Books in Brief

The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America’s Future, by David Horowitz (Free Press, 214 pp., $25)

IDEAS really do have consequences. Take, for instance, “equality” and “social justice”—two vague, seemingly innocuous ideas that America, influenced by the Left, has attempted to turn into reality, with disastrous results. This engaging book explores the Left’s dishonest efforts to deny the consequences of left-wing ideology. Nowhere is this fundamental dishonesty—which Horowitz terms “bad faith”—more evident than when leftist thinkers try to explain the outcome of the struggle between capitalism and socialism. Horowitz dissects, for example, the radical historian Eric Hobsbawm. In his celebrated book The Age of Extremes, Hobsbawm argues that a “true” socialist revolution has never been given a fair trial in an industrial nation, and therefore socialism can’t be judged a failure. But as Horowitz points out, East Germany was just such a nation when revolution struck. Horowitz proceeds to debunk the work of such postmodern academics as Catherine MacKinnon, Richard Rorty, and Cornel West. He asks: “Was it mere accident that relativism and its twin, nihilism, should become outlooks of the Left at the precise moment that its ideas were being refuted by historical events?” Relativism was the perfect cover under which the Left could evade “the truth of a history that has punctured its utopian illusion.” But perhaps, you say, all this bad faith amounts to nothing more than hazy philosophizing, limited in its impact to the cloistered setting of the ivory tower. No, it is much more dangerous than that. Horowitz shows its influence in current battles over family issues, affirmative action, and AIDS prevention. As the Left takes its postmodern turn, ex-radical Horowitz is right there keeping an eye on them, and demonstrating his own unique value to the Right. —Matthew Carolan

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The Politics of Bad Faith: The Radical Assault on America’s Future, by David Horowitz (Free Press, 214 pp., $25)

IDEAS really do have consequences. Take, for instance, “equality” and “social justice”—two vague, seemingly innocuous ideas that America, influenced by the Left, has attempted to turn into reality, with disastrous results. This engaging book explores the Left’s dishonest efforts to deny the consequences of left-wing ideology. Nowhere is this fundamental dishonesty—which Horowitz terms “bad faith”—more evident than when leftist thinkers try to explain the outcome of the struggle between capitalism and socialism. Horowitz dissects, for example, the radical historian Eric Hobsbawm. In his celebrated book The Age of Extremes, Hobsbawm argues that a “true” socialist revolution has never been given a fair trial in an industrial nation, and therefore socialism can’t be judged a failure. But as Horowitz points out, East Germany was just such a nation when revolution struck. Horowitz proceeds to debunk the work of such postmodern academics as Catherine MacKinnon, Richard Rorty, and Cornel West. He asks: “Was it mere accident that relativism and its twin, nihilism, should become outlooks of the Left at the precise moment that its ideas were being refuted by historical events?” Relativism was the perfect cover under which the Left could evade “the truth of a history that has punctured its utopian illusion.” But perhaps, you say, all this bad faith amounts to nothing more than hazy philosophizing, limited in its impact to the cloistered setting of the ivory tower. No, it is much more dangerous than that. Horowitz shows its influence in current battles over family issues, affirmative action, and AIDS prevention. As the Left takes its postmodern turn, ex-radical Horowitz is right there keeping an eye on them, and demonstrating his own unique value to the Right. —Matthew Carolan