Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #587752 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Synopsis
Explores the history of the radical idea from its nineteenth-century socialist origins to present-day attitudes toward multiculturalism, the ACLU, social equality, radical feminism, and the AIDS epidemic.

From the Author
A Strongly-Worded Moral Indictment
I appreciate the opportunity offered by Amazon.com to comment on my book The Politics of Bad Faith. I am especially grateful for this opportunity because my book, though largely analytical, is also a strongly worded moral indictment of an intellectual generation guilty of complicity in the crime of socialism, and therefore of some of the worst atrocities of the 20th Century. It is further guilty of "bad faith" in not acknowledging its complicity.

Its intellectual bad faith also extends to the covert attacks on the work of critics of the left in the guise of "objective" commentaries. I have in mind reviews whose purpose is ostensibly to provide politically netural previews of books for libraries and bookstores...The suggestion that The Politics of Bad Faith is either incoherent and thrown together or that its arguments are not presented in a manner open to counter-arguments is itself a form of bad faith, since even the most casual reader of the book would be aware that both these canards are false.

I wrote The Politics of Bad Faith because of the remarkable fact that the intellectuals who call themselves "liberal" and "progressive," and who now dominate our university culture and magazines of opinion, by and large supported the socialist experiments of the 20th Century that resulted in 100 million deaths and spread poverty throughout the former Sino-Soviet empire. Without so much as pausing to examine their responsibility for these tragedies they have continued to promote the destructive intellectual paradigms and political agendas associated with the socialist tradition. Thus it is a striking fact that the dominant intellectual influences in the academy today are those of marxists, communists, fascists and proto-fascists -- Marx, Nietzsche, Gramsci, Foucault and Heidegger. Moreover, the conservative, anti-Marxist tradition of writers like Hayek, Von Mises, Aron, and others is systematically excluded from the academic canon. Of course America is hardly on the verge of a totalitarian temptation. To show how destructive these ideas can be, even in a democratic context, I have included a chapter called "A Radical Holocaust" which explores the complicity of the left in the spread of the AIDS epidemic in America.

Why is the intellectual left impervious to the actual fate of its political utopias? Because it is in thrall to a "bad faith" in the religious sense as well. In a chapter called "The Religious Roots of Radicalism," I have explored the origi ns of the modern left in Jewish mysticism, and particularly in the idea of a "tikkun olam" - a repair of the world - a term progressives use to describe their task, which is that of self-appointed agents of a human redemption. It is in this delusion that we can find the source of the incomparable destructiveness of socialist achievements.

I have also included in The Politics of Bad Faith two lengthy letters to radical friends which provide an intellectual history of my exodus from the left an d - I hope - a comprehensive explanation of why the left is so wrong-headed and politically reactionary.

Finally, I conclude the book with an outline of what I believe the philosophical foundations of a modern American conservatism should be.

Customer Reviews

Insightful and prophetic
This volume contains thought-provoking articles, letters and essays from the 1990s. In the prescient introductory chapter: the Left After Communism, Horowitz argues convincingly that the fall of the Berlin Wall did not mean the abandonment of the utopian idea. Dissecting the work of Eric Hobsbawm, Cornel West and Richard Rorty amongst others, he concludes that their ideas are rooted in nihilism. The leftists, unable to face the disastrous consequences of their utopianism, took up different masks with names like "progressive", "populist" or "liberal." They have succeeded in taking almost complete control of the liberal arts in academia and are also very prevalent in the mass media, justice system and Democratic Party.

In practice, collectivist ideologies always bring about suffering and misery, as demonstrated by the bloody 20th century history of China, the Soviet Union, national socialist Germany, Cambodia, Cuba and Vietnam. But like the brainwashed members of mind-control cults, leftists remain in denial about these evil fruits. Horowitz makes a good case for leftism as a cult, a depraved secular religion based on toxic guilt. Its repeated attempts to destroy prosperity and freedom are fueled by the desire to force a sadistic type of penance on society. For further information, I recommend The Death of Right and Wrong by Tammy Bruce.

The third chapter explores the religious roots of radicalism, shining a light on the psychosis that drives the leftist mindset. Words like "equality" and "social justice" disguise real emotions of envy and the urge to steal. The next chapter looks at the meaning of Left and Right and how leftists use labels like "liberal" to hide their influence and real beliefs while still striving for socialism. The radical "studies programs" infesting academia, for example Queer, Feminist and Racial theory, are rooted in Marxism but claim to transcend it by means of the postmodernist abuse of language. See also Explaining Postmodernism by Stephen Hicks for further elaboration, as well as The Professors and Indoctrination U by Horowitz for examples.

The chapter titled Radical Holocaust investigates the disastrous consequences of the involvement of gay elites in response to the AIDS epidemic, an involvement that led to a massive death toll that could have been averted. Moral relativism, group collectivism and the multiculti cult are issues of the contemporary left under a "liberal" guise. It assails America's constitutional framework by distorting language, for example employing terms like "living constitution" in pursuit of equality of outcome. "Deconstruction' is not just some literary device but a real attempt to destroy the foundations of Western society.

Horowitz argues that the terms Left and Right are still valid since Conservatives and Libertarians share a belief in property as the basis of individual liberty and an understanding of the inherent conflict between liberty and equality. This puts them in opposition to the Left. The tie between today's Liberals and Leftists also arise from a shared belief structure: liberals believe that radical goals are "noble" although they may disapprove of the means.

Perhaps a better term for all collectivists, including Radical Islamists, is Sinisterism - see book by Bruce Walker. The historian Victor Davis Hanson has observed what he calls a "worldwide moronic convergence" of the fringe Paleo Right, the Left and increasingly, mainstream Liberals. Besides a paranoid style, they all have in common an accelerating Antisemitism, as revealed by Bernard Harrison, Nick Cohen and Andrew Anthony in their recent books. They show how radical ideas have metastasized and are infecting the liberal mainstream in Europe and the USA.

In the final chapter, Horowitz articulates a broad philosophical framework for a freedom coalition that would be more stable and inclusive than the one of the last two decades, a framework based on the values of classical liberalism. Unparalleled in its trenchant expose' of the deception and depravity of a bankrupt ideological cult, the book also stuns the reader with its power, passion and elegance of language and style. It includes notes and acknowledgments and concludes with an index.

And still the evil is spreading. The philosopher Andre Glucksmann has stated that the concept of a contagion of hatred must be taken literally as a mental disorder that invades minds, bodies and society. Such an outbreak inoculates itself against those who oppose it and is immune to reason. In the book Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left, Horowitz shows how these two cults are embracing one another in their shared hatred of the West in general, and America and Israel in particular. I highly recommend it.

New Insight into the Leftist Mindset
Observing the catastrophic misdeeds and failures of the revolutionary left from Robespierre's time to the present, former left-wing activist David Horowitz reflects, "One might conclude from these facts that the Left is now no more than a historical curiosity, and the intellectual tradition that sustained it for two hundred years is at an end. But if history were a rational process, mankind would have learned these lessons long ago, and rejected the socialist fallacies that have caused such epic grief." Instead, what exists in many arenas in American life today is the wolf of radical leftism in sheep's clothing, now calling itself "liberal" or "progressive" or "populist" or anything other than what it actually is. Horowitz reveals that in the past twenty years the hard left has come to permeate academia, government bureaucracy, and the Democratic Party. Far from being a "historical curiosity," the radical left is alive and well, travelling incognito.

Horowitz gives a marvelous example of its tenacity in discussing the "liberal" reaction to the recent passage of the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI). CCRI officially bars racial discrimination in public employment, education, and contracting. In so doing, it effectively outlaws affirmative action. The ACLU and NAACP went to court to have CCRI declared unconstitutional. Ironically, these groups argued that CCRI - a law banning discrimination - was discriminatory. The paradox begins to make sense once one recognizes that the ACLU, the NAACP, and American "liberals" in general no longer hold that the concept of equality means equality before the law and equality of opportunity. To them, as to the Bolsheviks and Stalinists who went before, equality means equality of outcome. With an Orwellian wink, the "liberal" opponents of CCRI are really saying they want to force California to discriminate in order to end discrimination, in the interest of racial justice.

In an especially perceptive section, Horowitz examines the left's view of the right, and vice versa. People on the left often ask themselves how anyone can not be progressive and not be concerned with social justice and their attempts to better the world. Leftists conclude it is because "their conservative opponents are prisoners of a false consciousness that prevents them from recognizing human possibility . . . opposition to progressive agendas grows naturally from human selfishness, myopia and greed." People on the right look back at the leftists and ask, "How is it possible for progressives to remain so blind to the grim realities their efforts have produced. How can they overlook the crimes they have committed against the poor and oppressed they set out to defend?"

Horowitz suggests that this conflict of visions is rooted in a simple difference: the right attempts desperately to understand the left, but the left makes no comparable effort to understand the right. Indeed, it acts - in bad faith - to ignore and suppress scholarship and opinions that are critical of the left's ideology and historical legacy. Names such as von Mises, Hayek, Kirk, Sowell, Kristol, and Strauss are virtually unknown to the left and are systematically omitted from university curricula. In contrast, names like Marx, Heidegger, Galbraith, Chomsky, Foucault and other leftist intellectuals, while not household terms, are certainly familiar to the educated conservative.

Some people may wonder, why did Horowitz become a conservative, that is, why did he go from one political extreme to the other? In answer, Horowitz would probably deny that his brand of conservatism is "extreme" in any meaningful sense of that term. Essentially, Horowitz became a man of the right because conservatives adhere to two core principles -- the free market and limited government -- which history has vindicated as superior to socialist economic planning and Leviathan state power. Having been raised to believe that the path to communism led to justice, peace and plenty, Horowitz was a leftist. A lifelong process of learning made him a conservative. The Politics of Bad Faith is a memorable exploration into the reasons behind that transformation.

Worthwhile read with unique insights
A great insight into the mind of the left, particularly into the religious nature of ostensibly political beliefs, and the rationalizations and justifications which accompany them. Horowitz succinctly follows the history of the idea and its mutations as it had to contend with the realities which ensued from its application. While a bit more editing would have been helpful, the points made are insightful -- particularly about the reason the left hates private property, the religious parallels in the underlying "theology" of the left and the emotional needs this belief fills, and the proper response conservatives ought to make. Horowitz's odessey has been long and well thought out;this is an effective synopsis of the hard lessons he has learned that we all need to understand.