David Horowitz is dead at 86: RIP
Horowitz was the political changer extraordinaire, going not just from left to right but from leftist mover and shaker to becoming a huge force on the right. In both of those roles, but especially the latter – to which he devoted the last forty or so years of his life, churning out article and article and book after book, giving speech after speech and generating tactics and strategy – he was eloquent, insightful, and feisty. His work meant and means a great deal to me.
And boy, was he ever ahead of his time on so many issues. This article about him, which came out ten years ago, offers a summary of his political life:
[Horowitz underwent] a ten-year, slow-motion transformation from theorist of the Left to its worst enemy …
Indeed.
Horowitz knew politics from “both sides now,” and he devoted much of his time to understanding his own early role, his transformation, and the failure of many of his friends and colleagues to go the same route. Early on in that transformation he had experienced a dramatic and extremely serious disillusionment with the Black Panthers, who had committed the murder of a woman he had sent to work for them, and that was one catalyst:
His New Left outlook was unable to explain the events that had overtaken him; his lifelong friends and associates on the Left were now a threat to his safety, since they would instinctively defend the Panther vanguard; and no one among them really cared about the murder of an innocent woman, because the murderers were their political friends.
That’s the sort of thing that can lead to political change – even political reversal – in a thinking person who’s honest with himself.
Forced to look at his own commitments in a way he had never allowed himself to do before, Horowitz realized that it was the enemies of the Left who had been correct in their assessment of the Panthers, just as they had been correct in their assessment of the Soviet Union, while the Left had been disastrously wrong.
Also:
As the Indochinese tragedy unfolded, Horowitz was struck again by how the Left refused to hold itself accountable for the result it had fought so hard for — in this case, a Communist victory. It evidently could not have cared less about the new suffering of the people in whose name it had once purported to speak. He became increasingly convinced, as Peter Collier had tried to persuade him, that “the element of malice played a larger role in the motives of the left than I had been willing to accept.” If the Left really wanted a better world, why was it so indifferent to the terrible consequences of its own ideas and practices?
In November 1984, Horowitz turned another corner. He cast his first Republican ballot, for Ronald Reagan.
Horowitz’s memoir Radical Son was a book I read early on in my change experience. I was never a leftist nor were my parents (just regular Democrats of the mid-century), but a section of my family was from the same Communist milieu in which Horowitz had been raised, and so I was quite familiar with the genre. Some of them never left.
And see how ahead of his time he was when you contemplate these books he wrote and the years in which they were published:
Horowitz’s next book, Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes, published in 1999, quickly became the most controversial work the author had written. It addressed the new cultural dimensions of the radical cause, specifically the determination to make race function the way class had in the traditional Marxist paradigm. …
In The Art of Political War (2002) Horowitz observes that progressives have inverted Clausewitz’s famous dictum and treat politics as “war continued by other means.” By contrast, conservatives approach politics as a debate over policy. …
… [I]n 2002, he launched a “Campaign for Fairness and Inclusion in Higher Education” to foster a pluralism of ideas and viewpoints, and in the spring of 2003 he drafted an “Academic Bill of Rights” based on the classic 1915 statement on academic freedom by the American Association of University Professors. Over the next seven years Horowitz attempted to persuade universities to adopt a code to ensure that students would have access to views on more than one side of controversial issues and that faculty would conduct themselves professionally in the classroom, and refrain from using their authority to indoctrinate students in partisan agendas. To advance these principles Horowitz wrote four books analyzing the situation he encountered on the several hundred campuses he visited during the seven years of his campaign: The Professors (2006), Indoctrination U. (2008), One-Party Classroom (2009; co-authored with Jacob Laksin), and Reforming Our Universities (2010). …
Unholy Alliance was the first book to trace the evolution of American radicalism from its support for the Soviet bloc to its opposition to the War on Terror and to explain how the Left and Islamist movements share a mindset that creates a bond between them. For the Left, America is the hated seat of global capitalism and individualism. For Islamists, America is the hated seat of Western values, a bulwark against the global domination of Islam, and a wellspring of spiritual iniquity. Consequently, these two destructive movements have a shared conception of, and contempt for, the “Great Satan” — America — which they identify as the primary source of evil in the world. They find common ground in their desire to annihilate or “fundamentally transform” it. …
… [A]nother book, this time co-authored with Jacob Laksin: The New Leviathan: How the Left-Wing Money Machine Shapes American Politics and Threatens America’s Future (2012). The new book documented and analyzed what no other work of scholarship had even noticed: that the Left had successfully built the richest and most powerful political machine in American history. The authors’ findings upended the conventional wisdom that the Republican party represents the rich and powerful, while the Democrats are “the party of the people.” The New Leviathan reveals how a powerful network moves radical ideas like Obamacare from the margins of the political mainstream and makes them the priority agendas of the Democratic party.
I’ll stop there, although Horowitz certainly didn’t – until now. RIP.
NOTE: Here is a post I wrote about Horowitz very early in my blogging career. I’ll add that I had an early correspondence with him at that time, and he was kind enough to reply and send me his latest book. I may write one more post about Horowitz, although not today.
David Horowitz was a GIANT. May he rest in peace.
I had the opportunity to talk to him on my radio show in 2023.
A very pleasant experience.
I trust the Freedom Center will continue.
May he rest in peace.
Neo mentioned Horowitz’s autobiography Radical Son. I consider it among the 10 most memorable books I’ve read. Here’s my favorite passage from it (page 397):
I pointed out that socialists had contrived to demonstrate by bloody example what everyone else already knew: Equality and freedom are inherently in conflict. This was really all that socialist efforts had shown, over the dead bodies of millions of people. In talent, intelligence, and physical attributes, individuals were by nature different and unequal; consequently, the attempt to make them equal could only be achieved by restricting — ultimately eliminating — their individual freedom. For the same reason, economic redistribution could be carried out only by force. Socialism was theft.
Socialism could not even achieve the general welfare that its adherents promised. Socialist efforts to create economic equality invariably led, in practice, to the imposition of poverty on society as a whole, because socialism destroyed the incentives to produce. There were entire socialist libraries devoted to the confiscation and division of existing wealth, but not a single article on how people were motivated to create wealth. Socialists did not know how to make a society work. That was the lesson of the Communist debacle, which the Left had refused to learn.
In the final analysis, social injustice was rooted in humanity’s flaws. There had been social institutions, like slavery and segregation, that were wicked and unjust, and needed to be abolished. But in America’s democracy, social injustices — and other evils which leftists decried — were caused primarily by humanity itself. The problem of controlling humanity’s dark side was what necessitated institutions of constraint —- the economic market and the democratic state. There was no exit from the dilemmas of history.
It was this perspective — conservative in its essence — that had inspired the creators of the American republic. In the Federalist Papers, Madison had defended the American idea of liberty by means of legal checks and balances as a design to thwart the leveling agendas of the Left — “a rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project.” The conservatism I had arrived at could be expressed in a single patriotic idea: The revolutionary failures of the Twentieth Century had demonstrated the wisdom of the American founding, and validated its tenets: private property, individual rights, and a limited state. Becoming a conservative turned out, ultimately, to be a way of coming home.
Here’s my tribute from Open Thread. David Horowitz has a potent change story indeed:
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In 1974 I [Horowitz] began a new project with the Black Panther Party, which the New Left had identified in the Sixties as the “vanguard of the revolution.” I raised the funds to create a “Community Learning Center” for the Panthers in the heart of the East Oakland ghetto. The Center provided schooling and free meals to 150 children, and community services to an even larger number of adults. The following year the woman I had hired as a bookkeeper for the Center was kidnapped, sexually tormented, and then brutally murdered by my Black Panther comrades.
When I first discovered what had happened, I was paralyzed with fear, a fear that grew as I learned about other murders and violent crimes the Panthers had committed—all without retribution from the law.…
In the eyes of the left, the Panthers were what they always had been: an embodiment of the progressive idea. To defend them against the “fascist” attacks of the police was a radical’s first responsibility and task.
In reality the Panthers were a criminal gang that preyed on the black ghetto itself.
–David Horowitz, “Why I Am No Longer a Leftist” (from “Village Voice”, 09/30/1986)
http://www.horowitzbiobooks.com/why-i-am-no-longer-a-leftist/
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When David Mamet renounced the left, he titled his exit piece, “Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal.”
David Horowitz dedicated his later life to opposing the left. He fought bravely and effectively. The left, then the jihadists, hated him. He was a lion.
RIP
“Human beings are born with different capacities. If they are free, they are not equal. And it they are equal, they are not free.” – Solzhenitsyn.
I was introduced to Horowitz, oddly enough, in salon.com. The editor, David Talbot, was a friend of Horowitz, and way back in 1999-00 included Horowitz as an alternative perspective. His column was called Right On and he wrote some things that made a lot of sense to me and his writings were very influential in my “walk away” during this period.
Around the early 2000s, I became increasingly concerned about the radical left that seemed to be infiltrating my quiet college where I worked. I stumbled across Horowitz’s web site and his writings which opened up a whole perspective on what was happening not only to my college, but all of academia.
He was a giant. RIP.
Circa 1970 I was first introduced to the works of David Horowitz in a Berserkeley used book store (Moe’s? ). I purchased Free World Colossus, which I skimmed but never finished.
In the late 1980s, I purchased in yet another used book store but in TX, Horowitz and Collier’s Destructive Generation, which was a history of the Bay Area left in the 60s onward. Having spent a year in the Bay Area, and also having left the left by that time, the book was of interest to me. (The dogmatic stance of many far leftists in Berserkeley, several decades before, did not endear the left to me. ) Read it more than once.
In the Internet generation, I familiarized myself with David Horowitz’s Frontline web page, and read some more of his books, such as Radical Son. Picked that book up at a used book store, with his autograph.
Some time circa 2010, I was reading, I believe, David Horowitz’s Frontline webpage, and learned about the Murder of Betty Van Patter. Horowitz had recommended her for bookkeeping work with the Black Panthers. Her finding irregularities in their books apparently led to her subsequent disappearance and death. (In her memoir, Elaine Brown wrote of Betty Van Patter’s “arrest record,” a record which apparently existed only in Elaine Brown’s mind.)
In my year in Bersekeley, I had never met Betty Van Patter, but I knew her children and ex-husband. Betty’s daughter and I were the same age–and at one time were friends. It was rather surprising to find out that people I had known were connected to such a tragic historical event. Not to mention being connected to David Horowitz, as her murder began his process of leaving the left.
Not long after finding out about Betty Van Patter and David Horowitz, David Horowitz spoke at an event near where I live. Unfortunately, I found about this after the event. Oh well.
He was such a beautiful writer! I think Radical Son should be required reading in any high school or college course that comes close to covering relevant material.
Funny I was just thinking about David about two days ago; thinking about his marvelous meditation on mortality, morality, and aging: “A Point in Time.” He wrote this I believe in his early 70s. I was only in my early 50s when I read it, but I recognized that he was speaking to the future me. It was also my first introduction to Marcus Aurelius.
I wondered if he was still doing well…strange that he should have come to mind just at that point in time.
Your post on Horowitz from back in the day is wonderful. Thanks for re-posting.
RigelDog, I second your recommendation of A Point In Time. It’s very brief, very different from his other work, very moving. He sent me a copy after I had written a review of Radical Son (which of course I also recommend). I wrote about A Point In Time here:
https://www.lightondarkwater.com/2012/03/sunday-night-journal-march-11-2011.html
I was sad to hear this news earlier. David Horowitz was influential on me as I was forming my political opinions. He also gave a voice to other writers who have been an influence on me, like Daniel Greenfield. I actually read “The New Leviathan” when it was first published. It is a very fact-based book, not heavy on theory, but it was helpful in enabling me to see through all the leftist nonsense about “grassroots” movements over the past decade or so. I’ve always wanted to read the “The Black Book of the American Left” series, and now perhaps I will.
I too have long held David Horowitz in high regard. It was he who first opened my eyes to the truth that on the left, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”
Neo’s 2005 post added a lot of context to my understanding of Horowitz’s change story – thanks.
As usual, the commenters also expanded on Neo’s ideas, including relevant personal stories.
There is even a relatively sane comment by our erstwhile contributor Ymarsakar.
@Geoffrey Britain quoting Horowitz: “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.”
See, this is why I’m so disappointed in Michelle Obama. 🙂
Where was she in 2020 when the Revolution needed her to be the POTUS cutout for Obama so he could put the finishing touches on “the fundamental transformation of America”? Or maybe even in 2024?
Instead she’s become even more of a whiny silly woman. Her new podcast, “IMO,” is pathetic.
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In the years since she and her family left the White House in 2017, Obama said she’s been digging deep in therapy to find out how the experience affected her.
“We made it through. We got out alive,” she shared. “I hope we made the country proud. My girls, thank God, are whole. But what happened to me?”
“Going through therapy is getting me to look at the fact that maybe, maybe finally I’m good enough,” she added.
https://people.com/michelle-obama-breaks-silence-skipping-trump-inauguration-11720055
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She almost makes me feel sorry for Barack. Hang in there, Michelle, Al Franken is with you!
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I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!: Daily Affirmations with Stuart Smalley.
David Horowitz was a town crier. He has been sounding the warning about Marxism/Communism for many years.
Thanks to Paul Nachman for posting the passage from “Radical Son.” Words of great wisdom.
He gave his all to trying to warn people about the myth that an egalitarian, government planned economy is possible. I hope his successors keep the effort going.
May he RIP.
Great post, Neo, thanks!
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“Going through therapy is getting me to look at the fact that maybe, maybe finally I’m good enough,” [Michelle Obama] added.”
“You like me! You really like me!” (from Sally Fields’ Oscar acceptance speech)
I suspect Mooch’s problem is that from age 17 to the present, she’s been absurdly overpraised and overvalued and does not know who she is. The one notable exception was her departure from the legal profession in 1991, which I’ll wager was preceded by a mess of negative feedback from partners at Sidley, Austin about the work she was doing for them. (I suppose you could add the nonsense spewed about her senior thesis at Princeton and the stupid potshots by people who call her ‘Big Mike’). The idiot path in race relations this country has been on since about 1969 means that you see some of this as a matter of course in the lives of black professionals and managers. In her case, the avalanche of it is rare and bizarre. Same deal with her husband. If she’d had a normal life, she’d have landed a berth at one of Illinois’ five state research universities and earned a living in a small law practice or real estate agency. She’d have married, had children, divorced. She’d be living in a small and elegantly appointed home in suburban Chicago with a granny flat for her mother. And she’d know who she was.
huxley
“Going through therapy is getting me to look at the fact that maybe, maybe finally I’m good enough,” [Michelle Obama] added.”
Which is the curse of Affirmative Action: the fear—nay, the knowledge— that you were chosen not because of your ability, but because of the color of your skin.
Which is the curse of Affirmative Action: the fear—nay, the knowledge— that you were chosen not because of your ability, but because of the color of your skin.
Gringo:
I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head.
I was astonished at the insecurity she displayed in her senior thesis at Princeton:
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“My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‘blackness’ than ever before,” the future Mrs. Obama wrote in her thesis introduction.
“I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong. Regardless of the circumstances under which I interact with whites at Princeton, it often seems as if, to them, I will always be black first and a student second.”
–“Michelle Obama thesis was on racial divide”
https://www.politico.com/story/2008/02/michelle-obama-thesis-was-on-racial-divide-1529833
Lee Smith with an extraordinary tribute….
“David Horowitz, 1939-2025”—
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/remembering-david-horowitz