do more research on the issue you propose before pronouncing a guess of the proper course of action. If you have any links you'd like to point me toward I'll certainly take a look. My general attitude toward the problem of health care is that both extremes toward the problem are erroneous. I disapprove of pure socialized medicine but I've also seen the problems of purely market-driven health care. I tend to like the approach of the Obama administration, allowing those who like their market-based health insurance to keep it but also allowing for a government-based health insurance for those who don't have access to market-based insurance.
4. I'm currently working on an essay describing my politics of New Centrism and I'll certainly let you know when it's done and up. It'll lay out how this philosophy applies to specific issues.
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