Books In Depth

David Horowitz's Conservatism, Postmodern Conservatism, Generation Y Conservatism

2009-07-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

I received a wonderful email a few weeks ago that caused me to stop and consider the ideas of David Horowitz that I've been writing about so much in the past year:

Dear Mr. Swindle,

My name is Barry Loberfeld. I am a Libertarian Party activist and freelance writer. I have contributed a number of pieces to FrontPageMag.com, sometimes at the request of David Horowitz. Since you are completing a work on him, I would like to share a few thoughts….

To my mind, one of the most interesting things about David is that in moving away from something called The Left, he imagines that he has moved to something called The Right, i.e., the conservative movement. But has he really become a “movement conservative”? True, he associates with and promotes numerous figures and organizations popularly considered conservative, and his sympathies are clearly with the Republican Party. But what of his ideas? He is hardly a traditionalist in either the Russell Kirk or Peter Viereck mold. And no one could possibly see him as a part of any “Religious Right”: Despite having a general respect for religion in its non-fanatical forms, he openly maintains his agnosticism. (This may not be the heresy some think. Remember, for Burke, “pleasing illusions” were illusions.) The “social conservative” agenda is not his agenda. However, he is not a libertarian the way the Cato Institute — or LewRockwell.com — defines one. Though he acknowledges the insights of Mises and Hayek, their Austrianism doesn’t play a major role in his thought. So, does that leave David a “neoconservative,” i.e., an old-fangled centrist liberal? No, no one could look at him and see a
die-hard defender of Social Security a la Ben "life is a Ponzi scheme" Wattenberg. And his recent identification of “Obama Derangement Syndrome” refutes those who would dismiss him as just another Spite Right demagogue.

All of which makes him what — a Horowitzian conservative? Quite possibly, yes. He has not become the Lenin to any right-wing Marx. His beliefs are more the result of his personal experiences — and personal interpretation of events — than of anything taken from any ideologue. Why, then, does such an independent thinker identify so strongly with a movement? The only answer I can think of is an adaptation of a line from Ayn Rand: He is interested not in following any conservative tradition, but in founding his own. David may very well not be the last Horowitzian conservative.

Barry
Http://ABCDunlimited.com/ideas

Barry CC'd David on his email to me and he responded quickly confirming Barry's summation of his ideas and intent:

Thanks Barry, but that mouthful - Horowitzian conservative - will never fly. Nonetheless I appreciate that you got it right.

I responded to both Barry and David:

Barry,
Thank you so much for your keen insight on David's philosophy. I really couldn't agree with you more. Further, I think your description of the different elements in David's conservatism is the beginning of understanding why he doesn't receive the credit he deserves on the Right and why he's so reviled on the Left. (Though there are other reasons the Left can't stand him also.) Because David fashions his own conservative tradition he's difficult to pin down, categorize, and understand within the standard categories. Not ideologically libertarian, not ideologically "neo-conservative," not a "Spite Right" demagogue (though this is the bucket his detractors love to stick him in,) and certainly not a religious Right or social conservative -- though I do draw some moderate social conservative themes from his work, though nothing resembling the authoritarian agendas that characterize dominant social conservative objectives.

What this amounts to is an ideological flexibility which results in clearer thinking on issues. (David thinks about the issue himself instead of just deferring to a prepackaged ideological response.) Lately I think you see this especially in David's response to the economic crisis on his blog (his rejection of the "Burning Down the House" meme for example) and his measured commentary on Obama.

And David I'm going to have to disagree with you. "Horowitzian conservative" sounds badass. And it's certainly less of a mouthful than "Kolakowskite," another name-based term I seem to recall being applied to you at one point -- I think in Christopher Hitchens' review of Left Illusions.

Barry would it be all right if I publish your email on my Books In Depth blog along with some accompanying thoughts of my own?

Thanks,
David Swindle

Barry gave his blessing to publish his email and I sat on it for a few weeks as the ideas took root in my mind. This idea of the Horowitzian Conservative needed to be further defined and clarified if it was to be understood. But how to do so? The very nature of Horowitzian Conservatism was that it was complex, that it managed to hold conflicting ideological tendencies simultaneously. Nevertheless there were some key ideas which do define it. These include:

An appreciation for the concept of freedom as the central value of our society. Hence the prominent position in his organization's name.
Extending from this appreciation comes a robust patriotism and loyalty to the American Idea, since freedom is the primary principle upon which our country was founded. Horowitz goes to the root of freedom in our society and finds it in the ideas of the Founding Fathers.
From an appreciation of freedom comes the appreciation of capitalism. Horowitz is a staunch advocate of the free market. However this does not mean he's a free market fundamentalist. Regarding the economic crisis he's rejected the idea that government interference in the market through the Community Reinvestment Act caused the crisis. He's further claimed that deregulation of the market helped cause the crisis. Thus while being libertarian economically he does not approximate free market utopianism -- the idea that a pure laissez faire economy will yield a perfect economy.
This appreciation of capitalism does not translate into economic punditry. Horowitz has challenged others for "talking through their hat" on economics and has acknowledged that he's not an economist. This is a kind of intellectual humility. Horowitz doesn't pretend to talk with authority on subjects he hasn't studied in depth. This is a refreshing aspect of his approach -- one missing from most "pundits" who think they're experts on everything.
A hostility to forces that seek to subvert freedom and the American Idea. Horowitz identifies these as principally the political Left and our Islamofascist enemies abroad.
This defense of America also extends to a defense of Israel, a sentiment that originates not from Horowitz's own ethnic background but from his view that Israel embraces the same value of freedom as the United States. Horowitz wants others to experience the freedom of America and Israel -- hence his engagement with the Neo-Conservative political tradition and support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
A need to ally with others who defend the American Idea. This is another explanation for Horowitz's loyalty to the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement. Both are principally concerned with protecting freedom and the American Idea, thus he joins with them even if he does not agree with all the positions of his allies.
An opposition to humans' ability -- and particularly government's ability -- to radically change and improve the world. Horowitz said on this point (one of the key themes of his work): "I'm not skeptical of the idea that you can radically change the world. I'm opposed to it because I see it as a modern idea (progressivism) that has produced the worst atrocities and greatest oppression the world has ever known. The only radical changes that have been conservative in that they have extended incrementally achieved freedoms to previously excluded groups. The most obvious example would be the ending of slavery."
Extending from his hostility toward freedom's enemies, is a need to confront these opponents in intellectual combat. For Horowitz those who actively oppose the American Idea and our society's value of freedom must be challenged. Their ideas must be examined and revealed. The cloak of innocence and virtue worn by them must be removed to reveal the totalitarianism underneath.
From this need to engage in intellectual combat comes a fervent intellectualism and appreciation for learning, books, and ideas. Horowitz is a staunch advocate of developing oneself mentally. It's one of the reasons for his Academic Freedom Campaign. It troubles him deeply that the university -- the institution most dedicated toward teaching one how to think critically -- has been usurped by those that would subvert it to further their utopian visions.
From this intellectualism comes an understanding of the complexity of the world. Horowitz has read enough to know that no theory explains everything and no one is right about everything. Because of this realization he has liberated himself to draw from a wide variety of intellectual traditions. This accounts for how there are aspects of libertarianism, neo-conservatism, and centrist JFK liberalism in his thinking -- all the while he manages not to become a True Believer of any of them.
The freedom of America extends to all races. The color-blind vision of Martin Luther King, Jr. lives on. American freedom is accessible to all and the racist vision of one race's superiority to another is a dangerous delusion that must be confronted.
A moderation on social issues. Horowitz is pretty moderate on social issues like abortion and gay rights. Such causes -- often considered key elements of the Conservative Movement -- are not subjects he writes about often.
The abstract and the intellectual must be translated into the practical. Horowitz is not just an abstract thinker. Ideas have little value if they are not translated into reality. This is why he is also an activist who seeks to see his ideas directly put into practice.

(These themes are most illustrated in Horowitz's most essential texts: Radical Son, The Politics of Bad Faith, Uncivil Wars, The End of Time, Left Illusions, Destructive Generation, Unholy Alliance, and the forthcoming A Cracking of the Heart.)

Defined in this fashion, Horowitzian Conservatism is to be considered a variation of Postmodern Conservatism -- a term that has been lobbed at Horowitz as an insult by historian Kevin Mattson in his book Rebels All!: A Short History of the Conservative Mind in Post-War America. Horowitz rejected the term as Mattson defined it. In his response to the author's book he wrote:

I do not subscribe to many of the views he attributes to me – post-modernism being the most obvious -- and he seems entirely ignorant of the books I have written to explain what I actually think.

The principle reason that Horowitz seems to oppose the post-modern label is because it infers a certain nihilistic belief in nothing -- which it certainly does. (Also in Mattson's use of the term a "postmodern conservative" believes in nothing but, as a result, lies pathologically to achieve his policy objectives.)

But that's not the only thing that postmodernism can suggest. Postmodernism can be the belief that there is no truth out there. But the postmodernism I prefer has a slight but critical caveat: it's not that the Truth isn't out there, but rather we cannot know for certain what it is. We can only make educated guesses based on the limited evidence we have before us. Let's consider a few more additional definitions of postmodern:

From Merriam Webster:
of, relating to, or being a theory that involves a radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history, or language <postmodern feminism>

Thus a postmodern conservative would approach the conservative political tradition differently than a more traditional, "True Believer" conservative. Synonyms for postmodern conservative could be "skeptical conservative," "pragmatic conservative," "cautious conservative," or, to highlight a term from Andrew Sullivan, "a conservative of doubt." (These are all terms which would apply to Horowitz and he might embrace more than "postmodern.") That's all. Not "a conservative that lies and doesn't believe in anything but the GOP's supremacy" as Mattson would seem to suggest.

Such a conservative can still support many of the ideas of conservatism but in a different style and for different reasons -- often more persuasive reasons -- than a True Believer Conservative. Limited government, traditional morality, personal freedom, a strong military, capitalism -- all the values of the Conservative Movement -- can be defended not because we know they're true or right (as the True Believer would,) but because evidence can be put forth in their favor. (Or we can demonstrate that they're the "least worst" option. To cite just one example, democracy might in one context be a lousy system of government but it's hard to find one that sucks less.)

My additional attraction to "postmodern conservative" and my preference toward it as opposed to the four clarifying alternatives I've just suggested comes from an agenda that I pursue which Horowitz does not: the quest to take the Right and the Left and smash them together to emerge with an ideological approach more suited to our time, place, and generation. I seek to transcend the Left/Right culture war. "Postmodern conservatism" does this, creating an odd intellectual juxtaposition that ultimately serves to put conservative ideas in a new context. Refer to oneself as a "Postmodern Conservative" and immediately it causes some degree of confusion with one's intellectual opponents. (This confusion has a strategic advantage that can be utilized to reframe the defense of the American Idea in a new, more constructive context.)

And it's on this point that I come to where Horowitzian Conservatism and Postmodern Conservatism should be destined: Generation Y Conservatism. It is my contention that of all the voices on the Right the one that is most in tune with the sensibilities of my generation (roughly defined as those born between 1982 and 2000) is Horowitz.

Horowitzian Conservatism, a postmodern conservatism, fits with the postmodern skepticism of Generation Y. We are a generation raised with greater access to information than any before us. We are a generation that has come to doubt -- the only proper response to the necessity of confronting the tidal wave of change and information of the past 20 years. We are also a generation that is optimistic and still wants to change and improve the world. But many of us know that it cannot be done with the leftist methods of our Baby Boomer parents. In our mission to change the world it must be approached with the knowledge and experience of those that have come before us -- hence the necessity of Horowitzian Conservatism.

Ideology is unavoidable in politics. And it's ultimately only a bad thing if one comes to believe in it too deeply. Remember that ideologies are only maps and not the political territory itself and they can provide useful guides to navigating an often treacherous landscape. In Horowitzian Conservatism we have a variant of the Conservative political tradition that is flexible and adaptable to any given situation. It is my sincere hope that the politically-minded members of my generation will look to the ideological maps Horowitz has drawn and consider their value as we prepare to assume our place in the defense of the American Idea.

Front Page: Making Peace with David Horowitz

2009-06-16T05:40:00.001-07:00

I'm interviewed here at Front Page by Jamie Glazov about my political evolution. Subjects discussed include the origins of my political engagement, my second thoughts, my involvement with the Academic Freedom campaign, the dialogue between Wolfe and Horowitz, radicalism, my spiritual views, Inter-Faith, and my current New Centrist ideas.

Review of Losing Mum and Pup mentions new Horowitz Book

2009-06-13T08:50:00.000-07:00

I have a review of Christopher Buckley's Losing Mum and Pup: A Memoir here at American Thinker. My conclusion has a preview of David Horowitz's new book, A Cracking of the Heart, that's coming out this fall. It has a similar theme -- exploring the life of a family member who has died -- but goes about it in an entirely different style.

Both books are must-reads that I enjoyed tremendously.

Coming soon: Inspired by Jamie Glazov's United In Hate I've reread some of Horowitz's Unholy Alliance and am planning a post about it soon discussing the Left.

Front Page: Cravings for Death

2009-05-11T10:42:00.000-07:00

I have a spiritually-oriented review of Jamie Glazov's United In Hate at Front Page here. Those who have followed my spiritual writings might be interested to see what happens when they cross paths with my political writings.

My review of United In Hate

2009-05-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have a review of Jamie Glazov's United In Hate at American Thinker.

In the review I discuss how Glazov builds off of David Horowitz's work in important ways, making an entirely original contribution to understanding radicalism.

New Horowitz interview at Parc Bench

2009-05-01T09:06:00.000-07:00

My friend Chris Yogerst conducts an intriguing interview with David Horowitz here at Parc Bench. Of all the DVDs in my collection I would have never suspected Horowitz of being a fan of Todd Solondz's dark comedy "Welcome to the Dollhouse" -- just one of the many gems Chris unearths in his interview. Check it out.

New Essay about Uncivil Wars

2009-05-01T09:04:00.001-07:00

I have a new essay here on my blog responding to a pro-reparations advocate. I also articulate the political philosophy I'm developing, New Centrism.

Parc Bench: One Party Classroom review

2009-04-27T08:03:00.000-07:00

Writer Chris Yogerst has a review of One-Party Classroom on Parc Bench, a new online publication, here. Chris is a newer writer and a nice guy I've corresponded with about my Front Page stories. Definitely keep an eye on him and his work at Parc Bench.

Front Page: The Return of the Reparations Monster

2009-04-17T07:48:00.000-07:00

I have an article on Front Page today about reparations and Uncivil Wars.

Front Page: Misreading Horowitz

2009-04-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

I have a rebuttal to Chris Goff of Free Exchange on Campus here at Front Page. Goff has already replied to it here. I guess the ball's in my court now.

New Book: Jamie Glazov's "United in Hate"

2009-04-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

My Front Page editor Jamie Glazov has a new book out titled United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror.

I'm currently reading it now and will be writing about it when I've completed it. Glazov has been the editor of Front Page for several years now. He also edited and wrote the introduction to Horowitz's Left Illusions: An Intellectual Odyssey, an important compilation of Horowitz's work. Glazov's introduction to Left Illusions provides the best introduction to the themes of Horowitz's work available anywhere. (It's only drawback is that since it was written Horowitz has released eight more books.) Glazov also co-edited with Horowitz The Hate-America Left.

Glazov's new book offers a mindset into the far left. (See him discuss it here.) It asks why people who claim to support the progression of society would end up defending totalitarian regimes like Soviet Russia and Islamist groups like Hamas and Al Qaeda. Glazov builds on the themes of Horowitz's books and applies his Ph.D in history to provide a historical perspective. It also comes from his perspective as the son of two prominent Soviet dissidents. I'll have a more In Depth discussion of United In Hate soon.

My review of One-Party Classroom on Frontpage

2009-04-03T08:48:00.000-07:00

Available here.

A New Horowitz Book: "One-Party Classroom"

2009-03-18T11:16:00.000-07:00

On March 10th Crown Forum published One-Party Classroom: How Radical Professors At America's Top Colleges Indoctrinate Students and Undermine Our Democracy by David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin. I just received my copy in the mail yesterday and plan to write about it once I've finished reading it.

One-Party Classroom is Horowitz's third book on indoctrination on college campuses. It follows The Professors and Indoctrination U. Read the introduction here. Horowitz is interviewed by John K Wilson, a critic of his efforts, here. Wilson's review is available here. Laksin rebuts Wilson's criticisms here.

Horowitz has been making the rounds to promote the book. His Hannity appearance can be seen here, Glenn Beck here, and Lou Dobbs here.

An Overview of "Hating Whitey," Part 2

2009-03-18T08:17:00.000-07:00

For my continued overview of David Horowitz's essay collection Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes I now turn to the book's second section, "Black Caucus." It features five essays: "Martin's Children," "Amen Corner," "Democrats and Blacks," "Dealing with Racism," and "The Politics of Race."

Martin's Children

The subject of the first essay in this section is affirmative action. Horowitz doesn't address the question of whether affirmative action is morally right or wrong. (He'll save that for later.) Instead he asks, "Has affirmative action actually helped African-Americans?" His answer is a statistically-backed "no."

Advocates of affirmative action argue that it's a policy that will lift African-Americans out of poverty. Horowitz, armed with the research of the book America in Black and White argues that it will not and that the cause of black poverty in the inner city has a different origin.

Key excerpts:

The cause of black poverty, as the Thernstrom’s show (and the dramatic expansion of the black middle class should make self-evident) has little to do with race. Consequently, its solution will not be affected by affirmative action set-asides. Currently, eighty-five percent of all poor black children live in fatherless families. In other words, the poverty rate for black children without fathers is nearly six times that for black children with two parents. A far more effective anti-poverty program would be to promote black marriages.

...

On the basis of the actual results, it is clear that affirmative action based on racial preference is unnecessary to racial progress, damaging to its supposed beneficiaries, and ineffective in terms of closing the income and education gaps between blacks and whites. While it may create additional privilege for some members of an already privileged black elite -- 86% of the affirmative action students at elite schools are from upper middle-class or wealthy backgrounds -- its more durable effect is to create failure that is unnecessary. In addition it adds grievance to those whose achievements are real, but who become suspect because of the circumvention of standards.

Take Home Point: Affirmative action is ineffective at accomplishing its objective of helping advance African-Americans. The true root cause of poverty in the black community is illegitimacy.

Political Opponents Mentioned: Jesse Jackson,

Political Influences Mentioned: Jim Sleeper, Stephan and Abigail Thernstrom

Amen Corner

Horowitz questions why African-Americans identified so strongly with Bill Clinton and continued to identify with him even at the height of the impeachment scandal. Why was it that Clinton was dubbed and accepted as "the first black president" long before anyone had even heard of Barack Obama?

Key excerpt:

A revealing aspect of the White House crisis that engulfed President Clinton in 1998 was the racial gap in public opinion polls, which was almost as wide as after the verdict in the O.J. Simpson murder case. When the world discovered in January that the president was having sex with a 22-year-old intern, a New York Times poll found that 81% of blacks (as compared to 58% of whites) nonetheless approved the way the president was conducting his job. When asked whether the president shared the moral values of most Americans, fully 77% of blacks (in contrast to less than half that fraction of whites) said yes. Nine months later, after the discovery of the stained dress and the release of the Starr Report, 63% of blacks still thought the president, now a proven liar and philanderer -- shared the nation’s morality. It was three times the number of whites (22%) who did.

Take Home Point: Horowitz argues that African-American loyalty to Bill Clinton derives from a paranoia that with the empowerment of Republicans and conservatives the gains of the Civil Rights Movements will be reversed. This is a false fear and Horowitz will elaborate on this point further in the next essay.

Political Opponents Mentioned:Toni Morrison, Julian Bond, Frank Rich, Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, Maxine Waters,

Political Influences Mentioned: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Political Allies Mentioned: Newt Gingrich, Clarence Thomas

Democrats And Blacks

Horowitz makes the argument that the Democratic Party does not serve the interests of the African-American community. He reprints black radio host Larry Elder's list of “15 Reasons Why Blacks Shouldn’t Support Clinton:”

Key excerpt:

Liberals and the Democratic Party need the economic dependence and monolithic political choices of the African American community in order to secure their own political power. That is why liberals and Democrats constantly inflame the racial fears of black Americans while maliciously demonizing conservatives and Republicans as their racial enemies. That is why they are either collusive in, or silent about, the character assassination of black conservatives like Clarence Thomas, Gary Franks, Ken Hamble, Thomas Sowell and Ward Connerly.

Where would liberalism and the Democratic Party be without the dependencies of black Americans on government programs and government offices, and the monolithic politics that follow naturally? (Government actually employs 24% of black Americans, in contrast to 14% of whites -- while blacks make up only 10% of the workforce).

Where would liberalism and the Democratic Party be if poor urban black youth were not trapped by their policies in dangerous and failing public schools? This situation, tragically destructive for African Americans -- ensures that billions of education dollars will continue to flow into the pockets of the administrative bureaucracies and public sector unions, particularly the teachers unions -- which form the heart of the Democratic Party’s political machine.

Take Home Point: Horowitz argues that African-Americans have been exploited by the Democratic Party and would be better served by the GOP.

Political Opponents Mentioned: Carol Moseley-Braun, Charles Rangel, Toni Morrison,

Political Allies Mentioned: Newt Gingrich, Larry Elder, Tom Wolfe, Clarence Thomas, Gary Franks, Ken Hamble, Thomas Sowell and Ward Connerly.

Dealing With Racism

Horowitz considers Clarence Page's book Showing My Color and demonstrates how the differences between a "moderate" civil rights thinker like Page and that of a "radical" like bell hooks are smaller than one might initially suspect. This is a theme throughout Horowitz's work. Yes, within "the Left" there's a wide range of ideas and degrees of rhetoric and intensity. But often the moderates don't think all that differently than the radicals. Or rather they just use gentler, more sophisticated language.

Key excerpts:

Page is not enthusiastic about racial “nationalism” or even black militancy and has forcefully dissociated himself from “separatists.” Unlike his more radical peers, he is not ashamed of expressing hope in the American dream. Yet, in a book-length manifesto called Showing My Color, Page has written an argument in defense of these disturbing radical trends. The very fact that someone like Clarence Page could write an apologia for race conscious government policies and even racial separation, shows how pervasive and significant these trends have become.

...

The corrosive effect of thirty years of affirmative action policies has been to convince black Americans that whites are indeed so racist that some external force must compel their respect and, secondarily, that blacks need affirmative action in order to gain equal access to the American dream. The further consequence of this misguided “remedy” has been to foster a racial paranoia in the black community that is so pervasive that even the thinking of blacks who have benefited from America’s racial generosity has been significantly affected.

Take Home Point: Horowitz expands upon his anti-affirmative action argument. Where in the first essay of the section he articulated why the program doesn’t work, here he explains why it’s morally wrong. On the subject of Page and other civil rights “moderates” Horowitz connects the dots, showing how Page’s more toned-down rhetoric connects with the ideas of more inflammatory racial thinkers.

Political Opponents Mentioned: Clarence Page, Louis Farrakhan, Julian Bond, Cornel West, Angela Davis, Manning Marable, Ronald Takaki, Michael Lerner

Political Allies Mentioned: Ronald Radosh, Clarence Thomas

The Politics of Race

In perhaps the section’s most important essay Horowitz shows how the modern civil rights movement has taken Marxist ideas and reinvented them to be applied toward race instead of economics.

Key excerpt:

Today the alien power thought by the left to control our destinies is only rarely described as a “ruling class,” although it is still perceived as that. Refuted by the history of Communist empires, the left has turned to new vocabularies and concepts to rescue it from its defeats. Today the ruling class is identified as the “patriarchy” or the “white male oligarchy,” or in disembodied form as the force of “institutional racism” or “white supremacy.” The result is a kitsch marxism that follows the basic Marxist scheme but results in true intellectual incoherence. Marx’s idea of a classless society may make a certain sense in theory even if it is unworkable in practice, whereas the idea of a race-less society or a gender-free society makes no sense at all.

…

For Martin Luther King and the traditional civil rights movement, leveling the playing field simply meant extending to black southerners, the constitutional protections accorded to all Americans. It meant making all citizens, regardless of color, equal before the law. Leveling the playing field meant creating neutral rules that did not encompass color or ethnicity but made both irrelevant to the contests of civic and economic life. This was the idea of a “color-neutral” society. It was not that color would be unseen or denied, but that color would not affect individual outcomes, certainly not through the agency of the state. By these standards, the playing field became level once government ceased to play racial favorites, a goal achieved through the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s.

Political Opponents Mentioned: Robin West

Political Influences Mentioned: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Take Home Point: The most useful point to take from this essay is Horowitz’s description and denunciation of “kitsch Marxism.” The Marxist Idea is one of the most thoroughly discredited of the 20^th century. Yet to perpetuate its survival it has been dressed up in different clothes. Now instead of the bourgeoisie exploiting the proletariat you have Institutional Racism or the White Male Oligarchy oppressing the black underclass, responsible for keeping some members of the African-American community in poverty. It’s not difficult to find other kitsch Marxisms that have abandoned the language of the Old Left but have kept the basic concepts still in tact. I’ll provide another example.

Personal Example of Idea in Practice: I first read this essay several months ago during the 2008 election, a time when I regularly argued with friends both to my left and my right over who should be President. I think I stumbled across it here on Discover the Networks while conducting general Horowitz research. Horowitz’s conception of kitsch Marxism seemed to ring true to me as the arguments I’d been having during the election continued to circle in my head.

As a supporter of Barack Obama, from a position of centrism (my Obama endorsement can be read here,) most of the fights I seemed to have came from McCain supporters to my right. Many were from my Christian radical friends who talked about almost nothing but Obama’s abortion positions, trying to make the absurd case that my candidate was pro-infanticide. Others were traditional, limited government conservatives who were concerned Obama would be a socialist and terrorist appeaser.

My old college buddy Pat, though, was a Nader supporter who attacked Obama from the left, claiming my candidate was a corporatist puppet of the ruling class. For months Pat and I had been engaging one another in dialogue over all kinds of political and cultural issues. And I’d grown accustomed to his worldview and style of argumentation. Eventually I wrote this post here explaining my opposition to the Nader candidacy on policy grounds alone. (He wouldn’t stop bugging me until I actually took his candidate’s issues seriously enough to write about them.)

One night, as we were debating, though, I decided to throw Pat a Right Hook when I had a realization. Horowitz’s explanation of kitsch Marxism in mind I noticed something about how Pat always seemed to talk. His political understanding seemed to break American society down into two warring classes. On the one hand you had the international corporations which were run by corrupt, “fat cat” CEOs. On the other you had the good, decent “Joe Six Pack” Americans. According to Pat these noble working class folks were continually getting screwed over by their malevolent corporate masters. The basis of his political understanding was an idea of class warfare that was all but Marxism by any other name.

So I called him on it. I pointed out to him that all he’d done is replace the “proletariat” and the “bourgeoisie” with “Joe Six Pack” and “fat cat CEOs.” It was kitsch Marxism, no different than how black radicals had plugged in “minorities” and “racist white male power structure.”

And oh did he get mad at me, as I knew he would. His response was one that Horowitz receives almost regularly from his leftist political opponents. For my comparison Pat accused me of “McCarthyism” – as though a few comments in an online discussion could in any way compare to people losing their jobs in the early ‘50s.

Pat and my conflicting political visions reflect our very different post-collegiate experiences in corporate America. Pat’s were negative. He’s told me many times about the horrible corporation he worked for, his experiences with union organizing and his wrongful termination. My experiences have been much more positive. The idea that my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss is out to screw me, the worker bee lower down the corporate ladder, is an alien concept. Instead I’ve seen how the interests of the “corporation” and its “proletariat” employees are intimately tied together. I’ve seen how my “Joe Six Pack” co-workers and I have been treated quite well by our corporation – earning strong wages and great benefits. Pat’s kitsch Marxism of “fat cat CEOs” screwing over their noble “Joe Six Pack” employees just doesn’t fit the world that I’ve experienced.

Connecting the dots:

In my previous essay explaining the themes of the first section of Hating Whitey I discussed how Horowitz divides the Civil Rights movement into two warring categories. The first, symbolized in Martin Luther King, Jr. sought to integrate the African-American community into the whole of American society. It sought equality and a color-blind society. The second, symbolized in Elijah Muhammad, was a vision of black supremacy that saw America as fundamentally racist and malevolent.

“A Rage to Kill,” the final essay of the “Get Whitey” first section, was the most consequential essay of the group. For “Black Caucus,” the second section, the last essay “The Politics of Race” is also the key to tying together the whole section. Horowitz proposes the Marxist model as a way of understanding the policies and attitudes of contemporary “civil rights” thinkers, politicians and activists. He articulates the idea of “kitsch Marxism,” which is to be understood basically as “Marxism with different symbols.” In the kitsch Marxist racial view all minorities are analogous to the “proletariat” of classical Marxism.

How does affirmative action fit into this understanding of the issue? Affirmative action is a redistribution of opportunity. Whereas in traditional Marxist thought we have a redistribution of wealth, here instead of cash payments (which some civil rights activists have advocated in the form of reparations for slavery) we have a redistribution of opportunity. The “oppressed group” are given preferences and advantage in attending college. Thus Horowitz has to demonstrate first that the practice is ineffective (which he does in “Martin’s Children”) and second that it’s immoral (which he does in “Dealing With Racism.”)

Horowitz also has to suggest an alternative. He has to explain why a certain segment of the African-American community has remained in poverty. His diagnosis as the principle cause of poverty for inner city blacks is not “institutional racism” but instead something less hidden:

Currently, eighty-five percent of all poor black children live in fatherless families. In other words, the poverty rate for black children without fathers is nearly six times that for black children with two parents. A far more effective anti-poverty program would be to promote black marriages.

Horowitz’s answer is one that he would later articulate more in his book Uncivil Wars. Poor blacks can lift themselves out of poverty through an embrace of American ideals and conservative values. This philosophical change has an obvious political expression for Horowitz: supporting the GOP instead of the Democrats. And he makes this case in “Amen Corner” and “Democrats and Blacks.”

The third section of Hating Whitey that I’ll be writing about includes two longer essays on one of the most important subjects of Horowitz’s earlier books: the Black Panther Party. So expect that in the coming weeks.

A Post Regarding Frank Talker

2009-02-22T20:44:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to engage my recent commenter Frank Talker in dialogue. Instead I've written this post on my personal blog ridiculing his poor writing, anti-white racism, and hilarious claim that I'm a racist. I decided my personal blog was a more appropriate venue for it. Enjoy.

An Overview of "Hating Whitey," Part 1

2009-02-17T06:30:00.000-08:00

Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes is a collection of 29 essays written by David Horowitz throughout the 1990s. As indicated by the title the principle subject is race however Horowitz does explore other subjects, most noticeably the Clinton administration, individual leftists, and higher education. Most of the essays were originally columns for the Internet magazine Salon where Horowitz contributed as a columnist. In this post I'd like to provide a brief overview of the book's essays are summarize the take-home point of each. Critics will likely note that this approach is the opposite of going "in depth." (However In Depth readings of some of the chapters are certainly planned.) My goal, though, is to demonstrate one of the most important aspects of Hating Whitey, the manner in which the themes expressed in one essay connect to and relate to the other. With Hating Whitey one gets a series of striking juxtapositions. For example, we see the relationship between the book's principle subject -- the poisoning of the civil rights movement into an anti-white movement -- with another issue important to Horowitz: indoctrination in higher education. We further see disturbing parallels between the writings of intellectual bell hooks and the historical acts of violence committed by the Black Panther Party.

For each essay I'm going to provide a brief summary, key excerpt, take home idea, and also list any important political friends, enemies and influences mentioned. Then at the end I'll summarize how the themes of each essay connect with one another. For the sake of readability this summary has been split into six separate posts, each corresponding to the section of the book they summarize. This first post discusses the introduction and the first three essays that comprise Part I, "Get Whitey."

Introduction: Memories in Memphis

The book's introduction is reprinted in an edited form in Left Illusions and provides a clear summation of Horowitz's perspective on the issue of race. He describes visiting the National Civil Rights Museum, erected at the motel where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, in Memphis, Alabama. There he was initially impressed by what he saw and wrote, "It is a powerful tribute to a movement and leader who were able to win battles against overwhelming odds by exerting moral force over an entire nation." As he continued exploring the museum, though, he was startled by displays in praise of Elijah Muhammad, the racist founder of the Nation of Islam who articulated a fundamentally different racial vision than King. In the inclusion of Muhammad within the Civil Rights museum he saw it as symbolic of a conflict within the Civil Rights Movement.

Key excerpt:

After I left the museum, it occurred to me that this image reflected a truth about the after-life of the movement King created, and whose moral legacy was in large part squandered by those who inherited it after his death. The moral decline of the civil rights leadership is reflected in many episodes of the last quarter century: the embrace of racist demagogues like Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton, and indefensible causes like those of Tawana Brawley, O.J. Simpson, the Los Angeles race rioters, and the Million Man March on Washington, organized by the Nation of Islam and cynically designed to appropriate the moral mantle of King's historic event.

Take Home Point: Horowitz divides the Civil Rights movement into two incompatible tendencies. The first is the one he embraces and champions. It's the philosophy of King and those who fought to integrate the African-American community into the fabric of America. The second is the one he condemns and will spend the book hammering. It's a racist vision of black superiority to whites that seeks not to unify the races but to lift African-Americans above others. This second vision, Horowitz argues, is a part of an anti-American political Left.

Political Opponents Mentioned: Al Sharpton, Lous Farrakhan, Cornel West, Angela Davis

Political Friends Mentioned: Ward Connerly

Political Influences Mentioned: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Racial Paranoia
A year After the murder of her son Ennis, Camille Cosby, wife of entertainer Bill Cosby, wrote a USA Today column entitled "America Taught My Son's Killer To Hate Blacks." In it she argued that her son died because his killer was inspired by American racism. Horowitz methodically dissects her arguments one by one.

Key excerpt:

The irrational hatred of America in general, and of white America in particular, manifested in Cosby's screed, is unfortunately the expression of more than an individual paranoia exacerbated by a perfectly understandable grief. Suppose, for example, that the mothers of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman had authored a parallel column titled "Black America Taught Our Children's Killer to Hate Whites?" Is there any (white-owned) newspaper in America that would even print such a claim?
In contrast to Camille Cosby's perverse view of America as a nation of racists, it is worth repeating that this is the only country in the world where children are indoctrinated from pre-school days that racism is morally wrong, that American blacks have been the victims of egregious crimes, and that expressing prejudice is socially unacceptable. In fact the only group that is allowed to vent racist venom publicly in America today are African Americans themselves, as the deplorable outburst by Camille Cosby attests.

Take Home Point: America is not a racist country. Horowitz acknowledges the presence of racists in America but argues that the populace at large regards such bigotries as intolerable.

Political Opponents Mentioned: Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Derrick Bell

Hate Crimes
Horowitz tackles the issue of hate crime legislation. He discusses how the brutal killings of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr inspired congressmen to act to pass laws to punish those who commit crimes out of hatred for someone's race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. He argues against such laws and identifies a double standard: the conception that hate crimes can only be committed against minorities. He provides several examples of crimes by blacks against whites, including the O. J. Simpson murder trial.

Key excerpt:

The doctrine that only whites can be racist is, in fact, itself an instigation to hate crimes. It is a doctrine that has already spread to the secondary schools. The week after the Shepard killing, a Seattle father called a national radio talk show on which I was a guest, and told the audience that his son's class in junior high school had been discussing the hate crime concept because of the killing. During the discussion, the teacher informed the class that only heterosexual whites could be racists. The caller's son was unconvinced and brought up the savage beating of Reginald Denny during the Los Angeles riots by a group of black gang members. Surely, he suggested, this was a hate-crime. But his teacher corrected him. Even though Denny was pulled from his truck solely because he was white, and then beaten within an inch of his life, he could not be the victim of racial attitudes. The attempted murder of Reginald Denny was actually an act of rebellion by people who were themselves the victims of a white racist system, and the act they committed, therefore, could not be considered a hate crime. This is the perspective of academics who teach "whiteness studies," of law professors who teach "critical race studies," and no doubt of education professors busily transmitting the progressive world view to the next generation of high school instructors.

Take Home Point: Hate crime laws are not about punishing racism. If they were then they'd also be directed at blacks who commit crimes against whites, women who commit crimes against men, etc. Rather than revise hate crime prosecutions to include such acts, Horowitz argues that we should just do away with the whole idea of hate crimes and step away from identifying and understanding people predominantly as members of different groups. Instead of acting as a corrective to racism and bigotry, hate crimes only foment hatred.

Political Opponents Mentioned: Barney Frank

Political Friends Mentioned: George Will

A Rage To Kill

In one of the most powerful essays in Hating Whitey Horowitz critiques acclaimed intellectual bell hooks. He takes particular exception to her essay "A Killing Rage" which starts off in the alienating fashion, "I am writing this essay sitting beside an anonymous white male that I long to murder." Horowitz demonstrates how intellectuals provide the theoretical backing to justify violence toward whites. In one striking example he shows how author Andrew Hacker seeks to justify the crime of rape by claiming that it's really the fault of "institutional racism."

Key excerpt:

Of course if hooks were not both radical and black, her confession of homicidal malice might provoke public alarm. Race crimes contemplated by whites are a serious matter. But a black killing rage against whites can easily be excused. It is, after all, a comprehensible response to historic grievance or -- as many blacks actually do seem to regard it -- morally justified "pay back." It can also be seen (by progressives like hooks) as a necessary path to "liberation." The development of a proper killing rage may even be inevitable for the oppressed who otherwise would submit supinely to their fate. Thus, the repression of black killing rage as hooks informs us, is the agenda of white supremacists.

Take Home Point: The black rage as exemplified in hooks is counterproductive to the cause of advancement for the African-American community. It only serves to inspire racist ideas -- that blacks are dangerous or uncivilized -- instead of actually fighting racism.

Political Opponents Mentioned: bell hooks, Louis Farrakhan, Leonard Jeffries, Andrew Hacker

Political Influences Mentioned: Martin Luther King, Jr.

------------------------------------

Connecting the dots: Summarizing the essays in this fashion it shouldn't be difficult to see how the subjects of each essay relate and reinforce one another. This is the advantage that Hating Whitey provides over just reading each essay individually.

"Memories in Memphis," as is to be expected for an introduction, lays out the subject for discussion -- the faction of the civil rights movement that stood against Martin Luther King Jr's vision of integration and racial harmony and instead embraced supremacy and militantcy. The first chapter, "Racial Paranoia" then lays out and rebuts a key component of this movement: the idea that America is fundamentally racist. The second chapter, "Hate Crimes," then demonstrates how the passage of hate crime legislation is an attempt to correct this alleged problem. "A Rage to Kill" then shows the driving emotion that powers this movement: a racial hatred that really is not particularly different than racism against blacks. This emotion is then intellectualized and translated into law. In the coming chapters we'll see how additional ideas fit into the overall problem which the book seeks to confront.

The Contrarian Spirit in Christopher Hitchens and David Horowitz

2009-01-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

In the introduction to his book Letters to a Young Contrarian writer Christopher Hitchens describes the kind of summaries of his work that irritate him:

However, it does tire me to read, time and again, reviews and notices that are based on clippings from earlier reviews and notices. Thus there's always an early paragraph, usually written in a standard from of borrowed words, that says "Hitchens, whose previous targets have even included Mother Teresa and Princess Diana as well as Bill Clinton, now turns to ..."

Of course, as your guessed, this is dispiriting. For one thing, it bores me to see my supposed "profession" reduced to recycling.

I hope to do Hitchens better justice than that which he's used to in this post focusing on his work in relation to that of his friend David Horowitz.

Hitchens is known in the culture as a prolific journalist, critic, and pundit. He currently writes regular features for Vanity Fair, Slate, and The Atlantic, and writes frequently for other publications as well. Links to his writings can be found at the Christopher Hitchens Web.

Hitchens has written and edited some two dozen books, some of the most important I'd recommend to grasp the central themes of his writing include:

2008: Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left
2007: God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
2005: Thomas Jefferson: Author of America
2004: Love, Poverty, and War : Journeys and Essays
2003: Why Orwell Matters
2003: A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq
2001: The Trial of Henry Kissinger
2001: Letters to a Young Contrarian (The book I've recently read and will discuss in relation to Horowitz.)
2000: No One Left To Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family
1997: The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice
1993: For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports

For most of his career Hitchens was known as one of the most prominent voices of the political Left. For 20 years he was a columnist for the Left's flagship publication, The Nation, a journal Horowitz regularly attacks as a journal that was "a fellow-traveler of Communist totalitarians during the Cold War and of Islamic totalitarians after 9/11." Hitchens' archive can be read here. This contentious relationship came to a conclusion when Hitchens' found himself at odds with the dominant response on the Left to the horrors of 9/11. He explained why he chose to leave the Nation in a letter to his former colleague Katha Pollit. This initial break was intensified when Hitchens chose to become a passionate supporter of the Iraq War.

Despite his commitment to the War on Terror and the Iraq War and his public break with the Left over these issues it's important to understand that Hitchens has not embraced the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement as Horowitz has. Nor has he made a clean break from the Left. In this BloggingHeads dialogue with former Nation colleague Eric Alterman Hitchens claims not to be a conservative, though he does embrace the neo-conservative label. Hitchens has not denounced his past writings or radically revised many of his already-stated positions. This doesn't seem to be the biggest problem for Horowitz. Since 9/11 the focus of Horowitz's work has shifted. In the '90s the principle enemy of America in his view was the Left. And so he focused his energies on attacking it and defending America from it. Since 9/11 a new, more dangerous enemy has established itself in Radical Islam. And so Horowitz is able to embrace Hitchens in this most important of fights while still holding important disagreements on less consequential matters. The Conservative Movement that Horowitz champions is one that does not demand ideological conformity on all issues. He discusses this point and the nature of the Conservative Movement in his essay "Michael Lind and the Right Wing Cabal" in his book Left Illusions. (See my In Depth reading of this essay here.)

Hitchens reviewed Left Illusions for the Los Angeles Times in an article titled "Left-leaving, Left-leaning." In the mostly positive review Hitchens wrote of Horowitz:

I should say at the outset that I have known or at least met Horowitz at almost every stage of his political evolution (and I confess that one of these collected essays defends me against some piece of calumny from a few years back. That article begins – quite correctly in a way – by saying that he knows full well that by taking my side he is throwing me a lifebelt made out of the heaviest possible cement). To have met Horowitz in Berkeley at the end of the ’60s, when he was running the now-legendary Ramparts magazine, was to have encountered a rather cocky and prickly guy, aware of his status as a celebrity of the New Left.

...

With the Cold War so to speak behind us, I suspected that Horowitz would find life without the old enemy a little dull. How much of an audience would there be for his twice-told tale about growing up in a doggedly loyal Communist Party family and his agonizing over the series of wrenches and shocks that had detached him from Marxism altogether? But then, I didn’t anticipate that in the fall of 2001 I would be reading solemn polemics by leading intellectualoids, proposing a strict moral equivalence – moral equivalence at best, in some cases – between America and the Taliban. Nor did I expect to see street theater antiwar demonstrations, organized by open admirers of Fidel Castro and Slobodan Milosevic and Kim Jong Il, united in the sinister line of, in effect, “hands off Saddam Hussein.” So I admit that I now find the sardonic, experienced pessimism in Horowitz’ book, a bit more serviceable than I once did. No matter what the shortcomings of U.S. policy may have been in the post-2001 crisis, it is clear at least to me that much of the left has disgraced itself either by soft-headed neutralism or, in the case of a very noticeable minority, by something rather like open sympathy for the enemies of civilization.

In 2007 Hitchens wrote a piece for Slate supporting Horowitz's Islamofascism Awareness Week and defending the very term "Islamofascism." Since the War on Terror began and Hitchens' allegiances with the Left grew more tenuous and many of his pieces have been featured on Front Page. His archive is here and an interview between him and Front Page managing editor Jamie Glazov can be read here. When Horowitz wrote The End of Time, Hitchens was featured in the first chapter and identified as a friend.

However, as is to be expected, Hitchens first appeared as an adversary in Horowitz's early conservative texts. He makes appearances in Destructive Generation, first for expressing admiration for Noam Chomsky and later for attacking Horowitz and Peter Collier's Second Thoughts conference. In Horowitz and Collier's description of Hitchens, discussing the writer in the late '80s, we see Hitchens' post 9/11 shift more clearly:

Remembered by Oxford classmates as part of a coterie of self-style revolutionaries who joked about compiling a list of social democrats to be killed after the revolution, Hitchens is perhaps best known in America for an article in Harper's attacking the idea that there is such a phenomenon as terrorism, or that American power ought to resist it. According to Hitchens, terrorism cannot be defined except polemically. American "state terrorism" is thus said to exist coequally with Shiite terrorism, although it is called something different by the brainwashed American media and thus escapes the verbal and political onus that Third World bomb throwers and kidnappers must bear.

Page 382 of Radical Son features Horowitz's recollections of a TV appearance on Lewis Lapham's Book Notes in which Hitchens got the opportunity to act as commentator for this book in which he, himself appeared. Horowitz describes Hitchens' ferocity:

As soon as we began the proceedings, his bile spilled onto every surface, souring the entire mood of the show, which reached its nadir when I mentioned the passage in which I had written about my father's funeral. "Who cares about his pathetic family?" Hitchens snapped.

Horowitz and Hitchens' paths would cross again when they found a common enemy in Bill Clinton. Horowitz's Hating Whitey features the essay "Defending Christopher," which is reprinted in Left Illusions and is the piece mentioned by Hitchens in his review. The article describes Hitchens' effective take-down of Clinton:

In two mordant and incisive articles in Vanity Fair before this episode, Hitchens demonstrated that the nation’s commander-in-chief cynically and mendaciously deployed the armed forces of the greatest super-power on earth to strike at three impoverished countries, with no clear military objective in mind. Using the most advanced weaponry the world has ever seen, Clinton launched missiles into the Sudan, Afghanistan and Iraq for only one tangible political purpose (as Hitchens put it) to “distract attention from his filthy lunge at a beret-wearing cupcake.”

The piece also contains the seed showing why Hitchens and Horowitz would one day find themselves as friends instead of enemies:

Reading Hitchens’ riveting indictment stirred unexpected feelings of nostalgia in me for the left I had once been part of. Not the actual left that I came to know and reject, but the left of my youthful idealism, when I thought our mission was to be the nation’s “conscience,” to speak truth to power in the name of what was just. This, as is perfectly evident from what he has written, was Hitchens’ own mission in exposing Blumenthal as the willing agent of a corrupt regime and its reckless commander-in-chief. Unfortunately, in carrying out this mission, Hitchens was forced to trip over the Lewinsky matter, specifically Blumenthal’s effort to smear the credibility of the key witness to the President’s bad faith. But that is because it was through Lewinsky that the Starr investigators had set up the character issue in the first place.

Hitchens and Horowitz are both possessed of the same spirit. They are both animated by a drive to challenge, provoke, and especially to confront. (The importance of confronting the malicious and the ignorant is a theme that runs throughout Horowitz's work of which I have already written.) They both pursue the truth and then force people to deal with it, no matter how painful it might be.

This spirit, style, approach, or mentality is the subject of Hitchens' book Letters to a Young Contrarian. The book contains nineteen short chapters, each in the style of a letter to an unnamed correspondent. In the first letter Hitchens offers an aphorism that sums up the contrarian spirit :

There is a saying from Roman antiquity: Fiat justitia -- ruat caelum. "Do justice, and let the skies fall." In every epoch there have been those to argue that "greater" goods, such as tribal solidarity or social cohesion, take precedence over the demands of justice. It is supposed to be an axiom of "Western" civilisation that the individual, or the truth, may not be sacrificed to hypothetical benefits such as "order." But in point of fact, such immolations have been very common. To the extent that the ideal is at least paid lip service, this result is the outcome of individual struggles against the collective instinct for a quiet life.

Do Justice, and let the skies fall. This approach would apply to Horowitz just as it would any contrarian. The problem that Horowitz has come to know so well is that sometimes when the skies fall they come down right on top of you. When you set out to do justice by speaking the truth there will usually be retribution -- injustice will be done unto you. The next literary ally of Horowitz's that I'll be exploring is Ron Radosh, a historian whose political journey parallels Horowitz's in many ways. His memoir Commies: A Journey Through the Old Left, the New Left and the Leftover Left will be discussed in a future post.

An Introduction to the Writings of David Horowitz

2009-01-03T17:36:00.001-08:00

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.

Losing Faith in the Left: Understanding David Horowitz In Depth

2008-12-09T11:07:00.000-08:00

My name is David Swindle and since the spring of 2008 I've been writing about the work of David Horowitz.

My objective with this blog has shifted since I first began it. When I first contacted Horowitz I was a leftist, angered by his criticism of my friend Professor George Wolfe and my alma mater Ball State University. Initially I sought to provide Horowitz with fair, useful criticism. In my first analyses of Indoctrination U I took a critical perspective, attacking arguments and nit-picking details.

As I read more of his books, though, and continued to ask him questions I started to find that I agreed with him more than I disagreed. This careful study of his work combined with the new job I'd started in December of 2007 -- as a debt collector for a student loan company -- gradually propelled me more into the center. And so I shifted my focus to one more of analysis and understanding instead of criticism.

It's important to realize that I approach Horowitz's work and its subjects from a position to his left but well to the right of most of the people he critiques. I consider myself a centrist liberal who currently finds a political home in the moderate wing of the Democratic Party. That political orientation and party allegiance is always open to change as the facts shift and better arguments present themselves.

With this analytical style I've written about Horowitz's books The End of Time, Uncivil Wars, and Left Illusions. I've also written on books that Horowitz has recommend such as Defending Identity by his ally Natan Sharansky and Rebels All! by his critic Kevin Mattson.

The blog has also featured a dialogue I've coordinated between Horowitz and Wolfe, recently concluded and collected here. I didn't quite meet my objective of reconciling my two friends but if their personalities and ideas can only be reconciled in me and my writing then that's something I'll accept. My concluding thoughts on the dialogue can be read here.

The objective with my writings on Horowitz on this blog is two-fold. The first is to develop an understanding of the material so that it can be explained to a wider audience. A big piece of this will be in showing thematic connections from one book to another.

There are plenty of people on the Right that should be ignored and dismissed. What I'd like to demonstrate is that Horowitz clearly isn't one of them. He's the opposite. Given that we all have limited time and energy in who we choose for our political reading, I argue that the Horowitz perspective is one for which people should make room. I've been tremendously engaged by his work and I wish others could as well.

In service of this goal I've selected Horowitz as the first author I'd like to write about in my Understanding In Depth series of books. This would be a series focusing on exploring the ideas of writers that I appreciate who I feel have not received the attention their ideas warrant. I've already begun the research for Losing Faith in the Left: Understanding David Horowitz In Depth on this blog and plan to continue doing so. However, the whole point of this book, the series I'd like to write, and basically my being as writer and thinker is this: multiple understandings of reality are vital if we are to come to comprehend this world. Ideas are like genes and must be joined in new combinations if our thinking is to evolve. In that spirit I invite others to bring to the table their understanding of Horowitz's work and its related subjects.

The following is a summary of the territory I've explored thus far:

(I'd encourage those reading my work to begin with the writings after my shift in approach, though my early essay from May, The Complicated David Horowitz is still of value. The concept of ignorance and malice as different reasons for unacceptable positions is still a notion I hold.)

The End of Time Chapter 1 In Depth

In my writing of the first chapter of The End of Time, Horowitz's spiritual/philosophical memoir of his fight with prostate cancer, I compare the style of the text to that of such modernist writers as T.S. Eliot and James Joyce. Horowitz provides numerous different ideas drawn from philosophy, literature, current events, and his own life. He then allows the reader to put the pieces together themselves and find their own meaning.

Uncivil Wars Preface In Depth

Uncivil Wars, Horowitz's narrative of his campaign against reparations for slavery, is a book filled with multiple themes. It's a discussion of the issue of reparations, the American idea, and the character of the Left. In this writing on Uncivil Wars I discuss the connection between how Horowitz was received by the campus left and how dissidents of totalitarian regimes have been received. In both cases the answer was the same: eliminate those who disagree.

Left Illusions: Neo-Communism In Depth

This piece in Left Illusions articulates one of the most important of Horowitz's arguments about the Left: that the movement has been unable and unwilling to escape from Stalinism. It also makes a point which has been important for me: that the term "liberal" should be used to express the political center and not that of the Left.

Left Illusions: Michael Lind and the Right-Wing Cabal In Depth

In this essay Horowitz examines the so-called conversion of writer Michael Lind from right to left. He challenges Lind's reasons for switching sides and defends the conservative movement.

Horowitz, Sharansky, and Hobsbawm

In this piece I discussed the connections between Horowitz's writing and that of Soviet dissident and Israeli politician Natan Sharansky. I noted the similarities between the post-identity movement that Sharansky critiqued in his book Defending Identity and the political Left that Horowitz critiques. Horowitz does not write and think in a vacuum. In exploring his work I intend to read widely of other authors with whom he has become associated.

Horowitz, Sharansky, and Lennon: A Personal Reflection on Dreams and Identity

In this discussion of Horowitz and Sharansky I discuss the question of the implementation of our dreams.

Confronting a Skewed View of David Horowitz in Kevin Mattson's Rebels All!

By September 0f 2008 I wasn't quite an expert in Horowitz's writings but I knew his body of work well enough to know when someone got it wrong. In his book Rebels All! on post-war American conservatism, historian Kevin Mattson really missed the mark in his discussion of Horowitz's writing and ideas. He repeated a misunderstanding of Horowitz's Academic Freedom campaign that I had once had. He also made a misinterpretation of Horowitz's The Art of Political War similar to that of Dean Steinberger which Horowitz described and corrected in Indoctrination U. I was most offended, though, by Mattson's absurd caricature of Horowitz's anti-reparations argument, an error that could have been easily avoided had he read Uncivil Wars.

A Liberal Defense of Conservatism

I had a more fundamental disagreement with Mattson, though. Not only did he see nothing of value in Horowitz, he seemed to see nothing worth considering within the conservative intellectual tradition. His book amounted to little more than a hit piece on the entire movement. This was not the approach I thought centrist liberals should take. My evolving ideological position was one in which I argued that conservatives often got it right and that liberals should be intelligent enough to discern when it was appropriate to go left, center OR right on any given issue.

Understanding Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week in Context

In October, Horowitz staged another of his Islamo-Fascism Awareness Weeks to draw attention to an ideology that threatened America. Knowing that many liberals might not understand Horowitz's intent -- they'd likely be more influenced by the smears of their leftist friends -- I sought to frame the event in the context of some of the central themes of Horowitz's writing.

Thomas Jefferson, Uncivil Wars, and Symbol Warfare

Inspired by a book review in The New Republic, I decided to discuss a passage in Uncivil Wars and propose a model for understanding Horowitz's writing and intellectual combat in general. "Symbol warfare" is when objects or, more often, people, become symbols of movements and ideas. To attack or defend a person is to do so to a much larger group of people and ideas. In this particular case Thomas Jefferson was symbolic of America and the founding. Horowitz was defending Jefferson against the charge of rape and therefore by extension defending America. This concept is a model I plan on continuing to use in exploring the work of Horowitz and other intellectuals. I feel it's a useful way of looking at an author's writing.

Left Illusions: Conservatives and Race In Depth

My most recent In Depth reading has been on this Left Illusions essay in which Horowitz debates the nature of America and conservatism with American Renaissance founder Jared Taylor, an intellectual-activist who argues on behalf of white identity. I add my own contribution to what Horowitz began by providing further analysis of Taylor's more recent writings. When Horowitz wrote the essay he chose not to refer to Taylor as a racist. I argue that in the years since Taylor has more than revealed himself to be a racist in his responses to Hurricane Katrina, the death of Rosa Parks, and the election of Barack Obama.

I have a personal affection for this essay. Recently my fiancee and I had made a new friend, a co-worker of ours. We brought him into our circle of politically-minded friends and became confused as, over the course of the election, the only ongoing theme in his political pronouncements was a series of politically-incorrect, racist jokes about Obama. Not being sticklers for political correctness we laughed off the jokes and never thought anything of it. It wasn't until after the election, at a party that we hosted, that I questioned our friend for his reaction that I discovered there was ugly substance behind his humor. He said that America was good while it lasted but with the election of a black president the country was over. I pressed him further and he said it wouldn't have mattered if Obama was a conservative, the mere fact of his race made the election a disaster. I wasn't sure if he was still just joking until he mentioned his fondness for American Renaissance and Taylor. Later at the party in the course of our group discussion I confronted him to explain his views on race. Then, in the presence of my bi-racial fiancee, he parroted Taylor's points and even admitted to being a racist. The fallout from the exchange I forced has, as one would expect, been quite strong. I consider the episode in the context of Horowitz's ideas and activism. It's vital for both ignorance and malice to be confronted. Horowitz is right to confront people, whether they're Islamic totalitarians, leftist totalitarians, white racists, black racists, or conspiracy-minded radical conservatives.

In addition to my Books In Depth blog I also maintain a personal blog for political commentary, spiritual reflections, and personal news. Given the year's immersion in Horowitz's writing, his influence on my own thought can be seen in several of my essays:

Barack Obama: The Future of Liberalism and the Democrats

This election season I argued on behalf of Obama from a position of centrist liberalism. Building off of Horowitz's conception of the Left as a religious movement and his argument that the radical believes the the world can be redeemed by government, I constructed a formulation to determine one's political ideology. I argued that centrist liberalism was the equivalent of agnosticism with an openness for ideas in both directions and a skepticism of the ability of government to remake the world. I argued that Obama's philosophy was representative of this tendency and that he would likely govern from the center, not the left as his conservative critics feared and his progressive supporters hoped. Thus far, given his cabinet appointments, it appears as though I might have been correct. Many conservatives seem to be realizing this and have begun breathing a little easier.

A Winner's Script

In this essay I argue for the importance of ideas. I demonstrate how we -- as in those of us who write about ideas -- shape the world. I show how the ideas of Horowitz, Sharansky, Karl Marx, and William F. Buckley Jr. influenced people and government to take specific actions.

No to Nader, Yes to Obama

I've found that many of Horowitz's ideas about the Left have been easier for me to understand since they've regularly been demonstrated by my friend Pat. Throughout this election cycle he attacked Obama from the Left more intensely than my friends on the Right. In this piece I articulate the case against Nader in an ideological sense. Shades of Horowitz are apparent.

----------

For future writings on Horowitz I intend to continue the analyses of of The End of Time, Left Illusions, and Uncivil Wars. I also want to dig into Destructive Generation, Hating Whitey, and Radical Son. I also will look into related authors including Robert Spencer, Ronald Radosh, and Christopher Hitchens. When new posts are written they will be linked to and introduced on this page. I appreciate any comments or suggestions.

New Essays:

An Introduction to the Writings of David Horowitz
In this post I lay out the principle texts that will form the basis of my analysis of Horowitz's work. I describe his books and offer my opinions on them.

The Contrarian Spirit in Christopher Hitchens and David Horowitz

In this essay I explore the connections between Horowitz and his former rival, now friend, Christopher Hitchens.

Left Illusions: Conservatives and Race In Depth

2008-12-03T10:36:00.000-08:00

This Essay is Dedicated to My Fiancee, April Bey

Not everyone can come to the party.

The word "discriminate" rightfully has some pretty awful connotations. Primarily when we think of discrimination we think of it in the context of excluding people from participating on false grounds. The word is most often thought of in the context of race where men and women are rejected from a job or even a seat at the lunch counter because of the color of their skin.

But sometimes it's vital to discriminate. When you discriminate against one not for what they are by birth but for what they say and do of their own free choice, one can often find stronger ground on which to stand.

In the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s there were two competing interpretations of and solutions toward the problem of racial inequality. One was in Malcolm X, the Nation of Islam (NOI,) and later the Black Panther Party. It was a violent vision of racist, black supremacy. It wanted to see the elevation of the African-American community and even its separation from the "white devil" and "the Man."

This ideology and its leaders were discriminated against by the vision that would ultimately triumph: the non-violent quest for equality, not superiority, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While on their face these two strands of the Civil Rights Movement seemed to have their similarities, in reality they sprung from entirely different and ultimately incompatible ideas. Yes, both wanted the African-American community to advance beyond Jim Crow oppression. However, King saw whites as brothers and sought to bring the races together. Malcolm X, before his trip to Mecca and split from the NOI, was a racist and saw whites as the enemy that needed to be defeated.

In a similar fashion, the Conservative Movement has been forced to confront those who seek influence. In his essay "Conservatives and Race" in Left Illusions, David Horowitz encounters author-activist Jared Taylor, founder of the journal American Renaissance and proponent of so-called "race realism."

The exchange with Taylor begun with Horowitz's decision to post an article on Front Page about the "Wichita massacre," the killing of four whites by two blacks. Horowitz's reason for highlighting the story was entirely different than Taylor's:

We ran it as a special feature — this time on the occasion of the trial of the perpetrators — because it crystallized for us a national hypocrisy on race. It is an attitude that regards the murder of blacks by whites as indicating the existence of a characteristically American racism and therefore is banner news, while the far more prevalent murder of whites by blacks is routinely regarded as without racial overtones and — as in this Wichita case — not newsworthy at all.

That's an acceptable point to make. Horowitz, a lifelong civil rights advocate who takes the ideas of Martin Luther King Jr's colorblind society seriously, was making a point about the media establishment's prejudices, not African-Americans.

What was Taylor's point? To understand that one must know who Jared Taylor is and what values and ideas he trumpets:

The more recent article had originally appeared on the website of American Renaissance, a white racialist group founded by Jared Taylor. Reposting it from this site seemed to require some explanation. In the commentary I wrote to accompany our feature, I described Taylor as “a man who has surrendered to the multicultural miasma that has overtaken this nation and is busily building a movement devoted to white identity and community,” agendas we “did not share.”

Taylor is the president of the New Century Foundation, which publishes the online and print version of American Renaissance. He's written such books as A Race Against Time: Racial Heresies for the 21st Century, and Paved with Good Intentions: The Failure of Race Relations in Contemporary America.

Put in a charitable fashion, Taylor is a "racialist," a term for which wikipedia has a fairly good entry. A racialist recognizes that there are different races and there are important differences between them. Taylor argues that whites should recognize these differences and support one another as whites.

Horowitz describes Taylor's agenda as such:

What I mean by “surrendering” is that Taylor has accepted the idea that the multiculturalists have won. We are all prisoners of identity politics now. If there is going to be Black History Month and Chicano Studies then there should be White History Month and White Studies. If blacks and Mexicans are going to regard each other as brothers and the rest of us as “Anglos,” then whites should regard each other as brothers as well

Horowitz eschews a term others use for Taylor, namely, "racist."

In his original blog entry, he addresses this decision:

There are many who would call Jared Taylor and his American Renaissance movement "racist." If the term is modified to "racialist," there is truth in the charge. But Taylor and his Renaissance movement are no more racist in this sense than Jesse Jackson and the NAACP. In my experience of Taylor's views, which is mainly literary (we have had occasion to exchange opinions in person only once), they do not represent a mean-spirited position. They are an attempt to be realistic about a fate that seems to have befallen us ( which Taylor would maintain was inevitable given the natural order of things). But Jared Taylor is no more "racist" in this sense than any university Afro-centrist or virtually any black pundit of the left. He is not even racist in the sense that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are racist. He is -- as noted -- a racialist, which Frontpagemag.com is not.

Horowitz's blog entry was written in July of 2002. I would argue that if there was any doubt of Taylor as a racist then -- and trusting Horowitz's judgment it appears there was -- then the years since have provided more definitive answers.

Consider the October 2005 American Renaissance article Africa in our Midst: Lessons from Katrina. Taylor paints a 5,000 word portrait of the horrors of the post-Hurricane Katrina crisis. This is his conclusion and if it's not a racist and mean-spirited position then I don't know what is:

Our rulers and media executives will try to turn the story of Hurricane Katrina into yet another morality tale of downtrodden blacks and heartless whites, but pandering of this kind fools fewer and fewer people. Many whites will realize—some for the first time—that we have Africa in our midst, that utterly alien Africa of road-side corpses, cruelty, and anarchy that they thought could never wash up on our shores.

To be sure, the story of Hurricane Katrina does have a moral for anyone not deliberately blind. The races are different. Blacks and whites are different. When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western Civilization—any kind of civilization—disappears. And in a crisis, civilization disappears overnight.

More evidence of Taylor's racism in addition to his racialism, can be found in his response to the death of civil rights hero Rosa Parks, an article he titled A Curious Madness. After spending the article arguing that Parks did nothing of consequence and was a fairly incompetent and irresponsible human being, Taylor concludes:

Blacks are not likely to complain if whites make a demigod of an unimportant woman, but why do whites bow their heads before such transparent fraud? There is no satisfactory answer. Americans are never happier than when glorifying non-whites who have denounced the alleged sins of whites. The adulation of Rosa Parks is just another chapter in the lemming-like rush to destruction whites everywhere appear to have joined. If a still-majority-white Congress and Senate can vote by acclamation to make Rosa Parks the first woman to lie in state in the rotunda, any act of racial self-mortification is possible.

In my last post on Uncivil Wars I discussed the concept of symbol warfare. In intellectual combat people become symbols of the ideas they represent. Attack the person and you're attacking the idea. Rosa Parks is a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement, the dignity of the African-American community, and Martin Luther King Jr's vision of a colorblind society. That her body would be displayed in the capitol -- the fact that Taylor attacks -- is a symbolic representation of those values being internalized within our nation. When Taylor chooses to attack her he is attacking the body of ideas she represents and their near-universal acceptance in our society.

The final piece of evidence on this point comes in Taylor weighing in on the reality of the first African-American president. He draws a comparison to when South Africa switched to black rule fourteen years ago. He then paints a horrific picture of the country and warns that America is now on a similar trajectory for one reason only: we too now have a black president. President-elect Barack Obama's ideology is irrelevant, all that matters to Taylor and his followers is the fact that he's black. That's reason enough for why this country is supposedly going to implode. This thinking is not racialism; it's racism any way you slice it.

And so this dispute between Taylor and Horowitz in many ways mirrors that of X and King. Where forty years ago we had two civil rights activists with very different core values, here we have two conservative activists with fundamentally different concepts not just of race, but of America and conservatism.

The core of Horowitz's conservatism is an embrace of the values of the founding. Of these, one of the central is E Pluribus Unum:

But there is another option and that is getting rid of the table altogether and going back to the good old American ideal of E Pluribus Unum – “out of many one.” Not just blacks and whites and Chicanos, but Americans.

In his article Horowitz further describes the foundations of his conservatism:

My brand of conservatism is based on a belief in the fundamental truths of these ideas -- individualism; the idea of rights that are derived from “Nature’s God” and therefore inalienable; the conservative view of human nature and the philosophy of limited government that flows therefrom; and the recognition that property rights are the proven social foundation of all human liberties.

For me, Taylor’s challenge goes to the heart of what it means not only to be an American but also to be an American conservative. Because

America

is a nation “conceived” — and not just a nation evolved (although it is that too) — the meaning of the American Founding is and will always be a contested issue for Americans. The answer to these questions about the meaning of the American idea and therefore of the American nation, will always affect its direction and its future.

For Horowitz the key question about both America and conservatism is just what the founders meant. And he and Taylor could not be more at odds. Horowitz argues that E Pluribus Unum means that a diverse group of people can unite together out of a shared set of ideals. What makes someone an American is that they voluntarily embrace the ideals of the founding.

Taylor disagrees. Apparently our national slogan refers to out of many colonies we have become one nation. For him, the founders intended to make a white European country. He offers a different interpretation of E Pluribus Unum which Horowitz immediately dispatches:

It is not coincidental, therefore, that the issue of the Founding is the very first to which Taylor turns. Taylor contends that the national motto “E Pluribus Unum” — out of many one — refers not to many races or ethnicities when it comes to forming an American people but simply to the 13 colonies. But this is a rhetorical argument rather than a comment on reality, since it ignores the actual populations of the 13 colonies, which even at that time were multi-ethnic and multi-racial. In 1776, American citizens included, among others, ethnic Englishmen, but Dutchmen, Germans, French, Scotch-Irish, Jews and free blacks.

He further challenges Taylor's use of individual founders to support the idea that the nature of the founding was one of racialism. Horowitz has no tolerance for his enemies on the Left rewriting history. He takes the same approach with an enemy on the Right and takes apart his arguments in a similar fashion:

In Taylor’s telling of the American story, America is in fact the racist nightmare of leftist fantasy. Taylor begins his historical reconstruction with Thomas Jefferson who “thought it had been a terrible mistake to bring blacks to America, and wrote that they should be freed from slavery and then ‘removed from beyond the reach of mixture.’” Taylor then describes a pantheon of notable Americans who were officers of the American Colonization Society designed to promote the same “solution,” including Andrew Jackson, Francis Scott Key and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. He observes that Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, is named after the chief architect of the Constitution, James Monroe “in gratitude for his help in sending blacks to Africa.” Naturally Taylor includes the chief icon of the left’s deconstruction project, Abraham Lincoln, who “also favored colonization” and invited the first delegation of blacks to visit the White House in order to “ask them to persuade their people to leave.”

Taylor’s purpose in assembling this perverse pantheon of American leaders is transparent. Since politicians “are cautious people who re-circulate the bromides of their times,” the racist reality of American must be much worse even this list would suggest. In sum, racism is the American creed.

But this selective portrait is no less a caricature coming from Jared Taylor than when it comes from Louis Farrakhan or Howard Zinn. Many motives that could have prompted 19^th Century American statesman to consider “colonization” a reasonable alternative to the problem of assimilating people who had been brought to America in chains and who had suffered grievous injustice at the hands of those who brought them. But even granting, for example, the racial prejudice of a figure like Jefferson, the presumption that this exhausts the complexity of his attitude, let alone of his historic role in shaping the racial question in

America

is both vulgar and absurd. This is the same man who proclaimed that God had created men equal and endowed them with the inalienable rights to liberty, who sowed the ideological seed not only of the 13^th Amendment that emancipated the slaves but also the 14^th Amendment that guaranteed all Americans, black as well as white equal citizenship rights under the law.

Had the Civil Rights movement embraced the vision of the NOI and Malcolm X instead of that of King it would have failed. The American people would have been revolted. Horowitz knows that Taylor's views are similarly difficult to stomach and that the Conservative Movement would lose all mainstream respectability were it to embrace such prejudices:

Prominent among the articulators of Euro-racialism are the writers for the website www.Vdare.com and Pat Buchanan whose best-selling book The Death of the West articulates its most familiar version. If Buchanan’s last electoral run is any indication, Euro-racialism is a still a fringe prejudice among conservatives. But if it were to emerge as the view of conservatives themselves, it would in my view mean the death of the American conservative movement. Since I consider the American conservative movement the last bulwark in the defense of

America

and the West, it would ironically also fulfill the prophecy in the title of Buchanan’s book.

In that Taylor's views threaten the conservative movement, and by extension America, his vision warrants the essay's take-down, one reminiscent of Horowitz's more frequent dissections of leftist ideas.

I pride myself on my openness to a diverse range of ideas. I celebrate a wide exchange of views and welcome the bringing together of different perspectives in order to forge the future of this nation. And while we may have some different ideas about where this country will go, there are some foundational points that must be shared if we are to proceed in a constructive fashion. And the racist ideas of Taylor and those who follow him cannot be tolerated.

I have black co-workers I consider dear friends. My fiancee is bi-racial. Our future children will be a quarter black. Horowitz has bi-racial grandchildren and there are few public intellectuals he celebrates more than Thomas Sowell. Anyone with black friends or family members learns quite quickly that the idea that the races cannot or should not mix is utterly absurd. I'm sorry, but the prejudices of Taylor and those who follow him have been refuted beyond measure and they are not invited to the party. Just as this ideology is a poison to the conservative movement it is a poison to the American people. It cannot be ignored, it cannot be tolerated, it must be confronted and we must spit it from our mouths.

The Complete Dialogue Between Horowitz and Wolfe

2008-11-21T10:26:00.001-08:00

Available for download as a word document here on my website.

Here's my conclusion at the tail end of it:

Some Closing Thoughts

By David Swindle

November 17, 2008

My initial hope in initiating this discussion between George Wolfe and David Horowitz was that they could resolve their bitter differences. That didn’t quite happen but I think worthwhile progress was made.

In his initial article that started this discussion, Wolfe wrote “The misleading statements and offensive nature of extremist language used by political extremists like Mr. Horowitz provokes anger, derailing constructive civil debate on important issues that need to be discussed.” Yet by his final response, Wolfe affirmed Horowitz’s perspective as one worthy of academic study and scrutiny in his commitment to present his views to his students. He also chose to continue with the discussion to its end instead of bowing out early, like many of Horowitz’s other critics. (See October 20’s Front Page article “Kevin Mattson Can’t Handle An Argument” http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=FA610031-B6CF-437B-B65E-95CE26FE16E6) Hopefully he now sees that Horowitz is in fact capable of “constructive civil debate.”

Horowitz’s opinion of Wolfe also seemed to rise. In his first response he wrote “But Professor Wolfe isn’t interested in facts because he is an ideologue and for him people like me who disagree with his progressive views are enemies to whom no decencies are owed.” By the final response he had progressed to “This – along with our exchange – shows that Wolfe is a man of decent intentions, something I think I have never denied.”

That being said, one shouldn’t mistake the reality: the two still don’t really care for one another. And that’s an outcome I’ll accept. One of the conservative principles I’ve absorbed from a study of Horowitz is a vital skepticism for one’s abilities to remake the world and solve every problem.

When I first began writing about Horowitz’s work on my blog one of the points I made is that people hold offensive opinions and do unacceptable acts for different reasons. Why might an author misrepresent Horowitz’s views in a book? Why might a professor indoctrinate his students?

I generally see two reasons: malice or ignorance. There aren’t many options for motivations for why someone says things that are untrue. The most common reason is ignorance – they don’t know what they’re saying is untrue. The only other reason is malice – they know they’re telling a lie, they just choose to say it anyway out of a desire to inflict damage. It should be obvious that these two groups should be dealt with in different fashions.

This dialogue illustrates an interesting new facet in the fight over Academic Freedom. So far most of Horowitz’s writing and activism has focused on professors who indoctrinate their students out of malice. They know they shouldn’t be using their classrooms to try and convert their students over to their ideology, they just do it anyway.

What Horowitz ends up asserting here, however, is something totally different. Wolfe has no desire to indoctrinate his students in his world view or that of the authors of the textbook used. He protests fervently against the very idea. Yet, according to Horowitz he’s still indoctrinating. Why? Not out of malice but ignorance. Wolfe might not want to indoctrinate his students but he’s supposedly doing it anyway out of his own incompetence.

Over the course of the debate Horowitz moved Wolfe from the “malice” category to the “ignorance” category as an explanation for an unacceptable behavior.

I disagree with this overall assessment of Wolfe while still noting that some aspects of Horowitz’s critique of his class might have some merit – there are always things that a professor could do better. However, this is a much more tolerable opinion for Horowitz to possess. Think my friend a sociopath and we’re going to need to have a few words. Think my friend merely a fool and I’m more apt to just shrug it off.

In “Thomas Jefferson, Uncivil Wars, and Symbol Warfare,” a more recent writing for my blog, I discussed how throughout Horowitz’s work individuals served as symbols for the ideas they championed. Much of Horowitz’s writing has involved defending symbols of America (like Jefferson,) attacking symbols of the Left (like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg,) and disqualifying symbols that others use to attack conservatism (like Pat Robertson.) In this way abstract ideas are given concrete symbolic representations.

At the conclusion of the dialogue I’ve come to see Horowitz and Wolfe as symbols themselves of a broader generational conflict. One of the dominant paradigms of the last thirty years has been that of a “culture war” fought primarily by those that came of age in the 1960s. The challenge for my generation is what to do with this world that our parents gave us. Do we dig in our heels and continue arguing the same fights as those that came before us? Or do we try and transcend the political paralysis and polarization of perpetual war?

The model I propose is one of synthesis. The path for my generation should be to understand the ideas of our parents – on both sides of the cultural battlefield. We must understand, not wholly embrace. We must drink deeply enough of left and right, dove and hawk, believer and atheist, to be able to discern the usefulness and shortcomings in all ideological approaches.

The 21^st century is likely to be even wilder and more exciting than the 20^th and if we’re to navigate it safely then we need a familiarity with as many maps of reality as possible.

I’d like to thank Horowitz and Wolfe for giving the other the chance to defend their positions. If any readers have any thoughts or questions on this exchange I’d be thrilled to hear them. I invite your emails at DavidSwindle@gmail.com and comments at booksindepth.blogspot.com.

Professor Wolfe Doesn’t Understand What “Proof” Is. Or Indoctrination.

2008-11-09T13:56:00.001-08:00

Response by David Horowitz

I’m glad that David Swindle has been able to get this dialogue going but I believe we’ve reached the end of our tether. I do recall Professor Wolfe’s July 11 defense of the Barash Webel text, whose points I found to be as ludicrous as the book they were defending. Let’s focus on his present argument however.

Professor Wolfe offers three “proofs” that his class is not simply a training program in leftwing views of the world. First, in teaching human rights, he cites the discussion of these issues in Barash and Webel as an example of the balanced discussion in his classroom. In the above cited article I have already shown the absurdity of such a claim. Barash and Webel are two self-proclaimed leftwing activists academically unqualified to write about these subjects – who state clearly and in no uncertain terms in the preface to their book that they have no intention of writing a balanced text, but are out to persuade readers to adopt their leftwing views of global history, economics, politics, culture etc. Since this is the only required text for the course, and since Wolfe now admits that he uses Barash and Webel as the authority and the standard for balance in his classroom, he has also thereby admitted that his course is designed to indoctrinate students, not an attempt to educate them to think for themselves.

A second case Wolfe presents (it is third in his order) is his teaching about peace movements. I have already written in these exchanges why his teaching about peace movements is also indoctrination (and he has typically failed to respond). An academic –analysis of peace movements as opposed to an ideological training in peace activism would have to examine whether peace movements are themselves a cause of war, an idea that is above Wolfe’s mental ceiling. Wolfe’s course is structured to present peace movements as entirely benign (because non-violent).

But the Second World War provides an excellent example of how arms control agreements and movements to disarm the democracies of the West led to war. Wolfe did not respond to this observation when I made it and it’s obvious that the very idea that non-violent movements could pose a threat to the peace is beyond his ken. As I have noted before, Wolfe is a “peace” activist and musician who lacks the training to examine these questions academically. As I’ve also said before, the failure of Wolfe’s Peace Studies program to present the violent military as a defender of the peace in the same way it presents non-violent movements as defenders of the peace is because it is a course of indoctrination in the philosophy of non-violence.

Wolfe’s example of how he intends to teach the topic of Iran shows how ideological (and far left) his agenda is, and how remote it is from anything that might be called scholarly or academic.

First, let me thank Professor Wolfe for intending to show the 10 minute video my Center prepared called “The Islamic Mein Kampf.” This – along with our exchange – shows that Wolfe is a man of decent intentions, something I think I have never denied. My problem with Wolfe is his limited understanding both of the subjects he presumes to teach and the very nature of the academic process. “The Islamic Mein Kampf” is a propaganda video not an analytic text. By nature it is an attempt to stimulate thought not to substitute for it. It does not provide historical analysis of Iran or its current situation in world politics. It is not even an analysis of Islamo-Fascism (I have actually written such an analysis which is available on the website where the video appears should Wolfe want to reconsider this syllabus choice).

The video contains a few historical facts and a series of inflammatory quotes by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhod, al-Qaeda, Hizbullah, Hamas and Iran. The purpose of this video is to alert viewers to the fact that there is a global religious movement which draws its inspiration directly from Nazism, seeks world domination, the extermination of Jews, and the destruction of the United States and pursues violent and terrorist means to achieve these ends. It is also a movement that is in control of a nation-state, Iran, which is on the brink of developing nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community.

To “The Islamic Mein Kampf” a video alert about a violent, genocidal political religion, Wolfe intends to juxtapose what purports to be an historical analysis of international relations. In this analysis Wolfe draws an analogy between Iran’s position vis-à-vis the United States and Soviet Russia. Wolfe explains the Islamists praise of Hitler, calls for the extermination of the Jews, promises of “Death to America,” executions of homosexuals, oppression of women and sermons on the infidel West as mere rhetorical devices whose source is not a fanatical political religion, but an alleged military threat to Iran posed by the United States. In the cold war analogy that Wolfe draws, the Iranian theocracy assumes the role of the democratic United States and the United States becomes the totalitarian Soviet Union! Presumably Wolfe would explain Nazism as a response to the military threat to Hitler Germany posed by Britain and the United States.

This is comic book stuff. It is also a not very subtle attempt to indoctrinate students in a view that is based on breath-taking ignorance. This brings me back to the original point I made when I first became acquainted with Professor Wolfe and his course. George Wolfe has no business teaching in a classroom about global history or the subject of war and peace.

Further Proof there is No Indoctrination.

2008-11-04T09:35:00.000-08:00

Response to David Horowitz’s Inquiry dated September 20

By George Wolfe

October 22, 2008

Mr. Horowitz perhaps doesn't recall what I wrote in my July 11 article. There I did answer his critique on the Barash and Webel text, when I gave six examples of the text presenting multiple sides of issues which I've covered in the class. Furthermore, at $60, the Barash and Webel text is less expensive compared to most college textbooks today. (My daughter just enrolled in 4 classes, and the cost for textbooks was over $100 per class). I must respectfully disagree with David on the content of this book. The authors are extremely well-informed on a broad scope of topics related to Peace Studies. As I mentioned in my first article, we must put aside “credentialism” and embrace interdisciplinary scholarship in today’s world lest we regress to an age of narrow over-specialization which fortunately, higher education broke away from over the last 30 years.

What follows now is further proof for Mr. Horowitz that I do not indoctrinate. While I do not have the time nor the space here to include lesson plans for all the topics covered in the Introduction to Peace Studies class, I do offer are three examples of neutral classroom approaches.

1) Human rights – When teaching the topic of human rights, three perspectives are presented, these being liberal, conservative and collectivist (i.e., Marxist). After studying these views, all of which are included in the text by Barash and Webel (see chapter 17), and after an in depth discussion of each view in class, students are asked to choose the model of human rights they most identify with and write an essay justifying their position.

2) Examining and comparing historical analogies - I always include an assignment asking students to examine one or more historical analogies to assess their validity. One example asks: “In what ways is the quest to pass an amendment to the US constitution outlawing abortion similar to the nonviolent temperance movement of the 1930’s? Would such an amendment wind up being repealed as was the prohibition amendment?” A second example: “Several commentators have suggested that Saddam Hussein’s rule over Iraq was analogous to Stalin’s rule over Russia. Is this a valid historical analogy?”

This year I plan to have students compare the following two scenerios: “Does the expression Islamo-facism accurately describe the ambitions of Iran in the Middle-east, or can Iran’s posturing be better explained based on the philosophy of deterrence?” After playing one of David Horowitz's videos portraying what he calls Islamo-facism, and discussing the comparison of Iran with Hitler's Third Reich,

(for direct link, click: http://www.terrorismawareness.org/islamic-mein-kampf/),

the following alternative view will be presented to the students.

Classroom discussion scenario: An alternative

to "Islamo-Fascism"

During the cold war era, the United States adopted a policy of deterrence against the military threat of the Soviet Union. Russia's communist regime had a reputation for pre-emptive intervention. In addition to its communist ideology of world domination, the Soviet Union had invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Afghanistan in 1979. Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was the US strategy, which fuelled a dangerous nuclear arms race that reached its height in the 1980's when both the Soviet Union and the United states had enough atomic weapons to destroy each other 10 times over.

Today, a comparable strategy is being undertaken by Iran, only this time against the United States. Although Iran has long had an interest in nuclear technology, America's pre-emptive invasion of Iraq in 2003 has motivated Iran to accelerate its development of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, assuring mutual destruction or at least significantly high cost should the US again choose the pre-emptive option. For the Iranians realize that the US and other Western nations are in a very vulnerable position. Attacking Iran will give the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the excuse to launch a barrage of missiles onto Israel and on oil facilities in the Middle East, calling it self-defense. We can't invade Iran with ground forces; as General Colin Powell has pointed, coalition forces are spread too thin. Nuclear weapons are not an option either, as the radiation would contaminate the entire region including Pakistan, our ally in the war on terror.

Would the United States have invaded Iraq had Saddam Hussein possessed nuclear weapons? The Iranians know the answer to that question. Moreover, Russia is now sending long-range bombers and other military hardware to Venezuela, strengthening the already emboldened Hugo Chavez who has emerged as a figure reminiscent of Fidel Castro in the 1960's.

Herein lies the power of deterrence, whereby Iran, with the help of Russia, is able to effectively change the balance of power and hold a superpower like the United States at bay.

Question for students: “Compare this historical analogy based on the philosophy of deterrence to the concept of Islamo-Fascism. Which scenario do you feel is more valid and useful when considering the posture Iran has taken over the past four years? Justify your answer.”

3) Peace Movements - When studying the history of social movements and the nonviolent strategies they employed, I expose the students to both the successes and failures of nonviolence. In addition, common criticisms of peace organizations are discussed in class. Both the failures of nonviolence and the criticisms of peace movements are covered in the Barash and Webel text (see chapter 20 and chapter 2). I then ask students to write a short essay expressing their views on when and whether nonviolence is an effective alternative to violence.

Finally, Mr. Horowitz says I never answered the later charges made against me by student Brett Mock. This is not true. While it is not necessary to rehash these charges, those readers who are interested can see that these charges were answered in an interview with David Swindle that is posted on Mr. Swindle’s website, the direct link for which is:

http://booksindepth.blogspot.com/2008/07/wolfes-response-to-brett-mocks-7906.html

And by the way, contrary to Mr. Horowitz’s claim, I do not support Marxist revolutionary violence.

The entire dialog between me and David Horowitz that has been compiled by David Swindle and is now posted on my Ball State University Virtual Press website. Go to the following link,

www.bsu.edu/libraries/viewpage.aspx?src=./virtualpress/wolfe/index.html

and click on the title “A Dialog on Peace Studies and Academic Freedom.” Readers will also find several other articles and handouts assigned to students in the Peace Studies program at Ball State.

Finally, I like to thank David Swindle for making this dialog between me and David Horowitz possible.

Thomas Jefferson, Uncivil Wars, and Symbol Warfare

2008-11-03T10:26:00.000-08:00

The October 22 issue of The New Republic featured a review by noted historian Gordon Wood of Annette Gordon-Reed's The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family.

Wood wrote in his review,

Although Gordon-Reed was trained as a lawyer, she has the imagination and the talent of an expert historian. In addition to being a professor of law at New York Law School, she has also become a professor of history at Rutgers University. And with this book Gordon-Reed explores Jefferson's relationship to Sally Hemings and the rest of his household slaves with a degree of detail and intimacy never before achieved. If anyone had any doubts about whether Sally Hemings was Jefferson's concubine, The Hemingses of Monticello should put them to rest.

On the subject of Jefferson and Hemings' relationship I was reminded of David Horowitz's defense of the third president in Uncivil Wars.

On pages 112-114 of Uncivil Wars Horowitz engages in a defense of Jefferson against a particularly aggressive attack by Randall Robinson:

But the most venomous rage in The Debt is reserved for Thomas Jefferson, the author of the document that put the promise of equality at the very center of the American idea. It is because Jefferson is the author of the words "all men are created equal" that Robinson and other reparations advocates feel compelled to attack him. "Jefferson," writes Robinson, "was a slaveholder, a racist and -- if one accepts that consent cannot be given if it cannot be denied -- a rapist."

Horowitz then proceeds to dismantle this brutal charge, acknowledging that a relationship between Jefferson and Hemmings was a possibility but that there was absolutely zero evidence of rape.

Aside from simply setting the record straight, what is the greater purpose in Horowitz's defense of Jefferson? In defending Jefferson's character Horowitz is by extension defending the character of America.

In intellectual arguments and jousting of the sort which Horowitz has engaged throughout his career there are certain techniques for demonstrating one's points. Here the subject is the nature of America. The vision that Robinson advocates is that America is a Racist Nation, corrupt at its very core with hatred toward African-Americans. Horowitz's vision is the opposite: certainly there are and have been racists in America but the American Idea itself is in no way racist.

How does one demonstrate one vision over the other? It's difficult to show things of this nature empirically. So both sides engage in symbol warfare. They crystallize their ideas into people or objects. How do you show that America is racist? By trying to demonstrate that Jefferson, one of its intellectual foundations was racist. Make the argument that Jefferson raped his black slave and you're by extension making the argument that America has raped and continues to rape the African-American community.

Horowitz tends to play a few different roles in symbol warfare. In this case here he's on the defensive. He's defending a conservative/American symbol from a leftist attack.

In other cases he's going to disqualify symbols that are under attack. And by this I mean he's going to argue not in defense of the attacked symbol but that the symbol doesn't mean what its attacker wants it to mean. In "Michael Lind and the Right-Wing Cabal," a piece in Left Illusions that I've discussed previously, Horowitz writes of the so-called conversion of writer Michael Lind from conservative to liberal. At the heart of Lind's change of allegiances was Pat Robertson and his book The New World Order. For Lind, Pat Robertson was symbolic of the conservative movement as a whole. Horowitz doesn't really defend Robertson so much as disqualify him as a symbol. He argues that Robertson does not have the central role that Lind would like to assign him and that the movement certainly is not anti-Semitic or conspiracy-minded and that Lind's attack on the movement is unfounded.

Frequently Horowitz is on the offensive in symbol warfare. He's picking symbols, usually of the Left, and attacking them. One of the major symbols of the Left that Horowitz and his allies have worked on for some time is Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. In September Horowitz published his friend Ron Radosh's piece The End of A Lie, about recent revelations confirming the couple's guilt as Soviet spies.

Not considered closely, the outsider uninvolved in the intellectual discussion might not understand the significance of the Rosenbergs. Why does it matter if they really were guilty? Understood in the context of symbol warfare their guilt carries much greater importance. The Rosenbergs served as a symbol of the political Left and its vision of America. If the Rosenbergs were innocent of wrongdoing then it means that America is a unjust nation that persecuted its own citizens merely for who they were (communists) instead of what they did (treason.) So-called "progressives" like the Rosenbergs, Horowitz's parents, and American communists in general were good people, just another persecuted minority.

That vision of both America and the Left can not be sustained as easily once the symbol of the Rosenbergs is destroyed. If the Rosenbergs were guilty then it means America was merely defending itself against traitors actively conspiring with a foreign power to destroy it. This subject is explored much more deeply in "Carl Bernstein's Communist Problem and Mine" in Left Illusions, one of the volume's more consequential essays which I think I'll explore in an In Depth reading soon.

Both Jefferson as Rapist and the Rosenbergs as Innocents are two acts of symbol warfare perpetuated with the same message: America is inherently oppressive and exploitive. When those symbols are reversed, as Horowitz does, that vision loses two of its pillars.

Understanding Islamofascism Awareness Week in Context

2008-10-13T11:36:00.000-07:00

This week marks the third Islamofascism Awareness Week that David Horowitz has sponsored. The focus of the campaign is the Muslim Students Association (MSA,) a religious and cultural organization prevalent on many college campuses. Horowitz and his allies charge that the MSA uses its position as a student group not to act as a campus home for Muslims, but to act as a front for the more radical, violent people and ideas of Islam.

This is not the first time nor the only issue that Horowitz has brought to campuses. I'm going to describe some of his previous campaigns to demonstrate the style and nature of the challenge that Horowitz presents to the moderate middle.

As documented in Uncivil Wars, Horowitz campaigned in 2001 to raise a debate about the issue of reparations for slavery. He placed advertisements in campus papers and gave speeches at universities around the country. Wherever he went he had to be protected by body guards. He was slandered and silenced.

On the question of reparations there are really only two answers. Either you embrace the radical view of an oppressive America and endorse the US government sending out checks to everyone descended from slavery, or you don't. There's really no middle ground like this is on many issues. Horowitz put the liberal center to a test and for the most part we failed it.

Inspired by this campaign and its troubling picture of the college community, Horowitz began his Academic Freedom Campaign in 2002 and pursued it for the next couple years. This consisted primarily of his composition of the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) and his attempts to start a discussion of its principles. (The campaign is documented in Indoctrination U.) The central ideas that Horowitz challenged professors and students to either accept or deny were simple. Classrooms should have open debate and discussions. There should not be some orthodox political or cultural view that imposes how the world is to be seen. Professors should foster an environment of neutrality and respect. (That's the gist of it, but of course those interested should simply read the text and see if they can find anything with which to disagree.)

Again, Horowitz was distorted, bullied, and misunderstood. It's a simple question that liberals have to decide. Which set of values are we going to defend? The set that says the classroom should be a neutral setting open to ideas of any kind? Or the set that says professors should utilize the university for their political goals? Again, we liberals have often failed.

Now Horowitz presents us with a new challenge: are we going to support or condemn the MSA? Horowitz's case is presented here. We'll wait and see if any MSA members will address the points he raises. It's very simple to do: condemn Hamas and Hezbollah, condemn anti-semitic speakers, condemn the treatment of women and gays in fundamentalist Muslim countries.

It's the nature of every movement and community -- be it religious, political or cultural -- that it must purge itself of its kookiest, wildest members. William F. Buckley Jr. did it when he made a concerted effort to exclude the Birchers, Anti-semites, and conspiracists from the conservative movement. As Horowitz documented the New Left was confronted with this challenge in how they responded to the Black Panthers and the Weather Underground. Most of them failed. Today Muslims have the same challenge: do you embrace those who give you a bad name or do you cast them out?

To confront and challenge people with the toleration of totalitarianism is trademark Horowitz. That's what he does: he confronts people with painful realities and forces them to deal with them. We'll just have to see how the MSA and the liberal center responds to this most recent test. I'm not optimistic but one can always be surprised.

A Liberal Defense of Conservatism

2008-09-30T16:30:00.001-07:00

In my last post on Kevin Mattson's history of the conservative intellectual tradition I highlighted what the author seemed to get wrong about David Horowitz. Yet Mattson's misunderstanding of Horowitz is only one part of a larger disagreement about the general premise and approach of Rebels All! as a whole.

The question is this: How should liberals regard the conservative intellectual tradition?

It begs further questions in the same vein: Does conservatism offer anything worthwhile? What are the movement's basic premises? Should liberals read conservative intellectuals? What role should the conservative intellectual tradition play in the liberal's philosophy?

The impression you get from reading Mattson's Rebel's All! is that William F. Buckley Jr., the early National Review writers, Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, Horowitz, David Brooks, and the contemporary conservative intellectual community are not worth reading at all. Conservatism is a bankrupt tradition.

When one actually breaks down some of the basic premises of conservatism it becomes clear that this approach to the movement is in error:

1. A small and limited government that does less and spends less money is better than a large government that tries to do everything.

2. Traditional morality, religion, and families are institutions that should be defended. They have proven themselves in the past to allow for a stable society and happy life so they should be continued.

3. Capitalism is fundamentally good. It produces wealth and allows for motivated, talented, hard-working individuals to improve themselves and their society. Government should interfere with its operation as little as possible.

4. America is fundamentally good. The principles of the founding are to be defended. It follows from this principle that military force to defend America is entirely acceptable.

5. Human nature inhibits attempts to radically improve the world. The human being has a tendency for evil and selfishness that cannot be ignored.

6. Liberty should be the animating principle of society.

One can argue about what conservatism is really all about, suggesting one principle over another or pointing out a key aspect I've neglected to mention in this very generalized summary. The point is this, though: these foundational ideas are entirely legitimate. They should be up for discussion and debate.

Also of importance is that the liberal's predisposition to these basic premises is not one of opposition. The one that's going to disagree with the conservative from the outset is not the liberal but the leftist. To the radical the mirror image of virtually all these premises is going to be the starting point: America is bad, capitalism is bad, socialism is good, traditional morality is oppressive, government can solve every problem in the world, equality is more important than freedom, and so on and so forth.

I've come to understand radicalism is to society as mutation is to the organism. In order for life to evolve from the simplicity of single cells to the complexity of us it required the genetic code to be copied incorrectly from time to time. Sometimes these mutations would result in adaptations that would help the species survive and multiple better. More often, though, a mutation would be a disadvantage and it would only result in the individual being destroyed.

The evolution of our society is similar, with ideas that were once radical sometimes being accepted once it becomes clear that they're advantageous to the society at large. We see this in both culture and public policy.

The radical is going to argue for perpetual mutations. The conservative is going to argue against virtually all. (Buckley is well known for defining the role of his publication as being the one which "stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so.") And that's fine, those are their roles. The liberal has a different role to play: to determine when a particular mutation is to be embraced versus when the existing order should be defended. Sometimes he will stand with the radical, other times she will stand with the conservative.

Because as history has demonstrated, many mutations are fatal. The Marxist mutation was one that didn't work. Other mutations may start out well and be useful to a moderate degree but then continue growing to the point where they're indistinguishable from a cancer. I'll provide a few examples.

The basic tenets of feminism have now became fairly universally accepted by most of society. A woman can have a career and be the master of her own destiny. Homemaker and babymaker are no longer the only acceptable choice. Where the mutation goes too far is when radical feminists denigrate those who choose the traditional role of wife and mother, as though that were no longer even a choice.

Similarly, the basic tenets of the civil rights movement have become widely accepted. African-Americans are much better off than they were fifty years ago. Yet the mutation kept going in unfortunate ways and Horowitz's documentation of it has been some of the best. We saw it in the Black Panthers in the '60s and '70s and today in the movement for reparations for slavery.

In public policy the ideological choice now generally comes between whether or not government is going to intervene in the economy in some fashion. Just how much socialism are we going to have in our society? When do we just let the free market run and when do we step in?

It's the intellectual duty of the liberal to grapple with these two competing tendencies. And it can't be done by marginalizing and completely dismissing whole bodies of ideas. My liberal media prescription is simple. The liberal reads not just The New Republic but National Review and The Nation as well. She flips back and forth between MSNBC and Fox News. He runs all over the blogosphere. He picks a wide range or intelligent radicals, liberals, and conservative books in addition to non-ideological titles. (That means eschewing the Michael Moores and Michael Savages.)

Just as our government has checks and balances built into its very fabric, so too must the individual. It's absolutely vital for the thinker, the intellectual, and especially the voter to grapple with the ideas of the day so that our society can continue its gradual evolution and avoid extinction.

Confronting a Skewed View of David Horowitz in Kevin Mattson's "Rebel's All!"

2008-09-22T11:03:00.000-07:00

In my recent study of the work of intellectual David Horowitz I'd like to think I've managed to develop something of an understanding of what the man actually stands for and believes. Doing this isn't really that hard. The methodology has been the same as it would be for any writer: read what they write and, if you're lucky, talk to the author about it.

I haven't read all of Horowitz's books yet but I've hit most of the critical texts already: Radical Son, Uncivil Wars, The Politics of Bad Faith, The Professors, Indoctrination U, Unholy Alliance, Left Illusions, and The End of Time. Still on the agenda are Hating Whitey, The Art of Political War, How to Beat the Democrats, Destructive Generation, Party of Defeat, The Shadow Party and Sex, Lies and Vast Conspiracies. And I've even had the chance to engage the author in dialog on the ideas about which he's written and built a career.

To agree with Horowitz is not necessary, but to understand him and accurately represent him is.

I've recently finished reading historian Kevin Mattson's book Rebels All! A Short History of the Conservative Mind in Postwar America. The book is broken up into three main chapters that describe the history of the conservative intellectual tradition. The first chapter is "The First Generation: Apocalyptic Rebels With a Cause" and primarily focuses on William F. Buckley Jr. and the rise of National Review. The second chapter, "The Big Chill That Sets Fires," describes the origins of so-called "neo-conservative" political philosophy and discusses Irving Kristol and Norman Podhoretz. The final chapter is "Postmodern Conservatism, the Politics of Outrage, and the Mindset of War" and focuses heavily on Ann Coulter, Horowitz, and contemporary conservative intellectuals and activists. The book then has a conclusion in which Mattson describes and defends his definition of centrist liberalism.

The first mention of Horowitz in the book is on page 13 in which Mattson distorts Horowitz's anti-reparations argument when he writes,

Horowitz's move from endorsing the Black Panther Party to saying that blacks should be grateful about slavery because it brought them to America -- that trajectory serves conservative intellectuals well today.

Mattson doesn't quote Horowitz or cite where the author wrote that blacks should be grateful that their ancestors were kidnapped and brutalized. That's not Horowitz's position. It's a crude caricature of one of the thoughtful arguments articulated in Uncivil Wars and the reparations ads that eventually led to the book-length study of the subject. Horowitz's position is an entirely reasonable one and an indisputable fact: African-Americans living in this country today are wealthier and have greater opportunity than native Africans. Would Mattson argue with that observation? That fact doesn't make slavery any less horrible. African-Americans shouldn't be grateful for slavery, they should be grateful they're Americans. It's a key distinction.

Horowitz isn't mentioned until his 1987 "Second Thoughts" conference opens up the third chapter. Mattson critiques the fact that Horowitz chose to keep the '60s confrontational, New Left-style and apply it to his contemporary political activism. Mattson writes,

Horowitz approvingly quoted the cultural critic Camille Paglia who described him as "the true 1960s spirit -- audacious and irreverent, yet passionately engaged and committed to social change." Never a truer statement has been made for in fighting the culture wars by writing numerous autobiographies about how he shed his sixties radicalism (an inheritance of the 1960s "new sensibility" and its exaltation of the self's confessions), arguing that slavery benefited African Americans, and sponsoring a Student Bill of Rights that would have state legislatures police classrooms for purported liberal content, Horowitz turned lessons learned from the 1960s into a conservative strategy of attack.

Here we see Mattson's misinterpretation of Horowitz's Academic Freedom campaign -- and it's one that I once shared. Horowitz doesn't want state legislatures policing classrooms. It's not practical, not possible, and downright totalitarian. Horowitz would rather professors police themselves, and in the rare cases where they choose not to, for the university to do it. He argues that schools should have clear grievance mechanisms set up so that students who feel their professor has abused the classroom can file complaints. Such mechanisms would be set up entirely by university administrators and faculty.

I was initially opposed to such procedures. It seemed like an opportunity rife for abuse. I've known plenty of radical students of both Right and Left and just nutjob apolitical students in general who could use such procedures to attack professors that really had not done anything wrong. Plus there's just the difficulty in determining what constitutes "indoctrination." I've compared the task to being as troublesome as trying to figure out what constitutes "obscenity."

It seemed initially clear how grievance mechanisms would benefit students but what about teachers and administrators? It seemed like a net negative for them. Then I realized it wasn't. In setting up grievance procedures both groups -- administrators and professors -- can directly benefit in clear ways.

In my thesis on the Academic Freedom controversy at Ball State one of the texts I quoted in my literature review was a 1970 report titled Maintaining Campus Order and Integrity, the authors wrote,

Their [presidents’ and administrators’] concern was not the repression of student dissent but finding ways of dealing with disorders so as to protect students’ rights and lives and yet satisfy the need for order on the campuses.

It is in the university's interest to attempt to channel student unrest into constructive avenues. I argue that university administrators should welcome grievance procedures for one simple reason: it allows for them to manage potential problems more easily. Disputes between professors and students can be resolved quietly and efficiently instead of in the unwieldy land of the media. Had grievance procedures been in place at Ball State then the situation that I described in my thesis would never have happened.

Mattson's third key misinterpretation is of Horowitz's pamphlet "The Art of Political War." And I'm betting that had Mattson read Indoctination U then he wouldn't have made it since it's a somewhat similar distortion to the one Dean Steinberger made. On page 100 Mattson wrote,

In The Art of Political War, a small book that the-House Speaker Tom DeLay once distributed to numerous Republican congressmen, Horowitz drew up a playbook for roughness akin to the confrontational student protests of the 1960s. "Aggression is advantageous," Horowitz wrote, "because politics is a war of position." Republicans needed to "take up the cause of the underdog" and retool themselves as waging war against privilege. In other words, the Right had to appropriate the language of the Left and use it to slam back and win power.

Mattson's mistake is to not read The Art of Political War for what it is: advice for how politicians should fight to win elections -- and damn good advice at that. In almost all elections and especially presidential elections it's better to be aggressive. I'd posit that the key reason both Al Gore and John Kerry failed in their presidential campaigns was that they were not aggressive enough. So far Barack Obama seems to be learning from their mistake.

In the pages that follow Mattson critically describes post-modernism and then cites examples of how conservatives have supposedly embraced an ideology that has historically had more in common with the Left. (I'll save my defense of postmodernism for another post.)

Following critical looks at the apparently postmodern elements in the writing of John Podhoretz, William Kristol, and David Brooks, Mattson highlights Horowitz's Academic Freedom campaign as an example of the trend he's been suggesting.

Mattson seizes upon a passage in the Academic Bill of Rights (ABOR) for critical scrutiny:

Horowitz reversed this logic, his idea of intellectual "diversity" growing out of contemporary theories about the indeterminacy of knowledge. Here is the original ABOR statement: "Human knowledge is a never-ending pursuit of the truth" because "there is no humanly accessible truth that is not in principle open to challenge, and ... no party or intellectual faction has a monopoly on wisdom." Though Horowitz shared Buckley's vision, he also knew that the terms of activism and intellectual politics had changed.

I don't really understand why Mattson would single this out for criticism. The mistake he makes is in not taking Horowitz at his word. Mattson seems to think that Horowitz is adopting post-modern language as a tactic -- that Horowitz doesn't really believe what he's saying. I'd argue that Horowitz really does embrace some moderate post-modern concepts. (For further evidence of this I'd suggest Mattson read Horowitz's wonderful memoir The End of Time, which I'd argue is a postmodern text.) The sentences from the ABOR that Mattson singles out are reasonable ideas which most people would agree. Why is it controversial to say that no one has a monopoly on the truth and we need to approach all ideas critically? Isn't that the approach that professors and scholars should adopt and promote?

At times Mattson's claims about Horowtiz are almost nonsensical:

One offshoot from the ABOR is a bill in Arizona that would force professors to provide "alternative coursework" if students "find the assigned material 'personally offenisve.'" The utter absurdity of such a program seems obvious, loading up institutions with ridiculous demands. Though Horowitz disagrees with this particular version of legislation, it clearly sprang from his own ABOR activity, and it is hard to see how it diverges from his own thought. It simply pushes the demand that students determine their own education to its logical conclusion and flows from a belief in empowering students and the language of consumerism

At least Mattson is honest enough to admit that Horowitz doesn't support the bill. But he doesn't explain why it's worth bringing it up. It's "hard to see how it diverges from his own thought"? I think it's pretty clear how it's different than Horowitz's ideas. For Horowitz the problem in content in college courses is not the what but the how. His argument is not that radical or liberal ideas shouldn't be studied but rather that they should be examined critically, not taught as the truth. Further, Horowitz does not believe that students should be able to dictate how a class is taught.

I question how many of Horowitz's books Mattson has actually read. In my study of Horowitz one pretty clear fact has emerged: Horowitz's principle focus of his writing and activism has not been the liberal middle but the radical Left. (That's not to say that Horowitz never critiques liberalism -- he does regularly -- but that's not really what he's about.)

My central argument about Horowitz is this: get past the radical pose he sometimes assumes and just read his books and grapple with his arguments. Because when you do that you get the chance to see that much of what he writes about is pretty reasonable and worth considering. His reparations argument in Uncivil Wars is pretty sound. He and I have gone back and forth on the particulars of the Academic Freedom Campaign but ultimately the philosophy behind it is one of pretty universal, democratic, enlightenment values that liberals and conservatives share. And on the heart of Horowitz's political work -- the nature of radicalism and the political Left -- there are many valid arguments to consider. A liberal shouldn't be threatened by Radical Son, Left Illusions, Unholy Alliance, and The Politics of Bad Faith. There's a lot to learn from them. It's a mistake to just throw him in the same bin as some talk radio shock jock as Mattson seems to do.

I'd encourage Mattson to do what I did when I was angered by Horowitz's activism: read his books and talk to him. While he's certainly not an angel -- and I wouldn't want him to be -- he's not the demon he's made out to be.

David Horowitz Inquires About Use of Textbook in Course

2008-09-20T14:23:00.000-07:00

Professor Wolfe should have mentioned this article in our first exchange. It certainly suggests that his intentions are better than the lone $60 textbook he required of his students would suggest. I am glad that he has given students another side of the globalization issue and commend him for it. But this is one unit in semester course. I've asked Professor Wolfe to answer my critique of this book or explain why he would require students to read such a travesty of a text written by ideological partisans and rank amateurs. I'm still waiting for his answer. I've asked him to post my responses to his attacks on the same Ball State website where his attacks appear (as I have posted his attack and responses on my website). I am still waiting for him to do so. This would show me in practice that he supports intellectual debate. I would like to hear from him what he teaches from the Barash-Webel textbook and how he presents students with views that are divergent from their extreme leftwing perspective.

George Wolfe Responds to David Horowitz on Globalization Texts in the Classroom

2008-09-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

George Wolfe

Coordinator of Outreach Programs

Center for Peace and Conflict Studies

Ball State University

Globalization and the Role of Ethics

To prove I am not indoctrinating students, David Horowitz says I should “be assigning pro-globalization texts.” Actually, I already do. The speech I play for students by noted international economist Charlene Barshefsky gave at Chautauqua Institution is a pro-globalization lecture. This is certainly fair to both sides of the debate given the limited amount of course time (a total of thee classes) that we have to spend on globalization and peace-building.

If there is any bias against globalization in the Barash and Webel text, it is off-set by the impressive Barshefsky lecture and the study guide I created to focus the students’ investigation of the subject matter. Moreover, in the handout dealing with the influence of multi-national corporations, several positive as well as negative effects corporations have on developing countries are listed.

Further proof that there is no indoctrination can be found in the my mid-term exam questions, four of which are as follows:

“Explain the concept of “Free Trade.” Identify and define at least two barriers to international cooperation that Free Trade seeks to remove?”

“What are the advantages of globalizations with regards to peace building?”

“In what ways can globalization increase a nation’s vulnerability?”

“How might we avoid the domestic and foreign structural violence that can result from globalization and free trade.”

If Mr. Horowitz would sit in my class, he would see that I do not frame the discussion on free trade and globalization as a study of Western imperialism. In fact, I present to the students the question of whether or not it is valid to expand the definition of imperialism to include economics and cultural values. It always makes for a productive open-ended discussion.

So it is clear that I do not simply present my views. Rather, the course considers arguments for and against globalization and takes a neutral attitude toward the global economy. Furthermore, students do have the freedom to decide between contrasting views as long as the arguments they use to justify their positions are coherent and based on accurate information.

Where both this text and the Barshefsky lecture shine is in the domain of ethics. If globalization is to continue and be successful as a means of building productive cooperative relationships between nations, and ultimately elevating developing countries out of poverty, it must be advanced ethically.

This means first of all, that globalization must proceed at the proper pace. Too fast a pace risks disrupting local economies, and not only in developing countries but in the US as well as we have seen from the negative effects of outsourcing over the past several years. Secondly, an ethical approach to globalization requires multinational corporations guard against blatantly exploitive employment practices that tolerate child labor, sweatshops, and extended six-day workweeks with no overtime pay.

Horowitz, Sharansky, and Lennon: A Personal Reflection on Dreams and Identity

2008-09-17T09:58:00.000-07:00

I've always been a John Lennon fan. My father is a big music buff with a huge vinyl collection so I was raised on Beatles. Throughout my teen years, when I wore my hair longer, I was even told that I looked like Lennon. One year when a friend was campaigning for student government I walked into the cafeteria to see campaign posters with Lennon's picture and the slogan "David Swindle endorses Trevor for Student Senate." They hadn't even bothered to ask my permission -- as if I would've denied it.

I remember going to the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in my teenage years on a family vacation when they were hosting a special Lennon exhibit. They had a whole host of artifacts from his life including clothes, personal belongings, and original lyric manuscripts. Being there was almost like a religious experience.

And now that I've found my artist soul mate in April, she initially embraced the Yoko role. After doing some research she distanced herself from the comparison when she was repulsed by Yoko's promiscuity -- particularly the artist's tendency to sleep with men that would her career. "She spread her legs like scissors!" April said.

So, of course, in the past I've been irritated by conservative criticism of Lennon and his signature song, "Imagine."

In "Defending Identity" Natan Sharansky begins his critique of the post-identity tendency with a reference to "Imagine":

What makes matters more ominous is that many in the West seem blithely unaware of the dangers such a lack of identity poses to the values they most deeply cherish. In Imagine, his ode to such a utopia, John Lennon conceives of a world without heaven and hell, religion, or nation-states, where there will be "nothing to kill or die for, a brotherhood of man." But a brotherhood without actual brothers, with no one committed to anyone else or to a way of life, is nothing but empty air. It is precisely the vapidness of such meaningless abstractions that encourages Al Qaeda and their ilk to believe that Western values will be swept away in the face of the inexorable power of a community willing to both kill and die for its beliefs.

Later Sharansky links "Imagine" to another kind of utopia, the leftist one that's been critiqued in David Horowitz's body of work:

Decades before John Lennon sung of a world with no nations and religions, Vladimir Lenin worked to build one. Granted, it was understood in the beginning that you would have to remove small groups of class enemies, such as capitalists, who stood in the way of this great dream of equality. But this, Lenin insisted, was a small price to pay for creating paradise.

The dream of post-identity is the same dream as the communist one. And the conservative critique of "Imagine" is not one that I'm able to argue with anymore.

Just read the lyrics. There are three main components of the dream: "Imagine there's no Heaven," "Imagine there's no countries," and "Imagine no possessions." Further Lennon sings of "A brotherhood of man / Imagine all the people / Sharing all the world." Basically stating that we should all be one people.

The three components translate into religion, the nation-state, and capitalism -- three institutions Sharansky vigorously defends throughout the book. What the post-identity movement shares with the Left is that both see the abolition of all three things as the path to a utopia.

What I've come to understand is that eliminating those three institutions and trying to unify all of humanity in the same identity is not a project that can be achieved, or should. I don't want all my friends to have the same religious and political views that I do. The fact that my friends are different from me and see the world from radically different reality tunnels is something to be embraced, not corrected.

Further, religion, capitalism, and the nation-state really only seem like bad things when they're taken to dogmatic extremes. There's tremendous value in exploring religious traditions. The fact that I have property -- items that I've worked hard to have -- is not something that separates me from others. When I think of all the books and DVDs I've lent to friends it seems like quite the opposite. And finally it's clear in this election time how our shared citizenship unites us -- a counterintuitive thought in these days of partisan mudslinging. The shared love of our country unites Democrats and Republicans into dialog about what policies will best propel our country against the challenges it faces.

The dream is to make the world a better place -- let's have a world in which everyone can survive, everyone is happy, and no one is at war with anyone else. Everyone wants that. Not everyone agrees on how we're going to achieve it or if we can.

Regarding this issue let's consider two examples from Horowitz's writing and activism: his opposition to the reparations movement and his campaign for academic freedom.

As recounted in Uncivil Wars (which I've written about here) Horowitz is a critic of the political movement that seeks to require the United States government to deliver cash payouts to everyone descended from slaves.

What's the dream here? For the African-American community to thrive and prosper in America today and for the great-great-grandchildren of those who were once enslaved to reach a position of equality. Horowitz wants that too. For a whole host of arguments that he makes in the book, he just doesn't think that reparations is the moral and appropriate way to do it. Government forcing a dream into reality isn't going to work. Instead, Horowitz argues that the descendants of slaves have more than proven themselves capable of achieving on their own without a government handout. What's racist about that?

Or let's consider Horowitz's Academic Freedom campaign. What's the dream here? For students to be able to be in classrooms taught professionally without a viewpoint pushed on them. For there to be a wide variety of ideas considered in a skeptical fashion. To achieve this goal Horowitz adopts tactics from across the political spectrum: an occasional radical tone in rhetoric, moderate liberal reforms (such as legislation requiring schools to set up grievance mechanisms,) and a long-term conservative-style change of academic culture through the revival of pre-existing Academic Freedom standards. Horowitz knows that this dream cannot be achieved through government force. It can't be implemented immediately. He doesn't want legislatures policing classrooms as some of his critics have misinterpreted. If academia is to remain free then it can only be maintained through a gradual shift in culture away from the elements that would utilize the university's powers for indoctrination.

And Horowitz and I can disagree on specific strategies or the effectiveness of one reform over another. And I can point out when the radical tone has gone too far or a target been overly criticized. The arguments are fairly incidental, though, given the common agreements. The dream is a shared one worth pursuing.

We can still dream. We can still imagine a world of peace and happiness. I can still enjoy my John Lennon records. We just need to remain ever critical of our methods for achieving those dreams and continue to question if they can be achieved at all.

Horowitz, Sharansky, and Hobsbawm

2008-09-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

I recently finished reading Natan Sharansky's Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy and saw many parallels between it and David Horowitz's body of work.

The book draws heavily on Sharansky's experience as a Soviet dissident and an Israeli politician to make the argument that a strong identity is a necessary component to defend freedom and democracy. National identity and religious identity are not the forces that drive human conflict according to Sharansky. He rejects the solution that if we simply eliminate our differences -- become citizens of the world and abandon religious differences -- that war will melt away.

Of the many elements of Sharansky's text that could be discussed in relation to Horowitz's work, there's one in particular I'd like to focus on now. I might discuss more later and I intend to keep Sharansky's ideas in the background as the study of Horowitz's body of work continues.

One of the authors that Sharansky critiques which appears throughout the text is Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm. Sharansky refers to Hobsbawm as the father of post-nationalism and post-Zionism.

Sharansky quotes Hobsbawm:

What I am opposed to is the kind of ethnic-linguistic nationalism which establishes specific identity, and especially which establishes an identity which is superior to all others. The danger of nationalism, particularly for historians, is that it eliminates the possibility of a universal discourse in which people from one background can talk to another and argue with one another on a rational basis.

The significance Of Hobsbawm is that Horowitz critiques him for different reasons in The Politics of Bad Faith, elegantly dissecting the historian's celebrated The Age of Extremes and the book's defense of communism and a leftist interpretation of the conflicts of the twentieth century.

The link is important because in the context of Horowitz's work one can ask: what does communism have to do with post-nationalism and post-identity? Is it mere coincidence that a major figure supporting one would support the other? Is there a relationship?

The communist view and the the post-nationalist view are strikingly similar. Both are focused on the same premise: "If we can just get people to realize that we're really all the same, that are differences are artificial, then we can work together and achieve utopia."

The Communist Idea -- which Sharansky knows and disassembles all too well -- boiled down to trying to create a society of the proletariat, of the worker. Everyone is the same, everyone is an equal and a worker. (Of course as we'll remember from Animal Farm, some animals are more equal than others.) In the Soviet Union what that meant is that everyone who wasn't -- who was part of the exploitative bourgeoisie -- simply needed to be exterminated. One of the major themes of Horowitz's work has been the demonstration that the only way to achieve this sameness is through totalitarianism. You just force sameness out of a gun.

The Post-Nationalist Idea is a similar variation that fortunately has not had the opportunity to be taken to the same extreme. People just need to stop being Jews, Christians, Americans, Israelis, etc., and life will be fine. We'll have no reason to fight over territory and power.

There are a few different aspects of Horowitz's philosophy at play here. The first is Horowitz's conception of the Left as a movement that will lie and reinvent itself in order to make its ideas more appetizing to the general public. A society of workers in the mold of Stalinism didn't really work so the Utopian Idea of sameness needs to be reframed into something people can accept more easily. "Citizen of the World" sounds palatable, doesn't it?

The second, and more important is the foundation of politics and the primary difference between the radical and the conservative mindset: the question of human nature. To Sharansky and Horowitz communism and post-identity do not work for a very simple reason. People are evil. Making everyone the same will not solve the problem of conflict because deep down people are still going to be more interested in themselves and the people around them than the human race as a whole. To the Left people are generally good and once the right system is set up -- not the nation-state model the world currently has -- they'll be able to cooperate and coexist happily with one another. Just sweep away the silliness of religion -- the opiate of the masses -- and happiness will follow

Horowitz, Sharansky, and other conservative thinkers would argue that every single one of these experiments to devise a more cooperative, humane system has failed and in fact resulted in the opposite of what it was supposedly intended. The question of human nature is not a fact. It cannot be proven in a laboratory. One only has the examples of history to use to judge.

David Horowitz Responds to George Wolfe

2008-08-27T11:44:00.000-07:00

George Wolfe's response to my critique of his course at Ball State is no response at all. I asked why the framework of analysis in his course is Western imperialism, I.e., why it is cast in a leftwing analytical framework -- which indicts the West -- instead of neutral framework as would be appropriate to a scholarly inquiry. Wolfe ignores the question completely and puts an entirely different one in my mouth: "David Horowitz asks whether it is valid to consider Western economic and cultural influence as forms of imperialism." Actually I said no such thing. I said why is the entire course based on the presumption that the global economy should be viewed within a framework that regards western economic and cultural influence as imperialistic. Presuming a controversial doctrine as the truth and excluding other viewpoints is the very definition of indoctrination. So I also asked Wolfe why he doesn't assign pro-globalization texts such as Deepak Lal's "Reviving the Invisible Hand." Instead of answering this question, he simply proceeds to argue his leftwing talking points about the global economy as though the sum of these is a scientific doctrine rather than a point of view. He does not even feel the necessity of defending his statements against the critiques that free market writers have made of them. This non-response to my critique demonstrates beyond the shadow of a doubt that when Wolfe denies that his classes are indoctrination classes it is because he does not understand the meaning of the word "indoctrination." That is because he is blissfully unaware that his prejudices are just that -- prejudices, and nothing more. As far as I'm concerned this debate has shown that everything I have written about George Wolfe and his classes is true. Since, he has refused over and over to engage in an actual intellectual discussion, there is really nothing more to be said on this matter.

Professor George Wolfe Responds to David Horowitz, Part 2

2008-08-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

George Wolfe

Coordinator of Outreach Programs

Center for Peace and Conflict Studies

Ball State University

So Where are the Conservatives?

David Horowitz asks whether it is valid to consider Western economic and cultural influence as forms of imperialism. Certainly legitimate questions can be raised as to whether the aggressive promotion of capitalistic economic policies and the values that accompany the spread of capitalism should be viewed as imperialistic. But regardless of a person's position on such questions, it is clear that both capitalism and socialism have undesirable extremes that disenfranchise certain social-economic groups. Socialism stifles self-motivated and hardworking individuals who possess an entrepreneurial spirit that drives technological, commercial and artistic innovation, while capitalism tends to provoke divisions between economic classes, resulting in what is now becoming known in the US as the "working poor."

Over the past 70 years, labor unions and farm workers organizations have been successful in fighting for child labor laws, overtime pay, the 40 hour work week, pension and health care benefits, etc. Unfortunately, globalization is now making it easy for multinational corporations to operate in countries where such protective labor laws do not exist, making workers in developing countries vulnerable to exploitation. In addition, US domestic workers suffer the consequences of outsourcing and the loss of secure jobs as production facilities are moved to other countries. If the US is to contribute successfully to the growth and management of a global economy, it must lead by example, pressing for labor laws comparable to those in the United States and adopting a code of ethics that protects workers in countries that do not have anti-exploitive legislation. It must also keep its own financial house in order to prevent a global economic meltdown. If a global economic depression ever does occur, it would be a great setback for developing countries and would undoubtedly empower believers in the socialist system much like the stock market crash of 1929 fueled the forces of socialism in Germany and in the emerging Soviet Union in the 1930s.

While the Republican Party in the United States has been traditionally identified as the party of fiscal restraint and small government, a historical overview of the last 20 years of economic policies clearly demonstrates that the conservative label is no longer applicable to Republicans. In 1992, then-president George H. W. Bush, following the legacy of Reaganomics, had run up a national debt of 3 trillion dollars. His democratic opponent in the 1992 presidential race, Bill Clinton, won the election and after two terms in office, left the nation with the debt erased and a substantial surplus. George W. Bush became President in 2000 and after eight years of his leadership and rampant spending, the US now has a $3.5 trillion debt.

Conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan has asserted many times that the Republican Party is no longer the party of fiscal conservatism. With the addition of the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush, the US government has gotten larger, not smaller. Add to this Republican presidential candidate John McCain suggesting his wife could participate in a semi-nude beauty contest at a cyclist convention, and you have a political party that has lost its way, both in terms of economic policy and in the promotion of family values.

With regards to "cultural imperialism" (I prefer to call it "cultural dissonance"), this is most blatantly expressed through the generally unrestricted access of the internet, the clash of religious conservatism with mainstream religious orthodoxy, and the rejection by Islamic nations of feminism, sexism, and the pursuit of happiness through material excess. In the 1980s Ayatollah Khomeini called the United States "The Great Satan," a label meant to condemn Western secular values that are viewed by Islamic nations as corrupting the spiritual foundation important to many non-Western cultures.

The phrase "The Great Satan," however, is generally misunderstood by Americans. In mystical religious traditions, Satan signifies that force in human existence that draws the senses outward, away from the inner spiritual self to the physical world, deceiving one into believing that lasting happiness can be found in materialism and the gratification of sexual desires. From the perspective of Islam and other conservative religious groups, Americans are indeed guilty of cultivating a materialistic, sex-crazed culture.

Offensive cultural dissonance could be avoided if Western nations and multinational corporations would be sensitive to, and respectful of, the cultural values of the nations they are interfacing with. This means we should carefully consider the images included in commercial advertising campaigns and be willing to negotiate agreements with other countries regarding the accessibility of provocative internet sites. While some might view this as an intrusion on freedom of speech, compromises such as these would be well worth it given the real advantage of cultural interfacing which is the gradual improvement of human rights, educational and economic cooperation, interfaith cultural understanding, and the emerging professional roll of women in developing countries.

Left Illusions: Michael Lind and the Right-Wing Cabal In Depth

2008-08-25T09:22:00.000-07:00

In this piece of Left Illusions Horowitz defends the identity of the conservative movement and contrasts his political conversion with that of Michael Lind.

The piece was prompted by the book Up from Conservatism and the article “The Death of Intellectual Conservatism.” from an issue of Dissent, both written by Lind. Lind did not occupy a similar spot in the Right as Horowitz did in the Left. Horowitz was one of the founders of the New Left. He wrote Student, the first book of the movement as well as several other key texts. He was also an editor at Ramparts and an associate of Huey Newton. In other words, a major player.

Lind was not. He was just a fairly minor, moderate player in a movement that was already founded. One can even doubt by Lind's own words if he was a conservative at all or really just someone floating within the conservative movement. It's not difficult for Horowtiz to argue that his conversion and its implications are more significant.

Horowitz then juxtaposes the treatment he and writing partner Peter Collier received in the literary culture with that of Lind. They became ghosts and Lind became visible in numerous high-profile publications with the endorsement of Gore Vidal.

A further difference is what drove both men to the opposite of the political spectrum. For Lind it was a caricature of conservatism embodied in a book written by a religious fundamentalist. For Horowitz it was a painful, decade-long analysis of the nature of his lifelong political project. Horowitz abandoned radicalism not because of any one person or book but because of a realization of the totalitarian tendency at the heart of the idea itself.

1. I, myself, had no such qualms. The image of the right that the left had concocted —authoritarian, reactionary, bigoted, mean-spirited — was an absurd caricature that had no relation to modern conservatism or to the reality of the people I had come to know as the result of my decade-long movement along the political spectrum, or to the way I saw myself. Excepting the lunatic fringe, American conservatism was not about “blood and soil” nostalgias or conspiracy paranoias, which figured so largely in imaginations that called themselves “liberal” but were anything but. Modern American conservatism was a reform movement that sought to reinvent free markets and limited government and to restore somewhat traditional values. Philosophically, conservatism was more accurately seen as a species of liberalism itself, and would be so described except for the hegemony the left exerted in the political culture and its decision to appropriate the label as a protective coloration for its radical agendas .

Just as Horowitz defends America in Uncivil Wars so he defends the conservative movement. He also fights to identify the conservative movement with liberalism the political philosophy that is the basis for our democracy. Many conservatives have caved in to the attempt by the Left to appropriate the word "liberalism." Throughout his writings Horowitz has resisted this, jarring readers with "leftist" whereas others might say "liberal."

He argues that liberalism and conservatism are bedfellows, not radicalism and liberalism. As discussed in my previous In Depth reading of the "Neo-Communism" chapter of Left Illusions, the animating factor of radicalism is a belief in the ability to change the world with America as the primary roadblock in that path. Ultimately liberalism and conservatism fall on the same side of that belief. The liberal and the conservative both want to maintain America, American culture, and capitalism. They're just going to argue about which methods are the best way to do it.

2. Inevitably, I was compelled to regard Lind as a sort of doppelganger, whose political odyssey might reflect facets of mine and provide useful insights. I was also curious about the way his apostasy would be received by the intellectual world. It would provide a foil for what had happened to me. When Peter and I publicly rejected half a lifetime of leftism, the response was not one I had prepared for. I had expected the attacks from the left. But only Peter foresaw the real punishments that were in store for us from the broader establishment culture and, in particular, the penalties they would exact on our intellectual and literary careers.

The conservative writer and the radical writer encounter the opposite problem. The Left dominates the intellectual and popular culture. The Right dominates the political culture. Thus Horowitz is able to get Party of Defeat read and endorsed by 18 congressmen yet he has to pay people to review it. On the flip side Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky get their names dropped into "Good Will Hunting" yet no one in power actually reads their books.

3. In writing our own explications de vie, Peter and I had been careful to point out that for us there were no sudden revelations on the road to Damascus, no single moment or event that unraveled the skein of our former political selves. It was our perspective that had changed and the change had been worked over many events in the course of many years before we arrived at the conclusions that were summarized in our book Destructive Generation. In Up From Conservatism, Michael Lind claims, in contrast, that he actually did experience a Damascus-style revelation on the way to his new career. His epiphany came with the publication, in 1991, of a book called The New World Order by Pat Robertson, which retailed “a conspiracy theory blaming wars and revolutions on a secret cabal of Jewish bankers, Freemasons, Illuminati, atheists, and internationalists.”

For many born-again Christians you can ask them when exactly they became a Christian. Often times they can give you not only the day but even what time it was. There was a specific emotional turning point that caused them to accept their faith. In Horowitz's religious characterization of radicalism, the conversion experience is similar. There's an intense moment that causes one to become a believer.

There usually isn't when one is going the opposite direction regarding belief. How many atheists can tell you the moment they stopped believing in God? Faith in the spiritual god and faith in the political god of a utopia are both lost gradually because the process is generally an intellectual one, not emotional one.

True, Horowitz's loss of faith can be traced to the murder of Betty Van Patter -- an intense emotional experience if there ever was one. But that event was only a catalyst for a decade-long period of questioning.

4. Smears like this are not coincidental to Lind’s argument; they are his argument.

As demonstrated in Uncivil Wars and Indoctrination U, Horowitz would argue that for the most part smears, personal attacks, and ad hominem are the basis of left-wing argument. It becomes necessary to smear conservatism as a conspiratorial, racist movement rather than describe it as a philosophical body of ideas.

5. Irving Kristol, the grand puppet-master himself, is (correctly) described by Lind as censorious on cultural issues. But then Lind doesn’t explain how it is that congressional Republicans have led the fight against the V-Chip and censorship on the Internet. The range of issues on which conservatives disagree is almost endless. National Review recently published a cover feature by Bill Buckley calling for the legalization of drugs to the dismay of Bill Bennett and most of the conservative intellectual community, including its own the editorial board.

Horowitz argues that the nature of the conservative intellectual community is a mirror for the nature of America. A democracy functions by ideas being brought to the table for discussion and demand. A diversity of views is necessary and is to be encouraged so that the best solutions to problems can be found. Horowitz cites numerous examples demonstrating that the conservative movement does not punish those who dissent.

One could contrast this with the experience described in Uncivil Wars in which Horowitz attempted to start a dialogue about the reparations controversy and was smeared as a racist.

Left Illusions: Neo-Communism In Depth

2008-08-17T16:20:00.000-07:00

I picked this article to analyze since it articulates one of the central themes of David Horowitz's body of work: the nature of the political Left. Anyone who looks at the Left at all can see there are all kinds of different bodies of ideas. It's not a monolithic movement in which everyone believes the same thing. Horowitz knows this well but identifies the core principle that unifies the Left.

1. How to identify the contemporary political left? Current usage refers to everyone left of center as "liberal." [...] The term "liberal" should be reserved for those who occupy the center of the political spectrum; those to the left are better referred to as leftists, which is what they are.
Pg. 425

One thing that can throw those first reading Horowitz is the way in which he'll identify a figure as a "leftist" when perhaps one is more accustomed to thinking of them as a liberal. A simplified political spectrum could thus be labeled:

Leftist-------------------------------Liberal-------------------------Conservative

Horowitz's critique is primarily of the Leftist, not the Liberal. In many of his positions -- particularly on social issues -- he, himself could be described as a liberal. In fact I think I recall him telling Max Blumenthal one time "You're a leftist, I'm a liberal." He's really both a liberal and a conservative.

Liberals and conservatives tend to be a mixture of ideas from both positions. The distinguishing factor between the liberal and the conservative as opposed to the leftist is the position on America/the West/Capitalism. Liberals and conservatives will both support all three. It is the radical who stands in opposition and actively seeks to subvert:

2. There is another more difficult aspect, however, which is how to identify the "hard" left, namely those who are dedicated enemies of America. [...] They are people who support hostile regimes like North Korea, Cuba, and China or -- more commonly -- believe the United States to be the imperialist guardian of a world system that radicals must defeat before they can establish "social justice."
Pg. 425

This is it right here. There are really only two ways one can go. Either one can support America and Democracy or one can choose to work to subvert it and hope to replace it with some glorious future.

3. Their secular worldview holds that America is responsible for reaction, oppression, and exploitation across the globe and causes them to regard this country as the moral equivalent of militant Islam's "Great Satan." This explains the otherwise incomprehensible practical alliances that individuals who claim to be avatars of social justice make with Islamofascists like Saddam Hussein.
Pg. 426

This theme is explored much deeper in Horowitz's Unholy Alliance. He also explores the theme more gently in The End of Time by comparing the nature of his father to that of terrorist Mohammed Atta. The idea behind both the Leftist and the Islamofascist future is simple: just educate everyone into thinking the right way, or, do so by force. If everyone was a good radical or a good Muslim then the world would be fine. If people learned to work for the good of humanity instead of their own self interest then everything would be fine. America stands in the way because the American idea is at its very nature about not forcing people to believe a certain way.

4. Notwithstanding this difficulty, a more significant concern is that the term "communist" in the context of the contemporary left can be misleading. While the Communist Party still exists and is even growing, it is a minor player and enjoys nothing approaching its former influence or power in the left. Even in the hard left, the Communist Party USA is only a constituent part of the whole whereas once, along with its front groups, it dominated progressive politics. In these circumstances, for reasons I will make clear, the best term to describe this left is "neo-communist," or "neo-coms" for short.
Pg 427

The abbreviation to "neo-com" is a clear reference to the tendency to shorten "neoconservative" to "neo-con." Or, in other words, to throw at the Left what it's thrown at America and the Right. Throughout his career this has been a Horowitz trademark. Adopt the tone and style of a radical in favor of conservative ends.

One of the books I picked up at the library the other week was Dinesh D'Souza's Letters to A Young Conservative. In describing how a conservative should behave when dealing with a liberal culture -- or rather radical/leftist in Horowitz's characterization -- D'Souza wrote: "Rather, he must seek to undermine it, to thwart it, to destroy it at the root level. This means that the conservative must stop being conservative. More precisely, he must be philosophically conservative but temperamentally radical."

The radical tendency is to destroy, therefore to defeat the Leftist threat, one must essentially become a radical in temperament. Horowitz is one of the pioneers of this approach.

5. The place to begin in understanding the neo-coms is the period following 1956, when the left sloughed off its communist shell and became first a "new left" and then what might be called a "post-new left." In my own writings, particularly Radical Son and The Politics of Bad Faith, I have shown that the "new left" was in reality no such thing.
Pg. 427

The New Left was supposed to be a break from Stalinism -- save Marxism from the supposed perversion that it developed under Stalin in the Soviet Union. What Horowitz argues is that the seeds for the horrors of Stalin weren't in Stalin, they were in Marx and the Socialist idea as a whole.

6. It seems appropriate, therefore, to call the unreconstructed hardliners, "neo-communists" -- a term that accurately identifies their negative assaults on American capitalism and their anti-American "internationalist" agendas. It may be objected that the term "neo-communist" does not describe a group which itself identifies with the term but then neither does "neoconservative," nor do the individuals so designated refer to their own ideas as "neoconservative."
Pg. 429

Left Illusions was published in 2003. Since then there are two books that come to mind written by neoconservatives that explicitly use the term to describe their ideas: The Neocon Reader edited by Irwin Stelzer and Neoconservatism: Why We Need It by Douglas Murray. In the years since the Iraq War the body of ideas grouped within "neoconservatism" have received much more attention. So the situation now might be different than when Horowitz first wrote the essay.

7. Leaders of the contemporary left have put forward no serious plans for the post-capitalist future.
Pg 431

One of the radical writers this statement reminds me of most is Noam Chomsky.

8. He [Maurice Zeitlin] had not just interviewed Guevara, already a radical legend. He had challenged Guevara's policies and in effect called into question his revolutionary credentials. Maurice had asked Guevara about the role he thought trade unions should play in a socialist country, specifically Cuba. Should they be independent -- as New Left socialists like us wanted -- or should they be appendages of the state, as Lenin and Stalin had made them? Maurice reminded Guevara that the elimination of independent unions, the organizations of the revolutionary class, had paved the way for the Soviet gulag. Guevara, angered by the question and by Maurice's temerity in raising it, would not criticize the Soviets and abruptly changed the subject. Zeitlin had put Guevara to the test and Guevara had failed. The interview revealed that Guevara was a Stalinist himself. We all recognized the significance of what he had said. Yet to our shame, we continued to support the Cuban regime anyway, knowing that it was destined to be a totalitarian gulag -- because that was the intention of its creators.
Pg. 434

Che Guevara was a Stalinist. Horowitz's point is really pretty basic logic. If individuals are going to support Che Guevara and lionize him then doesn't that make them Stalinists and, as Horowitz points out, not really a "New Left" at all?

On the subject of Che, there are a pair of films coming out probably within the next six months. Guerrilla and The Argentine were directed by Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Ocean's Eleven series) and star Benicio Del Toro as Guevara. Del Toro recently won the best actor award at the Cannes film festival and dedicated the award to Guevara. And I kept thinking "But isn't he a Stalinist?" Those are two reviews I'm really going to look forward to writing.

9. This is the way DeGenova put it: "What I was really emphasizing in the larger context of my comments was the question of Vietnam and that historical lesson.... What I was intent to emphasize was that the importance of Vietnam is that it was a defeat for the U.S. war machine and a victory for the cause of human self-determination." DeGenova might have added, "for social justice." This is the essence of the neo-communist vision.
Pg. 437

"The cause of human self-determination." One of Horowitz's central arguments about the nature of the Left is that it will lie about its intentions and past. It will do so by cloaking its ideas in euphemisms. "Human self-determination" basically means, in other words, "communist totalitarianism" which resulted in the killing fields.

Uncivil Wars: Preface In Depth

2008-08-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

Uncivil Wars is a critical text to read to better understand David Horowitz. One needn't have any interest in the issue of reparations to find the issues fascinating and the narrative exciting. While Horowitz thoroughly takes apart the concept of paying reparations for the institution of slavery, the book goes much further beyond that subject. The issue is explored within the context of Horowitz's broader work regarding the nature of radicalism, the nature of America and the American idea, and the path that so much of the civil rights community has chosen to take. Horowitz's experiences here would lead to the Academic Freedom campaign and the books The Professors and Indoctrination U. In discussing Uncivil Wars I will continue to show the links between it and other Horowitz texts.

1. Some might regard this book as an act of literary masochism. In the spring of 2001, I attempted to place an ad in college newspapers opposing the idea of paying reparations for slavery 136 years after the fact. In my view the idea of reparations was self-defeating for the descendants of slaves, and divisive for everyone else. [...] Moreover, it intersected with an ongoing national "dialogue on race" which, since the very origins of this country, has been the most important dialogue Americans can have.
Page 1

"Literary masochism" is an accurate description of a book that must have been painful to write. Uncivil Wars describes Horowitz's quest to initiate a "dialogue on race" using the reparations issue as a springboard. On the one hand Horowitz wants to get people talking about reparations with a more critical eye. On the other hand he wants to suggest an alternative view of America, not as oppressor but liberator.

What's especially important to understand about the controversy over the ad is that the mode and tone Horowitz took was not a radical one. This was not Horowitz in his "smash the Left" mode. The tone of the ad and the ideas it expressed were not inflammatory or aggressive. He sought to begin a dialogue and the only voices that joined him were screams. It would be easier to explain reactions to Horowitz if he always adopted a radical tone. But it seems pretty clear that the reaction here is to ideas, not tone.

2. My opponents' agenda in this controversy was not to refute the ideas the ad contained, but to obliterate the individual who was responsible for them. This had been a classic tactic of twentieth-century totalitarians. [...] But there was a clear agenda to identify me -- and college editors who printed the ad -- with ideas and positions so repellent that any community of right-thinking people would reject us.
Page 2

One of the central aspects of Horowitz's work is to link the personal with the global and the historical. How is the reaction of his ad and the smearing of his views and character related to Stalin's Soviet Union? Is their any relationship between the murder of Betty Van Patter by the Black Panthers to the violence of the Soviet Union or the violence of Che Guevara? Or perhaps further, is there any relationship between Stalinist and radical murder and the kind of character assassination Horowitz depicts in Uncivil Wars?

Horowitz's opponents in the reparations cause cannot kill him physically so why not just do the next best thing, kill him in the world of ideas? If someone is in the way of a better, "redeemed" future free of racism, sexism, and poverty, then you just get rid of them.

3. This tragedy [Betty's murder] could have caused me to become cynical and bitter, but I had invested too much in the idea that individuals should be judged on their merits, not as members of a racial group. I was the one who had been blind, and I could not escape my responsibility by blaming someone else.
Page 3

One of the emphases of the conservative philosophy Horowitz promotes is personal responsibility. Horowitz takes responsibility for his role in the tragedy instead of merely trying to pass the buck by claiming he had been duped. This concept can be found within his arguments regarding reparations. One can choose to blame racism for one's position in life or one can take responsibility for one's position. Horowitz argues that if the effects of slavery are so severe that reparations are allegedly necessary then why are there so many African-Americans who actually have succeeded in entering the middle class? Because they've taken personal responsibility and gotten there in an American society that has allowed them to thrive.

4. My opposition to the reparations agenda, as I will make clear in this narrative, is a product of these sobering experiences and second thoughts. It is not that I eschew "noble causes," but that I have learned to evaluate them with a skeptic's eye and to judge them first by their practical consequences. Examining the reparations movement, I came to the conclusion that it was destructive in ways similar to the radical causes I once supported, which have hurt the prospects for ever discovering a promised land that lies "beyond race."
Page 3

The key here is "skeptic's eye." In Horowitz's conception of political conservatism, the abilities of government or social crusaders to right a supposed wrong must face scrutiny. What are the practical consequences of reparations? (Let's put aside for a moment the question of whether doing so would be morally right or how it would actually be done.) Would it really solve the problem it's trying to fix? Or would it just make the race problem in this country even more divisive if all of a sudden the government sent out rebate checks on the basis of their skin color?
One can see how reparations is a radical, even revolutionary solution. The radical perspective seeks to right wrongs immediately, negative consequences be damned.

9. The difference between what happened to Lino Graglia and others like him, and what transpired when I placed an ad against reparations in a series of college papers, was that their experiences remained isolated and individual. As a result they could be seen as idiosyncratic, the product of unique circumstances. But the placing of my ad on campuses across the country was like parachuting flares into a nighttime war zone.
Page 4

What Horowitz describes in Uncivil Wars is basically a social experiment. If Horowitz had only placed the ad in a single college paper and received the response he did then it could clearly be dismissed solely on the grounds that, well, gee, it's just one school. Science relies on the ability of experiments to be replicated to the same results. Horowitz does that in Uncivil Wars and places it within a larger context of his social research of the political Left.

10. America is a democracy composed of diverse cultures and ethnic communities. Our future, like our past, depends on fidelity to ideas and ideals that inspire a common identity -- e pluribus unum. What this means is that there can be no common future if America becomes unable to maintain the affections of its diverse communities or if its political divisions become defined by race.
Pages 4-5.

In this point I'm reminded of a book Horowitz recommended to me: Natan Sharansky's Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role In Protecting Democracy. Sharansky is a former Soviet dissident and human rights activist who became an Israeli politician. It's his third book after the memoir Fear No Evil and the influential political book The Case For Democracy. In Defending Identity Sharansky argues that personal identity is a key element in maintaining free societies. This concept fits with Horowitz's ideas. The nature of America is such that our common heritage is not race or nationality but ideas. To be American one needn't even be born in America, one need only incorporate the ideas of the founding into one's identity. It's this common heritage that will unite the country.

11. In fact the United States Constitution does not mention race, let alone consider Americans who are black to be three-fifths of a human being. [...] It was the anti-slavery Founders who proposed the three-fifths compromise in order to diminish the electoral strength of the slaveholding South.
Page 5

And so we see how Horowitz will defend that common heritage when he sees it slandered. He'll defend the integrity of the constitution just as he'll defend the founders themselves. (See his defense of Jefferson later in the text when confronted with the idea that the author of the Declaration raped Sally Hemmings.) The defense of the Founding can also be found in Horowitz's critique of and disdain for Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States a book which certainly paints the founders in a less than friendly fashion and encourages a common identity based on class.

12. In a larger sense it is also a book about the intellectual vulgarities of American universities in an age of "political correctness." It shows that the term "politically correct" is actually far too genteel a description for what is better understood as a totalitarian mind-set. It reveals, in the inner sanctums of our most elite universities, swamps of almost bottomless ignorance and malice. It makes disturbingly clear that the liberal arts divisions of American institutions of higher learning are breeding grounds of some of the most retrograde ideas and reactionary trends in our political culture and, worse, shows that the behaviors are protected and even encouraged by the guardians of the institutions themselves.
Pages 5-6

The whole point of going to college is to learn how to grapple with ideas. The university is also to be the intellectual reflection of the American Idea. It's a marketplace of ideas. All ideas are to be discussed and debated. They will then survive on the strength of their merit. In Horowitz's depiction the university is instead a reflection of Marxist values. The right ideas -- those that will lead to utopia -- shall be taught and all others shall be ignored. Horowitz's ideas get in the way of a racial utopia so they'll be eliminated by slandering him as a racist. Betty Van Patter got in the way of the Black Panther utopia so she was murdered. Natan Sharansky got in the way of the Soviet utopia so he was sent to the gulag. The ideas of the founders get in the way of a radical utopia so they need to be destroyed by the idea that the constitution is a racist document that supposedly claims blacks are "3/5s of a person." Everything is connected.

David Horowitz makes suggestions for improving Peace Studies curriculum

2008-08-06T12:54:00.000-07:00

The parts of this that talk about the positive effects of globalization are good. But why is the whole framework "imperialism"? Why isn't it "the free market global economy" for example? Why isn't there a curriculum section on the liberating effects of capitalism? There are a ton of books on the case for free markets. If he's going to keep it within a leftist framework such as the one he has he should REQUIRE students to read Deepak Lal's Reviving the Invisible Hand: The Case for Classical Liberalism in the 21st Century: http://www.amazon.com/Reviving-Invisible-Hand-Liberalism-Twenty-first/dp/0691136386/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218047558&sr=1-3

Also Daniel Yergin's The Commanding Heights.

He should also jettison the Barash/Webel text whose views are (judging from this outline) to the left of his and whose work has no scholarly value whatsoever.

Subject for discussion: Class Handout on Global Aspects of Peace Studies

2008-08-06T12:51:00.000-07:00

ID 301

Introduction to Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution

Dr. George Wolfe

Center for Peace and Conflict Studies

Three forms of Imperialism?

Colonial Imperialism – The act of claiming territories by a political state or power and asserting control over a dependent state, geographical area, or people. While the era of colonial imperialism appears to have all but ended, critics of US foreign policy argue that imperialism is still alive, but the power and control being sought is now being exerted economically and culturally.

Economic Imperialism – The policy of applying economic pressures on another country or peoples to do business and to trade within a capitalistic framework.

Cultural or “Values” Imperialism – The intentional or unintentional act of imposing a given set of values onto another culture either through religious organizations or through secular institutions. This becomes especially intrusive when corporate secular values driven by market economies intrude on non-Western religious cultures such as we have in the Middle East or in South Asia.

Dependency Theory

Dependency theory deals with the impact of multi-national corporations when such corporations set-up agricultural, manufacturing or business operations in developing countries.

Potential negative impact of multi-national corporations:

Tendency to buy up large tracts of land that had been used to support a diversified agriculture which supplied a variety of crops to the local population. Agricultural corporations then focus on raising one or two crops, and manufacturers use land for building production facilities thereby disrupting the indigenous crop diversity and local food supply.

Disruption of local economy by paying hired wages to local workers that are disproportionate to he local economic norm. Resentment is created between local residents hired by the corporation and those who are not chosen for work.

Economic disruption causes inflation in land values and in the price of locally produced goods such that the country’s poor population have more difficulty in providing for their families.

Many developing countries do not have labor laws to prevent the exploitation of labor and to protect against child labor. The result is extended hour work weeks with no overtime pay, poor working conditions (sweatshops) and parents choosing to have their children forego education to work in the factories or fields because they need the money to support the family.

Manufactured goods or food products are often produced for export back to the corporation’s home country and therefore do not benefit the people in the developing country.

There is a tendency to outsource labor production from the home country causing large-scale unemployment in the corporation’s country of origin.

Potential positive impact of multi-national corporations:

Multinational corporations generally provide training and education for the skilled labor required for hiring workers.

Women in the developing country benefit from equal opportunity employment practices of multi-national corporations as well as the educational opportunities the corporation may provide.

While the local poor may suffer, the long-term effect is an improvement in the general standard of living of developing country.

As Women gain more equal opportunity in employment and more access to education, the birth rate lowers which, over time, slows population in the developing country.

Multinational corporations tend to open up more opportunities in the developing countries for trade with industrialized nations.

Questions for Discussion:

How can we maximize the positive effects of globalization while minimizing the negative effects?

What is the relationship between globalization and tariffs?

What is the difference between Free Trade and Fair Trade?

David Horowitz Responds to George Wolfe

2008-08-06T12:46:00.000-07:00

Deja Vu

The discussion with George Wolfe is tedious. I offered to post Wolfe’s reply to my comments if he would post my comments on the university website along with his. Wolfe did not respond to this offer because he cannot handle an argument where there are actually two sides. So he chooses to protect himself in front of the audience that matters to him.

He accuses Brett Mock of lying about being threatened by the chairman of the political science department and warned not to write for Frontpage. But he doesn’t actually say this in so many words because knows that his claims are false and is too much of a coward to join the issue directly. Accusing your student of lying about such matters is a form of intimidation. Brett Mock was warned by his department chair not to talk about his experience in Wolfe’s course and told that this warning was coming from the administration. Brett was mocked in his own class by his teach for airing his complaints. Calling him a liar is just continuing the intimidation of students.

All of the so-called evidence George Wolfe brought forth in his defense at the time has been answered by Brett Mock (and posted on Frontpage) – though you would never suspect it from reading Wolfe’s comments. Of course readers of his comments at BSU will never know this, since these remarks will never be posted there.

Wolfe’s absurd reply to the comments I made in The Professors were answered by me (although again visitors to the Ball State website will never know it). These answers are available in my article archive “Replies to Critics” at Frontpagemag.com.

Similarly Wolfe’s claim that his education degree qualifies him to teach about the cultural, anthropological, economic and social causes of war and peace was answered years ago in our response to Beverley Pitts’ fatuous defense of his credentials. This is available in the pamphlet I linked in my previous response and on Frontpagemag.com

Wolfe repeats his references to two local leftwing papers, beholden in many ways to the Ball State administration who think a degree in education and an association with a Buddhist cult qualifies someone to teach a university course about the causes of war and peace and to assign a partisan text praising the Soviet bloc and Castro’s Cuba and written by two amateurs.

Brett Mock long ago answered the testimonies of two students suborned by Wolfe as his witnesses. Wolfe has never bothered to address Mock’s response. Reprinting this stuff is an insult to the intelligence of anyone paying attention.

Chautauqua Address: Excerpt #3, "Value Inversion"

2008-08-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

Chautauqua Address: Excerpt #3

Professor George Wolfe

Coordinator of Outreach Programs

BSU Center for Peace and Conflict Studies

Value Inversion

Yield to overcome

Bend and be straight

Empty and be full

Wear out and be new

Have little and gain

These words from the 22^nd chapter of the Tao Te Ching express what in Buddhist philosophy is called “value inversion” or the reversal of values we normally associate with success in the world. Two comparable passages are found in the Christian gospels where it says that in the Kingdom of God, "Many who are last will be first, and the first, last” (Matt. 19:30), and “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted" (Luke 14:11).

In this lecture I will be looking at Peace Studies and nonviolence through the lens of value inversion, and also recount my personal experience at being a target of political extremist David Horowitz.

* * * * *

When considering nonviolence, the obvious question for people unfamiliar with the concept is: How can anyone who fights using nonviolence ever succeed in bringing about reform when they are challenging a powerful government with ready access to law enforcement and military might? Why is it that such activists, in their struggle against injustice, are not killed or jailed by authorities early in their resistance to put an end to their menace? My answer to these questions may surprise you. Ethical nonviolent activists know how to place themselves in a position where they are more dangerous dead than alive. Through their leadership, they can restrain the vengeful instincts of their followers, appeal to the moral conscience of the people, and in doing so, demonstrate how it is to the advantage of their adversary to let them succeed.

Allow me to give two examples. It was 1964, and the civil rights movement was in full swing. Lyndon Baines Johnson was President of the United States. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., having been influenced by the teachings and success of Mahatma Gandhi in India, was leading a nonviolent movement that was asking for federal legislation to guarantee equal rights for Black Americans. Challenging Lyndon Johnson in the presidential election campaign was the republican candidate, Barry Goldwater. Senator Goldwater argued that federal civil rights legislation was not necessary, pointing out that we already had the 14^th and 15^th amendments to the US constitution granting citizenship and voting rights to black Americans, and that the enforcement of those rights was the responsibility of each individual state. Goldwater’s position was one of “states’ rights.”

Another important player in this socio-political drama was the black leader Malcom X. Malcom X sought equal rights for Black Americans but stated that they should secure their rights by “all necessary means,” and that included the use of violence.

So which of these important figures did the democratic incumbent Lyndon Johnson choose to support? He couldn’t support Barry Goldwater because Senator Goldwater was his political opponent in the presidential race. He couldn’t support Malcom X because in doing so he would be condoning violence and possible anarchy in American society. He decided wisely to support Martin Luther King, for King had seized the high moral ground, was appealing to the moral conscience of America, and advocated strict adherence to the principle of nonviolence. Rev. King had placed himself in a position where it was advantageous for Lyndon Johnson to support him and thereby let him succeed.

A second example is found in Mahatma Gandhi’s influence over the people of India. After Gandhi’s successful nonviolent civil disobedience campaigns in South Africa, the British were well aware of his ability to mobilize the Indian people in ways that crossed religious and cultural boundaries. But in 1922, Gandhi realized that many Indian citizens lacked the discipline and moral restraint to carry out successful nonviolence. The violence committed by marching Indian peasants in Chauri Chaura prompted Gandhi’s fast of February 1922 and his calling a halt to his planned campaign of tax resistance through non-cooperation. In doing so, he demonstrated to the British his almost sagely influence, and his ability to restrain the vengeful and undisciplined Indian revolutionaries poised to launch violent protest against British rule. To execute Gandhi would be to remove the primary voice among Indians calling for restraint. The most the British could do was to censure or imprison him. Winston Churchill expressed it best when he said: “It amazes me that Gandhi should be allowed to go undermining our position month after month and year after year.”¹ In the end, Gandhi’s nonviolent teachings appealed to the moral conscience of the world. He succeeded in placing himself in a position where it became advantageous for the British to let him succeed.

Gandhi’s Philosophy Summarized

While history tends to view Gandhi as a political figure, I find him more understandable as a spiritual leader for whom the independence of India was actually a secondary goal. His primary focus was providing a spiritual path for his followers and, more inclusively, the Indian people -- Sikhs, Hindu and Muslim alike. Consider, for example, his concept of satyagraha.

Gandhi saw satyagraha as a Christ-like sacrificial act to be used in campaigns of nonviolence where one willfully subjects oneself to an injustice so as to attract public attention, making the injustice visible. Often translated as “soul-force” to distinguish it from physical force, Martin Luther King spoke of “soul-force” in this famous “I have a Dream Speech.” When Rosa Parks sat in the front of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, refusing to give up her seat, she was publicly arrested and taken to jail. In doing so, she performed an act a satyagraha.

Another concept central to Gandhi’s teaching is that of of tapasya, a term derived from the Sanskrit “tapas” meaning restraint or austerity. Tapasya involves personally reflecting on one’s anger and hostile feelings, allow time for that negative energy to be transferred into a positive direction – this experience being a practice not unlike meditation. But, Gandhi’s most controversial concept was that of swaraj meaning “home rule,” which expressed itself also as individual self-reliance, inspiring Indian citizens to use non-cooperation and to support boycotts against the British monopolies. His publication Hind Swaraj which elucidated his economic philosophy and called on the Indian people to join in a massive non-corporation campaign was viewed as extremely dangerous and censured by the British.

Gandhi also was the first to correctly interpret Jesus’s teaching of “Turn the other cheek,” not as a doctrine of submission, but as a teaching of nonviolent resistance. Rather than strike back or run, we are to stand our ground, be willing to take multiple blows if necessary to call attention to the injustice we are enduring. This interpretation is developed at length in the book “The Powers that Be” by Theologian Walter Wink.²

Nonviolence then, is not submission, complacency or appeasement. Rather, it is a form of fighting. It demands a perceptive eye to identify and address injustice before the injustice festers and erupts into violence. Nonviolence will most likely succeed when one chooses an issue that the public will perceive as beyond compromise. Advocates then intentionally allow themselves to become a public victim of the injustice while seizing the “high moral ground,” refusing to engage in unethical and violent behavior. Through such activism, they create a groundswell of public support setting in motion political mechanisms that brings about reform.

It is vital, however, that activists seize and hold fast to the “high moral ground,” as once this moral ground is lost, it is almost impossible to gain it back. One can see how the recent protests in Tibet which degenerated into violence merely provide the Chinese government the opportunity to justify their repression. From the Peace Studies perspective, violence is a form of weakness, while nonviolent perseverance is a form of strength.

Nonviolence as a Spiritual Path

When I link nonviolence with spirituality, the first thought most people bring to mind are moral teachings common to the great world religions such as the golden rule, or Jesus teaching that we should love our neighbor and pray for our enemies, the teachings of nonviolence in Indian philosophy, or the Dalai Lama and his emphasis on cultivating compassion. But this is not what I mean when I speak of nonviolence as a spiritual path. For you haven’t experienced the spiritual value of nonviolence until you have received hate mail for speaking out against injustice; you haven’t experienced the spiritual value of nonviolence until you have been publicly slandered, or until someone has left you a profane or obscene phone message on your voice mail.

In many cultures, fire has been used to represent the supreme spirit. The Hindu deity Shiva, the bringer of enlightenment and destroyer of ignorance, is depicted dancing within a ring of fire. In Judaism, it was God who spoke to Moses through a burning bush; and in Christianity, it was the fire of the Holy Spirit that descended on the Apostles at Pentecost. But this fire of the spirit is not a cozy campfire around which people share stories or sing hymns. No, the spiritual fire of which I am speaking is the fire of Prometheus. In Greek mythology, it was Prometheus who stole fire from the gods and brought it to earth, an act that led to his eventual demise whereby he was stretched out and chained to a rock with a vulture gnawing at his liver. This Promethean fire, I propose, is the fire of enlightenment that unveils truth and, in doing so, challenges injustice and makes it visible.

Like Prometheus, Jesus is also said to have brought the spiritual fire to humankind, and his fate was not unlike that of Prometheus. But instead of a rock, Jesus was stretched out on a cross; and instead of vulture, it was a sword that impaled his liver. So it is that Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay entitled History, referred to Prometheus as the “Jesus of old mythology.”³ (O’Day, 1934: 14). It is this Promethean fire that brings enlightenment and exposes social injustice, making a person more influential, and eventually more dangerous, dead than alive. For the influence of such individuals, from Jesus to Gandhi to Martin Luther King, lives on as the sun continues to shine even through the darkest and most violent periods of human history. When you are singed and tempered by this spiritual fire, then you understand why the practice of nonviolence is a spiritual path.

The End of Time, Chapter 1: "Going Home" In Depth

2008-08-02T11:18:00.000-07:00

In David Horowitz's memoir and spiritual/philosophical meditation The End of Time one of the most intriguing aspects of the text is the manner in which seemingly dozens of different subjects are placed alongside one another for consideration. It's as though Horowitz provides the reader with a jigsaw puzzle that can be assembled in an infinite number of ways. In my writings on the book I intend to map out the questions, images, and ideas he discusses in each chapter. I'll also highlight how some of the themes that Horowitz discusses appear in different forms in his other works.

1. When he was alive and I was still young, my father told me his version of the Fall. "We begin to die the day we are born."
Page 3

Horowitz begins this memoir with a subject very much at the heart of his most famous, important work, his autobiography Radical Son: his relationship with his father. Horowitz then goes on to describe one of the principle differences between the two of them and one of the lessons he's learned from his father's life.

2. Unlike my father, I do not feel that life is a downhill run. Nor do I think of it as an arc that rises steadily until it reaches its apogee, tapers, and arches back to earth. The fate we choose is inscribed in multiple flights.
Page 6

Horowitz elaborates on how quickly life can be taken away from us, including a description of how one can just all of a sudden develop cancer, one of the centerpieces of the book that will be explored in the second chapter Life is a Hospital. He ends the first part of the chapter with a view on this phenomenon:

3. This is an injustice that no reformer can repair and no court can redress.
Page 7

There are many aspects of Horowitz's critique of the political Left. He characterizes the movement as one seeking to reform, repair, and redress a seemingly endless list of injustices. In his writings Horowitz disagrees, arguing that one cannot undo the "injustice" of racism, poverty, war, inequality, prejudice, etc. The world cannot be redeemed. The problems of the world cannot be corrected except through totalitarianism. People have tried (virtually every communist "experiment") and failed with lethal results. Here Horowitz softly links that idea to a more general observation about the nature of existence. Life can kill us at any time without any fair reason. And we can't do a damn thing about it. How are these two concepts related and what are the implications of it? What does it say about a radical mindset as opposed to a conservative one?

4. I had gravitated to this refuge only two years before in what I realized was a home to the passion I inherited from my father. It was the only one he ever really allowed himself -- his unfulfilled longing for the sea.
Page 7

This theme and image of the sea is kept in the reader's mind by the striking cover photograph of the ocean which appears throughout the book. The sea can be thought of as a metaphor for the style and themes of the book, with each idea as a wave that rises up and then returns as another takes its place.

5. In the end, my father's disappointment was the gift he gave me, an irony that still connects us beyond the grave. His melancholy taught me the lesson he was unable to learn himself.
Pages 8-9

One can choose to consider Horowitz's work in the approach of the New Critics school of literary criticism -- in which one chooses to simply look at the arguments and ideas in the text and ignore who the writer is that wrote them. While this can be a useful approach sometimes, on the whole in my study of Horowitz I reject it. A much greater depth of understanding is to consider and study Horowitz the man in addition and relation to the ideas he advocates. The life he has lived, especially in juxtaposition with that of his father's, possesses all kinds of ideas to be considered.

6. When the novelist Saul Bellow reached the age of seventy-eight his brain was still kicking like that of a young man.
Page 9

This descriptor could certainly be applied to Horowitz as well. Pages 9 through 15 discuss Bellow's life and writing in relation to the subject of the texts and also introduce the metaphor of the turntable which will appear throughout the book.

Bellow is one of the important literary talents of the twentieth century and some of his better-known novels include:

7. Saul Bellow eventually married five women. Several of his biographers claim to have found a pattern in his choice of wives, identifying them as motherly types.
Page 16

This mention of Bellow's relationships foreshadows the story in chapter 4 of Horowitz meeting, falling in love with, and marrying his wife April.

8. When my friend Christopher Hitchens was twenty-three and living in London he got a call from one of his friends.

Page 16

Horowitz then tells the story of Hitchens's discovery of his mother's suicide. This is an interesting juxtaposition with the thoughts on Bellow.

Hitchens is a writer who has supported Horowitz before. (Here's an example in which he defends Horowitz's Islamofascism Awareness Week.) One of the pieces in Left Illusions is entitled Defending Christopher Hitchens. They both come from left-wing backgrounds but arrived in different places than their former allies since both have a pronounced opposition to totalitarianism in all its forms.

Hitchens is another author whose books I'm interested in writing about in the future. Like Horowitz he combines an elegant, distinct writing style with a variety of challenging positions.

9. When he was eighty-five and nearing his end, Saul Bellow published another fiction called Ravelstein, which is about the death of his friend, the critic Allan Bloom.
Page 17

When Horowitz first brought up Bellow I initially thought of Ravelstein, it's really the ideal Bellow novel to discuss given its subject matter. (I have a copy and might pull it out for supplemental reading.) Bloom is also a compelling figure in his own right. He's most well known for his translation and interpretation of Plato's The Republic and the 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind. We read Bloom's writing on The Republic in my ancient political philosophy class and it's really pretty essential. If you're going to read Plato you need to read Bloom.

10. As an agnostic, I do not actually know whether the pictures stop any more than the faithful know that they don't.
Page 19

Here Horowitz introduces the spiritual question of death more explicitly and identifies his religious position. He then discusses an interpretation of the book of Genesis, very much in line with the philosophical idea I mention in point 2.

11. This account in Genesis is the story of our beginning and our end. We are creatures of desires that cannot be satisfied and of dreams that will not come true.
Page 21

And what is an example of those dreams that cannot come true? Perhaps those of Horowitz's father and the political movement his son was born into? Perhaps in the Islamic threat that has replaced the communist threat to challenge America? In this section Horowitz writes, "To end our unhappiness, we chose to die." This thought can be connected to the discussion of Mohammed Atta in chapter 3, On Earth As It Is in Heaven. In Horowitz's description Atta lived a miserable life.

12. A quarter of a century after my grandmother's death, my mother, who had inherited her high blood pressure, suffered a series of smaller strokes.
Page 22

Horowitz has already described the deaths of the mothers of two of his literary peers. In this section of the chapter he explores the different experience of his own mother's final years. He then quotes the book of Psalms.

13. More than 350 years ago, in the city of Paris, the scientist Blaise Pascal was deathly ill and approaching his horizon.
Page 27

The final eight pages of the first chapter discuss Pascal. Some of the ideas discussed include:

the Pensees
Pascal's attempt to use mathematical theories to argue for belief in God, commonly known as Pascal's wager. Horowitz sums up the famous argument on page 30: "Since you cannot know, it is better for you to believe than not." Horowitz then points out that while the argument is sensible it cannot necessarily change a skeptic's heart.
Pascal's death and his actions leading up to it

14. The poet Eliot observed that there are no lost causes because there are no won causes. Everything falls to the same imperfection. One day, without exception, we will follow the same arc to earth.
Page 31

This thought is interesting when considered in the context of Horowitz's life. The author and activist has embraced and fought passionately on dozens of causes. Recent examples include his dissent against reparations and its broader implication urging the black community to embrace America as its ally rather than its oppressor. (See Uncivil Wars.) Much of Horowitz's work of late has been directed toward trying to get people to better understand the threat posed by radical Islam and adopt an assertive response toward it, best exemplified in the approach of the Republican party. (See his most recent book Party of Defeat co-authored with Ben Johnson.)

The mention of Eliot is appropriate for the philosophical backings of the text as the modernist poet is generally considered to be within the conservative tradition. (See Russell Kirk's classic The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot.) I have a special affection for Eliot since in my English studies at Ball State I chose to focus on British modernism by taking numerous classes taught by professor Pat Collier. I developed a passionate love for Virginia Woolf, Eliot, and James Joyce. In a way Horowitz's text is similar in effect to Eliot's most famous poem, The Waste Land. What makes The Waste Land such an exciting text to study is the way it combines dozens, perhaps hundreds of diverse ideas and places them alongside one another. Eliot then gives the reader the freedom to assemble the pieces themselves. Joyce does something similar in much longer, novelist's form with Ulysses.

Horowitz does this in a philosophical fashion in The End of Time in the way he weaves together literature, history, spirituality, autobiography, and current events.

While many of the authors of the Modernist movement were socialist in their politics, this aspect of the literature of the period could be considered conservative in the fashion in which it provides freedom of interpretation to the reader and presents a chaotic world unbound by a single, authoritative perspective.

15. I understand Pascal's judgment that since we are born to die it is an injustice that others should love us.
Page 35

In his conclusion Horowitz discusses the injustice his death would bring to his new love April. Her role in triumphing over the threat of prostate cancer will be one of the major themes in the second chapter.

Wolfe's response to Brett Mock's 4/7/06 Frontpage article

2008-07-30T14:25:00.000-07:00

A rebuttal to a rebuttal of a rebuttal

Prof. George Wolfe again responds to charges made by

former student Brett Mock (7/9/2006)

By David Swindle

In Brett Mock’s newest Frontpagemag.com article, he claims that Prof. George Wolfe is misrepresenting the events that allegedly took place in his spring 2004 Introduction to Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution course.

Unlike Mr. Mock’s approach, this rebuttal will refrain from insults or attacks on his character. It will simply correct his article’s factual errors. Prof. Wolfe addressed each of these claims in a July 3rd interview. Comments by the author to clarify, pose follow-up questions, or offer additional facts or commentary are included in brackets.

Claim One

“By their own account, these students went to Washington for the purpose of protesting the war in Iraq--their main issue. That Professor Wolfe now presents this as an innocent lesson in the workings of politics is yet another symptom of his serial allergy to the truth.”

Prof. Wolfe: As I stated in my original rebuttal (see www.freeexchangeoncampus.org), the students who went to Washington attended a lobbying workshop. A letter from two of the students who participated, Maggie Sobotka and Amy Whyde, prove this to be the case. They learned lobbying skills, then had an opportunity to contact a representative or a senator and apply those lobbying skills to whatever they cause wanted to lobby for. The workshop was open to anybody in the class. There was nothing stipulating that the students had to lobby for any particular cause, one side or the other. There was not even a war protest going on at the time. This is a fact verified by the letter written by the two students who attended the workshop. [See appendix for entire letter by Sabotka and Whyde.]

[The students who went to Washington did not claim they were going to protest the war. In Maggie Sobotka’s and Amy Whyde’s letter regarding Mock’s claims, they wrote of the workshop, “If Brett [Mock] would’ve attended the class in which we reported on what we actually did there, he would know that the trip had NOTHING to do with protesting the war in Iraq. The title of the seminar that we attended was ‘Spring Lobby Weekend 2004.’ At the seminar, we learned how to lobby our senators and representatives about ANY issue, not necessarily one having to due with peace. The reason the Peace Center sponsored the trip is because lobbying for your ideas is a peaceful way to bring about changes in the government, which is in line with the beliefs of the Center. Any student had the opportunity to attend this workshop. Dr. Wolfe simply mentioned the seminar in class and then we approached him with our interest in attending. In addition to classes on lobbying, the seminar did present information on topics such as war profiteering, nuclear weapons, and freedom of Native Hawaiians; we felt no pressure whatsoever to lobby for these issues.”]

[Regarding Mock’s claim that the lobbying workshop is liberal:]

Prof. Wolfe: The lobbying workshop is run by the Friends Committee on National Legislation . Again, if you look at the letter that the students who attended wrote, they spoke of specific topics that were used to practice their lobbying skills. The Iraq war was not a topic on which they focused. But even if they had, the students had a right to lobby for or against any issue of their choice. (See appendix for entire student letter).

Keep in mind, peace studies is defined as “conflict resolution through nonviolent means” – that’s the definition of what we study. A student should expect to be involved in some kind of progressive environment if they pursue the discipline of peace studies. David Horowitz’s insistence that my peace studies class should include military options is as ridiculous as requiring Ball State Military Science professors to teach units on Gandhian philosophy or on the successful nonviolent strategies of Alice Paul, Caesar Chavez, Martin Luther King or Lech Walesa. If a student wishes to learn about military strategies, I suggest a course entitled US Military History in the 20^th Century which is taught by Dr. Phyllis Zimmerman, a past director of the Peace Center at Ball State.

[The attempt to paint the lobbying workshop as some kind of liberal endeavor still does not change the fact that what Brett described in his original article – Wolfe taking students to Washington D.C. to participate in anti-war protests – is untrue. There is a substantial difference between attending a lobbying workshop and being out on the streets yelling and waving a sign. It should also be noted that in Mock’s original article he claimed that “No funding was offered to those students who would have liked to go to Washington to support the war to end terror and bring about peace.” This is another false claim given the fact that he could have gone to the lobbying workshop in Washington D.C., learned how to lobby, and then lobbied in favor of the war or any topic of his choosing.]

Claim Two

Students are required to choose two out of three options for their field assignments. One option is to be an active member of the Peace Workers Organization directed by Professor Wolfe; another option is to pay for and attend three meditation training sessions conducted by Professor Wolfe; the final option is to attend a set of "interfaith fellowship meetings" directed by Professor Wolfe. None of these activities, it should be noted, represents an academic approach to the questions of war and peace or conflict resolution – which was the basis of my complaint.

[We will break this down into specific claims.]

One option is to be an active member of the Peace Workers Organization directed by Professor Wolfe

[For the field assignment students were not required to “join” Peace Workers. Attending an organization’s meeting and joining it are two very different things.]

Prof. Wolfe: As I stated in my first rebuttal 18 months ago, I do not direct this student organization. I merely have served as faculty advisor. If you go to a peace workers meeting, there is a lot of dynamic give and take going on about what they’re agenda is and what they should be doing. There are many different opinions about issues which emerge for consideration. These issues are discussed very openly and freely.

Another option is to pay for and attend three meditation training sessions conducted by Professor Wolfe

Prof. Wolfe: If a student elected to take the meditation class, there was a $15 charge for materials the student received, which included two compact discs. So I was simply being reimbursed for the materials I use to teach with.

In truth, students were asked to choose one out of the three options, not two out of three. I have several field assignment options because some students do not wish to take the meditation course, or perhaps already have learned a form of meditation. Other options include participating in the student social justice organization Peace Workers, or attending meetings of the Muncie Interfaith Fellowship. The Muncie Interfaith Fellowship meets once a month for interfaith dialog and is devoted to building cooperative relationships between diverse religious and humanist groups in Muncie, Indiana. If none of these options appeal to the student, they can request other field activities. This is what Brett Mock did when I approved his request to go hear Dick Cheney speak in Indianapolis. This fulfilled part of his field assignment, but Mr. Mock failed to even mention this in his initial Frontpage.com article published in September of 2004.

None of these activities, it should be noted, represents an academic approach to the questions of war and peace or conflict resolution – which was the basis of my complaint.

Prof. Wolfe: University professors frequently require field assignments. I know a professor who taught a world religions class at Ball State. For this class the students were required to go to a religious service outside their own religious tradition. That religious service itself would be considered a field experience. A field experience is meant to expose a student to an idea or practice outside their intellectual “comfort zone” and to challenge the student to consider alternative viewpoints. Such assignments have long been a part of the academic experience.

[The claim that the field assignment activities have nothing to do with the course is factually incorrect. In all of his writings regarding the class, Mock depicts the class as though it were a political science course whose primary purpose was to undermine the justification for war. This characterization is wrong. The course is much broader and most of its content does not focus on international relations. Here, from the course’s syllabus, are the four components of the course:

1. Philosophy component: examines Gandhian philosophy and the influence of Mahatma Gandhi on nonviolent activists such as Dorothy Day, Thomas Evans, A.J. Muste and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Philosophies pertaining to negative peace versus positive peace, religiously motivated violence, Taoism, and psychological models pertaining to personal peace are also examined.

2. Global studies: Peace in the context of global trade, ecology, demographic shifts, and structural violence.

3. History of Nonviolence in America: An overview of successful nonviolent strategies to call public attention to injustice in various arenas. Includes the antimonium controversy and movements relating to freedom of conscience, women’s suffrage, the United Farm Workers, conscription, nuclear disarmament, the civil rights movement, and the Vietnam War and lowering the voting age to 18.

4. Introduction to Mediation: Understanding the difference between mediation, arbitration and litigation. Includes mediation exercises and role-playing.

For whatever reason, details such as these regarding the content of the course have thus far been absent from the writings of Mock and David Horowitz.]

Claim Three

But the larger point I was making was that Professor Wolfe, as the sponsor of a sectarian political organization with clear political agendas on the war, should not have been giving students credits to join it.

Prof. Wolfe: A student chooses their field assignment, and can even propose their own as Brett Mock did when he asked to attend a speech by Dick Cheney. If a student elects to attend meetings of Peace Workers, they are not required to “join” the organization (i.e., pay dues, and become an active member). They simply go to at least three meetings to find out what a social justice organization is like.

Claim Four

He also funds their activities, using university bank accounts provided conveniently by the taxpayers of Red-State Indiana. He also actively promotes and develops the Peace Workers' left-wing agenda as the faculty advisor and Chairman of the Peace and Conflict Studies Center.

Prof. Wolfe: No, I don’t direct, nor do I fund this organization. It’s an official Ball State student organization. I go to maybe one of every three meetings and serve as a faculty adviser.

This student organization, like other Ball State student organizations, has its own student account. They have raised money in a variety of ways, through selling items such as t-shirts and earth flags. Members also pay dues. Nothing that goes into that organization’s account comes from a university account. The organization’s account records prove this to be the case.

Now there’s another account which the peace center has which is for private donations. Anyone one who wishes can make a donation into this center account. Donors can also specify that their contribution be used for a specific purpose, such as helping students attend a conference, or pursue a particular line of research. But that is not an account which state funds or taxpayer money goes into. It’s an account for donations from private individuals.

Claim Five

There is, in fact, no single person involved with the group who has a bigger hand in its direction, its growth and its ability to commandeer university resources than Professor Wolfe. Whether he actually founded the organization pales into insignificance beside
these activities.

Again, Mr. Mock is totally misinformed. In fact, there were two semesters where another faculty member, Jerry Waite, who is a Vietnam veteran and a member of Veterans for Peace, was actually the adviser. I do not micromanage Peace Workers and never have. It is surprising Mr. Mock would make this claim given the fact that he never once attended a Peace Workers meeting! Like any other student organization, the advisor is there to answer questions and guide the students along.

Claim Six

His response contained no ambiguity: The book [which students had to choose for a book report] could not defend violent forms of conflict resolution. In keeping with the theme of the course, the book had to be critical of violent forms of conflict resolution while defending non-violent approaches.

The book had to relate to the topic of the class, which is the history and philosophy of nonviolence. That doesn’t mean that the book couldn’t take a critical look at peace organizations or past movements. In fact, even the text I use for my class (Peace and Conflict Studies by Barash and Webel) contains sections critical of peace organizations and discusses times when nonviolence has failed! (See Barash and Webel pages 45-54; 527-528).

In his September 2004 Frontpage.com article, Mr. Mock complains that he had to “read and report on a book he disagreed with.” Well I’m sorry Brett, but that is what Higher Education is all about. I can remember numerous times as a student having to read and even be tested on material I disagreed with. University professors cannot be expected to lower their academic standards to appease a student who is uncomfortable with viewpoints contrary to their own.

Claim Seven

On the other hand, a report I wrote on Noam Chomsky's book “Hegemony or Survival,” in which I deliberately gave him the arguments he wanted to hear (and suppressed my own beliefs) miraculously resulted in extra-credit.

[Brett Mock claims that he had to agree with what Noam Chomsky was saying. As a book report, one does not have to assert that they agree with the views expressed. They just need to report on the ideas and opinions expressed by the author. Also of note is the fact that Brett himself chose the Chomsky book.]

As I said in my previous rebuttal a year a half ago, Mr. Mock “received extra points for his book report because his report was ten pages long when only six pages were required. In other words, he received points for the extra effort he made, not because of the ideology he presented.”

Claim Eight

Professor Wolfe also points out that he is a trained mediator. This may be commendable, but the fact remains that mediating disputes between individuals is a far cry from mediating disputes between states, let alone disputes between democratic states and terrorist organizations (a difference that, admittedly, may be over Professor Wolfe's head). For an in-depth college-level course about conflict resolution it is no qualification at all.

Prof. Wolfe: Again Mr. Mock is making the incorrect assumption that my class is a political science course. Peace Studies is not Political Science. There are principles that apply from mediation directly to negotiation. He should know that because he took a class from Political Science Professor Roger Hollands entitled “Alternative Dispute Resolution.” I know he took this class because I spoke to the class in the spring of 2004. Professor Hollands’ class covers negotiation and mediation in great detail. That’s the class where you emphasize political and organizational negotiation. Brett Mock repeatedly takes subject matter that’s meant for a class in the political science curriculum and imposes it on a class that explores the history and philosophy of nonviolence. Introduction to Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution (ID 301) is not a political science class. Rather, it is a general overview of the peace studies field, a gateway class, so students can decide what direction they want to go within the discipline of peace studies.

Claim Nine

The Toda Institute is the creation of the Soka-Gokkai cult, a Buddhist sect that believes chanting is the key to world peace.

Prof. Wolfe: There is a Buddhist organization which helps sponsor the Toda institute in much the same way the Quaker Church supports the Friends National Legislation Committee. But it is nonsense to say the Toda Institute is a Buddhist cult. In actuality, the Toda Institute is headed by Majid Tehranian at the University of Hawaii and publishes “Peace and Policy,” which is one of the most respected journals in the field of Peace Studies. Tehranian is a professor of international communications at the University of Hawaii and guest lectured at Ball State in the fall of 2003.

[Prof. Wolfe then produced a copy of the Toda Institute’s journal which is just as professional and scholarly as one would expect from a serious institution. It did not look like the product of a cult. ]

Prof. Wolfe: Let me conclude this interview by saying that Mr. Mock's claims illustrate how David Horowitz and "Students for Academic Freedom" misrepresent classroom teaching and course content.

The irony in all this is that student enrollment in Peace Studies at Ball State tripled! The Interdisciplinary Peace Studies minor grew from only six students in September of 2004 to seventeen enrolled by the end of the 2004 fall semester. The spring semester Introductory to Peace Studies class has more than doubled in size from 13 in the spring of 2004 to 33 at the beginning of the spring semester of 2006. Peace Workers, the student activist group, increased its membership to as many as 20 undergraduate students. Job placement for graduating Peace Studies students has also been good, one student accepting a position in the US Defense Department, while another was selected for an internship with Senator Richard Lugar.

What began in September 2004 as a concern over liberal bias grew into the absurd and shameful accusation by Mr. Horowitz that Peace Studies at Ball State was anti-American and was supporting terrorism. In response, two newspapers within Indiana, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette and the Muncie Star Press, ran editorials criticizing Mr. Horowitz. Both newspapers also agreed that state legislators should ignore requests for an “Academic Bill of Rights.” At Ball State, therefore, university faculty should not be intimidated by Mr. Horowitz or his organization. Nor should professors feel they must compromise their freedom to teach, as they deem appropriate.

[There are a few other facts that need to be brought up:

The first sentence on the syllabus for this class is: “Peace Studies is commonly defined as the study of conflict resolution through nonviolent means.” Thus, it is clear upon the very first day of class that the course is about nonviolence.
If a student believes there is something fundamentally wrong about a course, whether it be the content, the class environment, the grading, the behavior of the professor, etc. there are specific university procedures that a student can take advantage of to improve the situation. (To claim that there are not or that there are only procedures for dealing with unfair grading – as Mock has claimed before -- is wholly incorrect.) At the end of his first Frontpagemag.com piece Mock wrote, “They should get involved in the campaign for academic freedom and take their grievances to their school administrations. That’s what I’m going to do.” Mock never did that. He never contacted the Ball State administration.
Mock has been unable to produce anyone who can support his allegations and perspective on the class. Perhaps this is because according to President Jo Ann Gora’s December 15 2004 guest column in the Muncie Star Press, at the end of the spring 2004 course Wolfe did not receive any negative evaluations by his students.
Mock has also complained that when the university investigated the situation they did not contact him. The reason he was not contacted was because it would be a breach of university policy. An administrator does not summon students and cross examine them as a result of allegations made by an outside organization, in this case Students for Academic Freedom – who was the only one to actually contact Ball State.]

A Response and a Change in Direction

2008-07-29T16:19:00.000-07:00

I've just posted George Wolfe's response to David Horowitz's new article here. I hope it can be the beginning of a constructive dialog on a host of issues beyond just the particulars of the initial controversy.

I've also decided to shift my approach in my evaluation of Horowitz's work. Thus far my goal has been to analyze and criticize. I now see more clearly that the two objectives are in conflict. I've decided to focus more on the former than the latter. I'm more interested in analyzing Horowitz and his ideas than critiquing them.

I've come to realize that I tend to agree with Horowitz more often than I anticipated I would. Much of his critique of radicalism and "the Left" makes a great deal of sense to me. His spiritual and philosophical perspectives in The End of Time (which I finished while on my vacation last week) are ones for which I have tremendous affection. And in the new Horowitz book I'm reading, Uncivil Wars, I agree with his positions on reparations and the analysis of the campus response they received. (Read the infamous "Ten Reasons Why Reparations for Blacks is a Bad Idea for Blacks - and Racist Too" and see how many of the sensible arguments you can disagree. I have a hard time finding one.)

Even on the issue which we disagree on the most passionately -- the problems of higher education -- we actually have more in common than one might realize. I agree with Horowitz that higher education has a problem with professors who use their classrooms inappropriately. I agree with most of the Academic Bill of Rights. Where we part ways is in our respective interpretations of the severity of the problem and the practicalities of identifying and correcting it.

I continue to be challenged and delighted by Horowitz's writings. And so instead of trying to critique I'm going to seek to understand. My temperament is one of continual skepticism. My natural reaction to any argument is going to be one of hostility. There's still value in that. But what's more important is to first understand in depth what the arguments are.

My seminal philosophical influence is Robert Anton Wilson. One of my favorites of Wilson's ideas is the conception of the "reality tunnel." He once said:

"When we begin to realize that we're all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels we find it is much easier to understand where other people are coming from or the ones who don't have the same reality tunnel as us do not seem ignorant or deliberately perverse or lying or hypnotized by some mad ideology. They just have a different reality tunnel and every reality tunnel might tell us something interesting about our world if we're willing to listen." -- Robert Anton Wilson

I've determined that Horowitz's reality tunnel has some very interesting, meaningful things to tell us about our world. Horowitz doesn't have "the truth" about "the Left." There's no singular "truth" about anything. But his life and work is a truth of it -- as well as many other important subjects about politics, our culture, and the human experience.

Horowitz warned me about this when I first began my In Depth readings of his work. But I'm young and rejected his advice when I should have taken it. I'm lucky he's had the patience to let me realize my own mistake. I want to consider Horowitz's body of work as a whole so I've decided to write about Left Illusions, The End of Time, and Uncivil Wars simultaneously. I may write about a chapter from The End of Time one day and one in Uncivil Wars the next. Then I might discuss the points in one of the pieces in Left Illusions. My writings also will not be in the nature of my previous posts -- challenging every argument that jumps out at me. I'll seek to isolate some of the key themes and recurring motifs in Horowitz's life, writing, and activism and then show their various manifestations. I'll return to Indoctrination U at some point in the future once I've refined this new approach a bit more. I'll then start from the beginning of it.

I also feel that it's important to inject into the discussion some of the texts aside from those authored by Horowitz. I won't write about them in quite as much depth as I will Horowitz's writing. I wouldn't go through a whole book. I'd like to stay focused. But it's important to understand the ideas, movements, and individuals that Horowitz writes about. I might on occasion discuss the ideas in a Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn text and apply to it some of the ideas about "the Left" which Horowitz promotes. I make a weekly pilgrimage to the public library and tend to pick up new books and random nonfiction titles. I'll keep an eye out for other authors which Horowitz may mention either in a positive or negative light.

When two years ago I started studying Horowitz in an effort to better understand what motivated his actions toward my friend George Wolfe and my alma mater Ball State University the last thing I expected was to end up becoming a fan. Life's just full of surprises.

A Ton of Bricks?: George Wolfe Responds to David Horowitz

2008-07-29T15:48:00.000-07:00

Professor George Wolfe Responds

to “Orwell 101” by David Horowitz

on Frontpage Magazine,

July 11 2008.

George Wolfe

Coordinator of Outreach Programs

Center for Peace and Conflict Studies

Ball State University

A Ton of Bricks?

In his July 11 Frontpage Magazine article “Orwell 101,” Mr Horowitz presents many of the same false accusations as he did three years ago in his book The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America. In his most recent posting, he claims that when a student complained about my class and the Peace Studies program at Ball State University, the university “…came down on his head like a ton of bricks.” In truth, the student was not attacked by the university or anyone at the university, nor did administrators tell the student he could not write for Frontpage Magazine. Furthermore, rather than a “ton of bricks,” the response was in the form of a “ton of evidence,” weighty evidence proving the accusations being made against me were either false or misleading exaggerations. This evidence consisted of class handouts, questions on exams that required students to discuss multiple sides of issues, a letter written by two honors students enrolled in my class, the course syllabus, and class discussion questions distributed in class.

I have responded to most of these accusations on my Ball State virtual press website, the direct link for which is:

www.bsu.edu/libraries/viewpage.aspx?src=./virtualpress/wolfe/index.html

Once you get to the site, be sure to view the television news clips of David Horowitz and me on Indianapolis stations WHTR Channel 13 and WRTV Channel 6. I play these interviews for most of my audiences as frequently I am asked to speak on topics related to Peace Studies and Academic Freedom.

Rather than dissect the false accusations again, I will refer readers to the following links which address the claims that are the most blatantly untrue.

LINK 1) Response to false accusations made by student:

www.bsu.edu/libraries/virtualpress/wolfe/word/responseToAccusations.pdf

LINK 2) Response to false accusations made in The Professors:

www.freeexchangeoncampus.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68&Itemid=34

While Mr. Horowitz claims I am a “jazz saxophonist,” (actually, my musical training is in classical saxophone), my doctorate degree is not in music, but in higher education administration. Since the director position in Peace Studies at Ball State University is primarily an administrative position, and since I was a trained mediator and had studied Gandhian philosophy for 15 years while serving on the Peace Center Advisory Board, my credentials fit perfectly the administrative and teaching responsibilities of the position to which I was appointed.

In the fall of 2004, the documentation I presented, both to university administrators and to the media, was so convincing that two Prominent Indiana newspapers, namely The Star Press of Muncie (Feb. 7, 2005) and the Journal Gazette of Fort Wayne (Dec. 27, 2004) published editorials criticizing Mr. Horowitz and calling upon the Indiana State Legislature not to act on his "Academic Bill of Rights." As a result, the proposed legislation never made it out of the House committee. In addition, the President of Ball State University, Jo Ann Gora, wrote a guest column editorial defending Peace Studies at Ball State and criticizing Mr. Horowitz (see the following link).

www.bsu.edu/academicaffairs/article/0,1384,53748-5961-28590,00.html

The false accusations listed in the first link cited above were initially brought to Mr. Horowitz's attention in a letter from Ball State University Provost Beverly Pitts to Sara Dogan and the organization Students for Academic Freedom. [Editor note: Pitts's letter has been posted on Books In Depth here]. Yet he made virtually the same accusations a year later in his book The Professors, and then again, a year later in Indoctrination U. Moreover, on the Fox News television show Hannity and Colmes, he again claimed incorrectly that students enrolled in my peace studies course at Ball State had to sign up for a radical group. This purposeful repetition of false accusations is viewed by university administrators as intellectual dishonesty. For this reason, Mr. Horowitz has not been taken seriously and is considered a bad example for university students.

It has been said that I should have been willing to debate the one complaining student in my class. I respectfully disagree. The individuals this student should have debated are the two honors students in my class who wrote a letter refuting the accusations that were made against me. Their joint letter is printed below.

Student Letter Refuting Accusations

To Whom It May Concern:

Our names are Amy Whyde and Maggie Sobotka. We are students at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. We attended the same Introduction to Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution class as Brett Mock, although you could never tell from the explanation of the class given by him in an article on FrontPageMagazine.com and various other postings around the internet. We were outraged at his false portrayal of Dr. Wolfe’s class and were extremely offended at his assumption that everyone in the class agreed with his opinion. Brett used phrases such as “we all” and “all of the students in class,” although neither of us was contacted by him about our opinions of the class. Perhaps Brett’s feelings and interpretations of the class were due to his poor attendance. It would be difficult to follow and feel comfortable in the discussion atmosphere of the class if a student hardly ever attended or spoke up when invited to present ideas. There were times when we wondered if he was still enrolled due to not seeing him in class for many days at a time.

Brett states in his article that “Professor Wolfe took a group recruited from our class to travel to Washington, D.C. to protest the war in Iraq.” If Brett would’ve attended the class in which we reported on what we actually did there, he would know that the trip had NOTHING to do with protesting the war in Iraq. The title of the seminar that we attended was “Spring Lobby Weekend 2004.” At the seminar, we learned how to lobby our senators and representatives about ANY issue, not necessarily one having to due with peace. The reason the Peace Center sponsored the trip is because lobbying for your ideas is a peaceful way to bring about changes in the government, which is in line with the beliefs of the Center. Any student had the opportunity to attend this workshop. Dr. Wolfe simply mentioned the seminar in class and then we approached him with our interest in attending. In addition to classes on lobbying, the seminar did present information on topics such as war profiteering, nuclear weapons, and freedom of Native Hawaiians; we felt no pressure whatsoever to lobby for these issues. Students from all around the country were there and many already had issues they were interested in lobbying for before the seminar. As part of the curriculum of the class, students were required to attend at least two field assignments. We received credit for the lobby weekend; Brett received credit for attending a meeting in which Dick Cheney was speaking, although he does not mention this in his article. How does this exemplify Brett’s accusation that if we did not do something that supported Dr. Wolfe’s own personal agenda we would not receive credit?

Brett chronicles a conversation between Dr. Wolfe and a “student” (Amy Whyde) in which she asks about how Gandhian principles would be applied in the situation if students were randomly shooting others around campus. Brett falsely presents this situation to strengthen his argument, and does not accurately portray how this conversation took place during a class when we were discussing how Gandhian principles could be implemented in modern situations.

Another aspect of Brett’s article that offended us were his use of phrases such as “hostile professor” and “alienated every student in the room who disagreed and made us feel silenced together,” and the accusation that if we all didn’t agree with Dr. Wolfe’s every view that our grade and our relationship with him would be in jeopardy. We can recall that in almost every class, Dr. Wolfe would invite anyone to express their opinions or present the other side of the issue. We personally never felt alienated or uncomfortable speaking in class, because Dr. Wolfe made it clear that he welcomed our opinions. This is not to say that Dr. Wolfe never argued the other side. He even stated sometimes that he was playing Devil’s Advocate to help us look at all angles of the issue. Again, Brett never mentions these situations in his article.

Brett states that “Professor Wolfe actively promoted his own political stances in class, concerning the current policies in the United States.” We can remember many occasions where we would ask Dr. Wolfe about his own personal opinions or what he would do in a certain situation, and he would not respond because he wanted to focus on the non-violent principles we were learning in class. If he did present his own opinions, it was usually because one of the students in class prompted him.

As mentioned before, we were required to attend two field assignments as part of the curriculum for our class. Attending Peaceworkers meetings was one of many options that would be accepted for the assignment. The focus of the assignment was to prompt us to explore activities that we would not normally attend. The two of us became very interested in the Peaceworkers organization, and continued to participate after the class was completed. Dr. Wolfe did not prompt, require, or recruit us to continue with the organization. The requirement for class was only two meetings, if we chose this option for our field assignment. Brett also states that Dr. Wolfe founded Peaceworkers. This is not true. While he is the faculty sponsor, students founded the organization in 2002 as a student activism group. We know these students personally.

If Brett was not interested in learning about the history of non-violence and peaceful solutions to conflict, perhaps he should have reconsidered taking this class, as the class description was available online and Dr. Wolfe presented a syllabus on the first day. We can only hope that his motivation for taking the class was not just to gain ammunition which he could use against the entire Peace Studies program that he obviously disagrees with.

Amy Whyde and Maggie Sobotka

Additional letters that may be of interest to readers:

Your Turn: Speaker's address creates concern

Your Turn: Claims made by site 'false and erroneous'

Your Turn: Group responds to discrediting allegations

The “New McCarthyism”

We study history so as not to repeat its mistakes. In that spirit, the "New McCarthyism" is a historical analogy which fits Mr. Horowitz's campaign against academia remarkably well.

Back in the 1950’s there was the fear that the Soviet strategy for taking over the United States was not only a military strategy, but also included efforts to train people in Marxist ideology who would then infiltrate the United States. At that time it was illegal in the US under the Smith Act to profess membership in organizations advocating the violent or forceful overthrow of the United States government. It was feared that, over time, individuals embracing communist doctrine would work to corrupt and indoctrinate the youth in the US, and over several generations, the US would move politically to embrace the Soviet economic and political system.

Senator Joseph McCarthy took advantage of this fear and the Smith Act’s membership provision to intimidate people in sensitive government positions and eventually, harass private US citizens who dissented against US policy or who called into question American social values. Arthur Miller’s famous play The Crucible was written to call public attention to the McCarthy “witch hunt.”

Now there is a striking parallel between Senator McCarthy’s intimating tactics in the 1950’s and the extremist political climate that has evolved in the United States since 9/11. The fear now is not subversive communist infiltrators but would-be terrorists, and also people who may privately embrace extremist Islamic views. Rather than the Smith Act, it is now the controversial Patriot Act. Thomas Ryan, writing for Frontpage Magazine, expressed the Horowitz position that peace studies programs were “indoctrinating students and recruiting them to agendas that are anti-American, anti-military and friendly to the terrorist enemies intent on destroying us” (“Recruiting for Terror.” Frontpage Magazine, Nov. 8, 2004. Also see TheStarPress, Muncie, Indiana, November 30, 2004). Extremist language that accuses peace studies professors like myself of supporting terrorism, is clearly invoking the Patriot Act in an attempt to intimidate Americans who believe it was a mistake to invade Iraq or who identify themselves with the religion of Islam.

In addition, Mr. Horowitz succeeded in convincing several Pennsylvania state legislators to hold public hearings to investigate political bias and indoctrination in universities. The Pennsylvania Select Committee on Academic Freedom in Higher Education committee held nine days of hearings and ultimately concluded that there was no evidence to support claims of political bias and indoctrination. It was an especially bitter defeat for Mr. Horowitz, particularly when you consider that the legislative committee had a Republican majority. These historical parallels with the 1950’s McCarthy campaign is the reason I call the blatantly offensive, dishonest, and sensationalized tactics of Students for Academic Freedom “The New McCarthyism.”

The Textbook

Mr. Horowitz has repeatedly criticized the class textbook, Peace and Conflict Studies by David Barash and Charles Webel. He quotes the authors statement in the book's introduction in which they admit their own antiwar values. But he omits the very next sentence where they emphasize how important it is to “build on serious intellectual efforts, including an attempt to understand all sides of complex debates.”

Indeed, Barash and Webel do present multiple sides of crucial issues related to peace studies. Here are just a few of many examples easily found in the text.

1) Pages 248-253 are devoted to the subject of imperialism and present arguments both for and against the Leninist theory that capitalism leads to imperialism which, in turn, causes war;

2) Chapter 17 includes a discussion of liberal, conservative and collectivist (or Marxist) views of human rights;

3) The authors devote chapter 11 (pages 291-314) to discussing the pros and cons of the concept of “peace through strength;”

4) Chapter 20, entitled “Nonviolence,” presents apparent failures of nonviolence in addition to notable successes;

5) Pages 15 – 22 present conservative, liberal, and progressive views for political ideologies and militarism;

6) Chapter 2, which is devoted to discussing peace movements, contains a section entitled “criticisms of peace movements.”

I must also point out that the Introduction to Peace Studies course at Ball State is not a political science class. Nor is it a course on international relations or arbitration. Rather, it focuses on the history and philosophy of nonviolence, global issues regarding trade, human rights, and environmental concerns, and mediating interpersonal conflicts such as occur within families and communities. For more information on course content, see the following link to the course syllabus:

www.bsu.edu/libraries/virtualpress/wolfe/word/peacesyllabus.pdf

Finally, Mr. Horowitz makes the error of assuming that university professors agree with everything in the textbook they choose for their classes. Classroom lectures and discussions provide ample time and opportunity for professors to include interpretations and perspectives contrary to what is presented in any textbook or assigned reading.

Misreading Bin Laden

Much of what happens in Peace Studies classes is the consideration of alternative views, inverting the values usually applied to issues of war and peace. One can argue, for example, that the "War on Terror" has become far too much a unilateral effort on the part of the United States and should never have been declared. Doing so merely elevated the status of Al Qaeda on the international political stage, making it easier for them to attract new recruits to stand against America. Osama Bin Laden and his followers do not deserve such recognition. They are nothing more than international criminals.

Conservative columnist George Will has acknowledged that former democratic presidential candidate John Kerry was right when he said that fighting terrorism requires a new set of strategies, ones that emphasize cooperation between intelligence gathering and law enforcement over military intervention. (George Will. “Kerry was right: usual tactics don’t work.” Syndicated Column, August 17, 2006. The Star Press, Muncie, Indiana.) I would further add that it also demands peace-building initiatives and incentives that encourage international educational exchange programs and appeal to moderate factions within the countries and religious traditions involved in the conflict. It is imperative we give moderate voices ample opportunities to be heard. Regretfully, however, the US has applied a World War II solution to a 21st Century problem.

What the Bush administration failed to realize is that Osama Bin Laden is not seeking a military victory over the United States. His aim has been to bring the US down economically. For him the World Trade Center was America's "Tower of Babel," a symbol of Western secularism and its insatiable thirst for economic power and materialism. Bin Laden may even have seen its destruction as prophesized in the Koran where, of the Day of Judgment it speaks of a “three-forked shadow that gives no shade and is of no use against the fire that throws sparks big as buildings…” (Thomas Cleary. The Essential Koran: The Heart of Islam. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, Page 135).

The response of the United States unwisely played into Bin Laden's hands. The US government has spent in excess of 6 billion dollars on the pre-emptive invasion of Iraq, and to make matters worse, oil prices have surged. Senator Obama is correct is saying that Iraq has been a distraction from what should have been our focus, bringing Bin Laden and his cohorts to justice. Now the insurgency, along with the Taliban, is re-organizing itself, and the US and its allies are facing what the Soviet Union failed to defeat during its military excursion in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Epilogue

I am grateful to David Swindle for his interest in the conflict between me and David Horowitz. He has thoroughly researched the dispute and continues to include commentaries on his excellent blog. It is unfortunate, however, that Mr. Horowitz has overstated his case in criticizing the academy and the professors he has targeted. The errors in his research and his heavy-handed, politically-laden opinions make him sound like a misinformed zealot and undermine his efforts to critically and objectively examine curricula offered at public and private American universities. He has, in many ways, become his own worst enemy.

Copy of letter from Provost Pitts to Sara Dogan

2008-07-29T15:46:00.000-07:00

September 23, 2004

Ms. Sara Dogan

Students for Academic Freedom

1015 15^th St. NW, #900

Washington, D.C. 20005

Dear Ms. Dogan:

We appreciate your concerns about allegations made by Ball State student Brett Mock regarding his experiences in an Introduction to Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution course taught by Professor George Wolfe last spring. Upon becoming aware of Mr. Mock’s concerns, we did look into the matter as we do with any concern of this nature. Specifically, I have reviewed the syllabus for the course, spoken with Dr. Wolfe and his supervisor for this course, Dean Thomas Lowe, and have reviewed statements forwarded to me by other students in the class who wished to dispute the claims made by Mr. Mock in an article posted recently on Frontpagemag.com.

As a matter of background, the course in question is an interdisciplinary elective course open to any student. The course is described in the Undergraduate Catalog as focusing on “the study of methods of achieving peace within communities and among nations; history of peace movements and the causes of conflict; and analysis of principles to resolve conflict using case studies.” Further, the emphasis on study of peace initiatives and mediation is clearly stated in the course goals on the syllabus. Dr. Wolfe has a doctorate in higher education from Indiana University; has received mediator training; is on the advisory board of the Toda Institute for Peace, Policy, and Global Research at the University of Hawaii; and has taught and published in the area of peace studies.

As is the case in any university course, we encourage open dialog and respect students’ opinions. Grading is based on performance, not upon student or faculty opinion on specific issues or general ideology. I can assure you that we uphold this standard in all of our courses, and we have in place an appeal procedure for any student who believes his or her grade was unfairly determined. You can review this policy at http://www.bsu.edu/sa/article/0,1375,13330-2935-12310,00.html.

Dr. Wolfe’s class emphasizes critical thinking with respect to peace issues. The primary text for the class is Barash and Webel, Peace and Conflict Studies (Sage Publications, 2002), which presents various sides of peace- and war-related issues. In addition, questions on the midterm and final examinations, course discussion questions, and descriptions of class discussions by other students clearly indicate that consideration of a wide range of viewpoints was accepted and encouraged.

The course does require a field assignment outside of class, but there are a variety of ways to fulfill this requirement, not simply the three identified by Mr. Mock. For example, some students choose to volunteer time to a cause related to social responsibility, such as a local food pantry, while others elect to attend a lecture or event dealing with political activism. As part of fulfilling his field assignment, Mr. Mock received credit for attending a meeting in Indianapolis at which Vice President Dick Cheney spoke.

Mr. Mock’s assertion that students received extra credit for a university-sponsored trip to Washington, D.C., for the purpose of protesting the war in Iraq is incorrect. Rather, three students in the course last spring chose to attend a lobbying workshop in Washington to learn the protocol for lobbying Congress. This opportunity, which was made available to all students, developed skills pertaining to lobbying that apply to all issues, independent of position. This experience fulfilled the field assignment, and travel support was provided to encourage attendance.

I hope that this response provides you with some facts that will be helpful to you in evaluating Mr. Mock’s statements. We are confident that we clearly communicate to faculty our expectations and standards about academic freedom and respect for a diversity of opinions in the classroom.

Sincerely,

Beverley Pitts

Provost and Vice President

for Academic Affairs

cc: U.S. Senator Evan Bayh

U.S. Senator Richard Lugar

U.S. Senator Luke Kenley

Representative Gregory Porter

Mr. Floyd Worley

Mr. Thomas L. DeWeese

Mr. Frank A. Bracken

Mr. Gregory A Schenkel

Mr. Hollis E. Hughes Jr.

Dr. Ceola Digby-Berry

Mrs. Kimberley Hood Jacobs

Mr. Richard L. Moake

Mr. Kyle Mitchell

Mr. Greg Fehribach

Mr. Brett Mock

Dr. George Wolfe

Dean Thomas Lowe

President Jo Ann Gora