April 25, 2005

David Horowitz’s War on Rational Discourse

It has been heartening to witness the recent runaway success of Princeton emeritus Harry G. Frankfurt’s latest book, On Bullshit. First published as an essay in 1988, Frankfurt’s splendid study is largely an effort to distinguish between lies and bullshit. A liar, Frankfurt notes, acknowledges truth-systems yet tries to pass off information that is not true. “Someone who lies and someone who tells the truth,” he tells us, “are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game.” The bullshitter, by contrast, fails to really acknowledge the validity of any truth-claims or truth-systems.

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The author concludes that “the fact about himself that the liar hides is that he is attempting to lead us away from a correct apprehension of reality; we are not to know that he wants us to believe something he supposes to be false. The fact about himself that the bullshitter hides, on the other hand, is that the truth-values of his statements are of no central interest to him; what we are not to understand is that his intention is neither to report the truth nor to conceal it.”

When applying Frankfurt’s useful distinction, we need, at the very least, to recognize that if something about a particular piece of bullshit happens to be true this does not make it any less bullshit, and that lies and bullshit are by no means mutually exclusive.

Enter L.A. tabloid editor David Horowitz, liar extraordinaire and author of the incomparable bullshitting manual The Art of Political War and Other Radical Pursuits (Spence Publishing, 2000). This book, much applauded by Karl Rove, promulgates a political endgame in which brute force triumphs over any notions of intelligence, truth or fair play. The author contends that “[y]ou cannot cripple an opponent by outwitting him in a political debate. You can only do it by following Lenin’s injunction: ‘In political conflicts, the goal is not to refute your opponent’s argument, but to wipe him from the face of the earth.’”

What, exactly, is he getting at in this passage? Since, on the home front, it would be illegal to actually liquidate the enemy, Horowitz does not want us to take Lenin’s apocalyptic injunction too literally. Instead, he believes you should drown your political opponents in a steady stream of bullshit, emanating every day from newspapers, TV and radio programs, as well as lavishly funded smear sites and blogs. He also thinks you should go on college lecture circuits where you can use incendiary rhetoric to turn civilized venues into the Jerry Springer show, and then descend into fits of indignant self-pity when someone responds with a pie to your face.

The only honorable way to combat Horowitz’s bullshit is by fully repudiating his modus operandi, and depending instead on the very wits, arguments and refutations that the Leninists repudiate. Indeed, these methods prove optimal for exposing any number of Horowitzian techniques, ranging from cooked statistics,race-baiting and guilt by association to editorial foul play and baffling logorrhea. But refuting Horowitz is not simply a matter of observing the tide and eddies in an unending stream of bullshit. It also means trawling through that same discharge in order to extract any number of dangerous lies.

Earlier this year, I spent a good deal of time refuting Horowitz’s so-called Academic Bill of Rights, and explicating the twists and turns of his instrumentalist version of “truth.” In the course of our exchange, Horowitz spewed a lot of the usual BS, but he also floated some audacious lies. For instance he tried to convince readers that his conservative-funded bill — basically just a guileful attempt to sanction the Fox News agenda in the nation’s universities — was actually a non-partisan document with intelligent academic backing. To bolster his case, he tried to make us believe that three “left wing” professors (Todd Gitlin, Michael Bérubé, and Stanley Fish) and one avowed libertarian (Eugene Volokh) actually told him that they didn’t mind the bill.

After I debunked that lie (simply by asking the four professors what they thought about the bill), Horowitz went on to claim that neither Gitlin, Bérubé nor Fish “had any objection to the Academic Bill of Rights” even though I had quoted their extensive objections. (Who but a consummate bullshit artist could hope to construe the phrases “a bad idea,” “a nonstarter” and “a disaster” as endorsements?)

Last Friday, in a lame provocation following a debate with me on PBS’s Uncommon Knowledge (a show destined to air, in a trimmed version, around June), Horowitz actually told the moderator Peter Robinson, in my presence, that the Academic Bill of Rights had met with the approval of Fish, Gitlin, Bérubé and Volokh. (Really? Robinson asked incredulously. No, not really, I said; I’ll send you a web link. Horowitz settled into his customary rage.)

During the filming of that segment, my rabid opponent recycled a much bigger and more dangerous lie about the American Association of University Professors — one already published in the same smear in which he flaunted his imaginary supporters. There he states that “[t]he AAUP ... was silent or collusive in the face of the most brutal abrogation of First Amendment Rights in 50 years, when university administrations in the 1980s and 1990s instituted ’speech codes’ to punish students for politically incorrect remarks. The AAUP has been silent on all ... infringements of free speech, or it has lent its support to the political thought police.”

This is classic Horowitziana — a complete lie mired in a mighty river of bullshit. Although the AAUP did take a few critical years to develop its policy against speech codes, for Horowitz to say that it supports these codes is no better than calling him a leading exponent of kitsch Marxism because he happened to be one for a decade or two.

By lying about the AAUP, Horowitz hopes to divert readers from the fact that this fine organization came out categorically against all university speech codes in a resolution approved in 1992. That document, reprinted in AAUP’s fully-indexed Redbook, unambiguously asserts that “[o]n a campus that is free and open, no idea can be banned or forbidden,” and that “rules that ban or punish speech based upon its content cannot be justified.”

Why is Horowitz so eager to make us think that the AAUP actually supports speech codes and “political thought police"? Mainly so he can then construe their reasoned resistance to his efforts to police knowledge and relativize truth as an unreasonable affront to student liberty. This rhetorical inversion of the truth is part of the larger strategy of doublespeak that leads him to couch his coercive speech legislation in the language of freedom and diversity, as if it were some kind of newly fortified version of the First Amendment. Like the line about his professorial support group — a fiction designed to make a partisan power-grab look like a movement with mainstream academic backing — these twistings of the truth are part of the same campaign of Horowitizian bullshit, lies and doublespeak. It’s a dirty job all right, but we need to keep exposing this fraudulent talk for what it is.

Graham Larkin is a humanities fellow at Stanford University, where he teaches in the Department of Art and Art History.

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Comments

Larkin’s “Arguments”

Professor Larkin’s arguments are as hollow as is his claim to be above the attribution of such titles as conservative or liberal. That he denies such affiliation convicts him as it does all who eschew such labels. I have, in my relatively long experience found many on the Left who will “jump through hoops” to avoid being so labled, but conservatives seem curiously immune to such an affliction. Conservatives seem proud of their being so labeled

The good Professor’s prolonged discourse with David Horowitz proves him to be precisely as Horowitz defines him. With almost astounding obtuseness he fails to address any of the actual tenets of the ABOR and focusses exclusively on process. The “policy” cited in the Red Book is as empty of any real value as are the “refutations” to which Larkin directs us in his response to Robert K.

By his saying that it’s “dangerous” to “examine diversity by political standards,” that we must only use “standards as they adhere to the academic criteria of the scholarly profession,” he is in essence saying only professors are qualified to define what is allowable. You want to talk about “bullshit” there is a whole crock of it. You in academe are so arogant that you are incapable of seeing the folly of your arguments. The language of the Red Book policy is so vague as to be useless. You live your lives in pursuit of petty little projects funded by the corporate profits you are so quick to condemn and delude your selves into believing that this somehow elevates you above the rest of us “prolls;” that you are “above the fray."Professor Larkin, sorry, but you were firmly and decisively trounced by David Horowitz. The sad part is, you will never understand that fact or admit to it.

William C. Malven, at 9:37 pm EDT on June 4, 2005

touche!

Your retorts to Horowitz only prove to right-wingers that you are an arrogant ivory tower intellectual. The right-wingers will not give up easily! But if you make Horowitz look sufficiently foolish, that helps a lot.

Aaron Lercher, Visiting Professor of Philosophy at St. Andrews Presbyterian College, at 1:07 pm EDT on April 25, 2005

Thanks so much for that ever so cogent “take down” of Horowitz. I’ve been at war with him over his rag’s idiotic approach to Jewish dissent regarding Israel’s policies. We’re all hate-filled anti-Zionists to his mind. The number of lies and leaps of faith into the void contained in these essays is simply breathtaking.

He attacked a group I belong to called Brit Tzedek & the group made a really unfortunate decision (at least IMO) not to publicly fight back. Guess they thought that the piece was so outrageous that replying would only draw attention to it. At any rate, my rebuttal to the Horowitz piece (it was actually written by Alyssa Lapen but sounds exactly like Horowitz when you read it) is at http://www.richardsilverstein.com...un_olam/2005/02/brit_tzedek_att.html

richards1052, Sharp analysis!, at 5:28 pm EDT on April 25, 2005

horowitz

Dear Readers:

Please go to Media matters.org to find out just how much of liar David Horowitz really is. He simply makes things up—like the Northern Colorado case he fabricated. Check it out at Mediamatters.org

See ya

jps

jp shields, at 5:37 pm EDT on April 25, 2005

Paid by the word?

The writer and Mr. Horowitz are similar in this regard: they write, like they are paid by the word. Both accuse the other of “lying.” Great — just what working-class parents struggling to send their child to college — a verbal pissing match of little personal value. Stanley Fish finally came to his senses with this statement (paraphrased) — “do politics on your own time and on your own dime.”

Bored To Tears, at 4:43 am EDT on April 26, 2005

re:Aaron Lercher

Ivory tower intellectuals??? The same way that those of us who criticise Se. Joe McCarthy are a bunch of pot-smoking Commie faggots!!!

Dave Green, at 9:47 am EDT on April 26, 2005

Horowitz

“The writer and Mr. Horowitz are similar in this regard: they write, like they are paid by the word. Both accuse the other of “lying.” Great — just what working-class parents struggling to send their child to college — a verbal pissing match of little personal value.”

This is precisely the kind of intellectual laziness and argumentative nihilism that pieces of work like Horowitz, Coulter, and their ilk count on: both sides make accusations, so both are either engaging in self-serving polemic, or both are guilty. No harm, no foul, and no need to actually get the facts. Not only mediamatters.org but also dailyhowler.com are excellent sources for exposing this abdication of the responsibilities of the mainstream media for precisely this lazy attitude. Bottom line: Horowitz is an intellectual bottom-feeder, and his critics, by and large, are not. That is a simple truth, and readily available to those not to afraid to confront it.

Paul A. Stark Jr., at 11:07 am EDT on April 27, 2005

not enough

“The only honorable way to combat Horowitz’s bullshit is by fully repudiating his modus operandi, and depending instead on the very wits, arguments and refutations that the Leninists repudiate.”

But this doesn’t work unless you can also bring to bear the critical aspect of the busllshitter’s arsenal: volume. The proof is the result of the last elections in which many outlets were regularly and definitively repudiating the lies and bullshit yet the public was (and is) still profoundly misinformed because the cries of truth were drowned in the vast ocean of bullshit. Until the truth sayers command sufficient broadcast volume to overcome the bullshit, we are lost. The lynch pins are the “main stream media” (i.e., the portion of the media that still genuinely pretends to objectivity, however inept) and the politicians, who timidly refuse to label a lie as a lie. How different would the debates have gone if Kerry had called the lies as they appeared. I believe he would have achieved more by saying “that’s a lie” than he did by simply stating the truth. Reagan is remembered for “there you go again” rather than the subject he was addressing at the time.

wai, at 11:07 am EDT on April 27, 2005

Thanks, that’s an excellent essay.

Horowitz is coming to speak at Columbia on Friday. I’ll show up and heckle, of course. The same newspeak “we’re the victims” approach has been used here, by students funded by the right-wing David Project and well connected to Horowitz, to attack a pro-Palestinian professor of Middle Eastern studies here, Joseph Massad. They’re supposedly intimidated in the classroom, despite the support of a bunch of pro-Israel lobbies, all the New York tabloid press, and recently the New York Times editorial page.

David, Columbia, at 2:16 pm EDT on April 27, 2005

Comrade: on your own time — not the state’s

Bottom line: Horowitz is an intellectual bottom-feeder, and his critics, by and large, are not. That is a simple truth, and readily available to those not to afraid to confront it.

Again: on your time, and on your own dime, comrade. The proletariat grow weary of your tiresome, bloviating diatribes.

Bored To Tears — Still, at 7:47 pm EDT on April 27, 2005

Horowitz wrong on Lenin

Does Horowitz provide a citation for Lenin’s so-called “injunction” about wiping political opponents off the face of the earth? It sounds an awful lot like a 1843 quote by Marx whose meaning is nowhere near Horowitz’s. Another lie, I suspect.

Great article by the way.

Sean Purdy, Assistant Professor at Temple University, at 8:44 pm EDT on April 27, 2005

Pol Pot, perhaps, comrade?

Whether Lenin, Horowitz, neither, both? Ask Dith Pran, photographer of The New York Times, about Communism, death, and “The Killing Fields.” He’d probably give you, an earful.

Mao Zedong had a special place for “academics” and “cultural lepers” he felt were “unproductive” — rural prison farms. I’m sure that Chairman Mao would have been amused by Mr. W.L. Churchill, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Moore, et al.

Commie Labor Camp Survivor, at 9:28 pm EDT on April 27, 2005

Horowitz the Liar

“Again: on your time, and on your own dime, comrade. The proletariat grow weary of your tiresome, bloviating diatribes.”

TRANSLATION:

“Don’t confuse me with facts. My mind is made up.”

[BTW, thanks to the author and editors for this thoughtful, well reasoned expose of Herr Horowitz.]

Everyday People, at 8:30 am EDT on April 28, 2005

Horowitz and Lenin

“Mao Zedong had a special place for “academics” and “cultural lepers” he felt were “unproductive” — rural prison farms. I’m sure that Chairman Mao would have been amused by Mr. W.L. Churchill, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Moore, et al.”

Precisely why such people should be valued—because criminals like Mao knew then—and their policical fellow-travelers know now—that the first step to controlling the truth is to eliminate any dissenting voices, especially persuasive and well-documented ones like Churchill, Chomsky, Zinn, Moore, et. al.

Paul A. Stark Jr., at 10:32 am EDT on April 28, 2005

Horowits on His Own Dime

“Again: on your time, and on your own dime, comrade. The proletariat grow weary of your tiresome, bloviating diatribes.”

If Horowitz and his critics are not on their “own dimes", then on whose dimes are they? As for “bloviating diatribes", the truth is the truth—get over it. Anybody too intellectually lazy to bother with the facts and takes a no harm-no foul attitude to something like this is in no position to criticize anybody else—the price for admission to that party is the willingness, obviously lacking in most of Horowitz’ defenders, to do the intellectual legwork obviously lacking in most of Horowitz’ defenders. As a result, they lump everybody into the same category of “bloviating diatribes” because it causes just too much of a headache to separate fact from fiction, truth from falsehood. The “proletariat” is beginning to grow weary of that, too.

Paul A. Stark Jr., at 10:33 am EDT on April 28, 2005

Regardless of what they say, the “Loud Mouths” are usually the winners in the political games.

Graham Kraken, at 10:33 am EDT on April 28, 2005

“Again: on your time, and on your own dime, comrade. The proletariat grow weary of your tiresome, bloviating diatribes.”

This is about as savvy as holding your hand over your opponents mouth during a debate. On my own time? I’m in my fucking pajamas surfing the internet on Spring Break! ...Horowitz is trying to drum up outrage for his breakthrough discovery that liberal political views are commonplace in our liberal arts colleges. It’s laughable, and then embarrassing, and then worrysome when you consider whose ears he’s got access to.

But again, if politics bother you, you may want to just off yourself. They seem to be inseparable from life.

ATM, On my own time, at 10:33 am EDT on April 28, 2005

Weasel FPM God. . .

I have been a frequent participant on the FPM (Front Page Magazine) site for over two years, and to try to give any sense as to the mendacity of Horowitz and the neo-fascistic tendencies that he inspires from his myrmidons is simply too much a Sisyphean task. Simply put: be afraid, be very afraid. He is behind a movement that tries to fuse ardent Zionism, Evangelical Christian sentiments, anti-Islamic, pro Big Business Neo Liberalism and a heathly dose of Red Baiting anticommunism that seems to prove quite a lure for the corporate controlled media to pick up on every once is a while. Beloved by other higher placed fascists, this Sciafe bankrolled moron is seeing his idiotic ideas (Academic Bill of Rights) paraded by not only Rove, but ole Jeb and will soon be at a college or university near you.

I would advice you to attack these ideas on Front Page Magazine, but weasel has been so effective that they’ve now instituted a screener who removes all posts not following the party line, despite an absence of offensive words (just offensive ideas). It’s a sad, sad world that these people are creating, and if you’re really successful at trying to speak truth to power or make the world a better place, you’ll be prominently featured on his DiscovertheNetwork.com, another attempt to revive McCarthy and return to the days of black lists and people prosecuted under the Alien and Sedition Acts.

the legendary weasel, at 10:34 am EDT on April 28, 2005

Horor Wits

Unitl public debate shifts from exclusive critism of “evil messangers” while it ignores the “receivers” of those messages I’m afraid the struggle is in vain. Battling Horowitz and those of his ilk while ignoring his audience (including those effected by any policy that comes out of his “will to power” while never taking their collective heads out of the sand) is analogous to pointing a finger at the local drug dealer while NEVER addressing his MANY clients need to buy what he’s selling. Hasn’t the failed “War on Drugs” taught us anything?

RJ Elliott, Rational Discourse, at 12:25 pm EDT on April 28, 2005

McCarthy Lives!

Horrorshow’s tactics are the same as Joe McCarthy’s, surf the news cycle with your outrageous lies and depend upon it not to let the truth catch up with you. This was why the Army-McCarthy Hearings had to be televised, because they realized that if the hearings weren’t McCarthy would run outside and give HIS spin on what was going on to the media, which would have to publicize it. Let’s remember that a lot of principled Conservatives like Stewart and Joseph Alsop opposed McCarthy as well.

Remember the scene in “The Manchurian Candidate,” where the McCarthyite Senator is given the number of “57″ putative Communists in the State Department off a catsup bottle, simply because it’s as good as any? That’s Horrorshow.

Montag, at 12:25 pm EDT on April 28, 2005

Well done. It is not going to change Mr. Horowitz’s “mind” at all, but the importance of this kind of effort is to provide a nontechnical explanation that most people can relate to.

Dan Raphael, at 3:02 pm EDT on April 28, 2005

Bored To Tears By Bored To Tears

“Again: on your time, and on your own dime, comrade. The proletariat grow weary of your tiresome, bloviating diatribes.”

“Bored To Tears:”

I think it’s safe to assume that the author did write the article on his own time, and yes, I would assume that he was paid, thus the web site posted the articel on their own “dime.”

If you have such a problem with an author and publisher freely choosing to exchange the author’s work for the publisher’s money, perhaps you’d be happier in Russia helping Vladimir Putin reinstate the old Soviet Union, since, after all, you seem so adept at divining the feelings of the proletarian masses.

rkaercher, Bored To Tears By Bored To Tears, at 3:02 pm EDT on April 28, 2005

YOU CANNOT LIE IF YOU HAVE NO CONCEPT OF THE TRUTH

Graham Larkin, I THINK, goes to great lengths to obfuscate the very simple point of this very brilliant and brief essay.

“BULLSHIT”

IF YOU HAVE NO CONCEPT OF THE TRUTH, YOU CAN NEVER LIE.

You are so focused on the end results that you “DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT”

OBJECTIVITY AND OBJECTIVE FACTS AND REASONING——THERE ARE NO TRUTHS ONLY STORIES

Herein lies the brilliance of SPIN AND THOSE WHO HAVE MASTERED THE ART FORM.

Do they lie or is it simply BULLSHIT.

The essay claims they are simply BULLSHIT ARTISTS because they have no concept of the truth.

IN ORDER TO LIE, you must understand what the truth is or might be and have some regard for it.

IF you have no regard for the truth and are completely unconcerned. How could you ever lie?

TECHNICALLY, it is not even prosecutable in a COURT OF LAW if the situation called for a prosecution...

Is it a lie, a partial lie, a complete fabrication or SIMPLY A POINT OF VIEW?

Only a handful of people in our court system ever get prosecuted for perjury every year and that is usually after they flipped on a PLEA ARRANGEMENT with the prosecution.

KEN SIKORA, at 4:04 pm EDT on April 28, 2005

Girly-men Volvo Utopians

“Precisely why such people should be valued—because criminals like Mao ..”

Oh, yes. Mao was a “Commie meany” and you girly-men Volvo Utopians will be “Commie sweeties.” Mao laughed at Chomsky-ites in the ’60s and he’d be laughing now — talkers and not implementers, grant-seekers and not party-builders.

Lifelong Center-ist, at 4:09 pm EDT on April 28, 2005

David Horiwitz

Davis is a fecund author and writes well. Unfortunately, it seems he did not pay close attention to content of what was being said in class back in the time. It really shows. Maybe he was too busy protesting in those days and missed some key points in his education.

Tom Lowe, sole proprietor at postalviews, at 5:03 pm EDT on April 28, 2005

neo-conservatism

Here’s a link to an article I wrote a while back, about one of the more bizarre minor-league neo-cons, Stephen Schwartz; a guy who is fond of describing himself as playing the role of Robin to David Horowitz’s Batman:

http://www.infoshop.org/myep/munis_meese.html

Kevin Keating, A bargain basement David Horowitz, at 9:38 pm EDT on April 28, 2005

To Lifelong Center-ist

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and especially the neo-clowns Wolfowitz, Perle, Libby, Feith, et. al are the epitome of Girly-mannishness. These loathsome cowards avoided serving in Vietnam (or in Rumsfeld’s case, Korea) while vocally supporting that disaster of a war. Now, these soft, pampered chickenhawk wimps have the gall to send American troops and Iraqi civilians to their deaths for the sake of corporate profits and the agenda of the Israeli right wing. These aren’t just girly-men, they’re hypocrites.

Neocons Begone, Pots and Kettles, at 4:38 am EDT on April 29, 2005

my reply to FrontPage and its writer Debbie Schlussel

Ms Schlussel I read about the magazine your’re associated with being “indifferent” at the bare minimum regarding the murdered American woman who was “helping” the other side. War and killing and death....so long as its the other side... Traitorious and treasonous American peaceniks...they mean nothing...either do thier lives evidently... The article on antiwar.com http://www.antiwar.com/orig/jfrank.php?articleid=5735 today used the word “callous” to describe you and your magazine... is that too “callous” of a word to describe YOUR INDIFFERENCE ne TOLERANCE of the MURDER of an American who tried to stop the killing...that YOU and YOUR fellow CALLOUS warmaking INTERVENTIONISTS tolerate and condone????? Go ahead and force..oops export YOUR DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM at the end of a gun...see where that gets US...are you satisfied with ONLY 1600 killed American servicepeople to export YOUR DEMOCRACY?? or is that enough??? Your indifference to 1 girl trying to stop the fighting “...While it’s a sad day when any American gets killed by Islamic terrorists, it’s measurably less sad when that American aided and abetted them. … For Marla Ruzicka, some might call it, poetic justice.” and being killed ("POETIC JUSTICE"????) or 1600 dead fellow Americans being killed FOR WHATEVER REASON YOU CAN COME UP WITH(OR ARE TOLD TO BLINDLY AND UNSERVINGLY ACCEPT AND SUPPORT) is very callous...wonder what kind of poetry you or your “some” like.......probably that underated and “poetic” Lars from Metallica.... you warmakers...will YOU inherit the earth????? Eagerly and patiently awaiting a timely and hopefully not a monosyllabic tirade repeating the LIES of the Administration and your magazine! reply.....Chris Bieber

READ THIS!!!! The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. – James Madison ...how true today in America

Chris Bieber, law clerk, at 4:38 am EDT on April 29, 2005

Berube’s a girly-man radical

“see Michael Berube’s blog for a lot of good stuff on Horowitz”

If M. Berube had any real talent and gumption, he’d quit academia, and join the masses in the struggle. Another girly-man radical-wannabe with a million-dollar public-sector pension, who’s totally full of B.S., viz. Mr. W.L. Churchill.

Vietnam vet on 25% disability, at 11:35 am EDT on April 29, 2005

“Rational Discourse” revealed

This could be 1,000 words of multiple syllables and bore the American working-class to death .. at the end of the day, allegations of “rational discourse” from the Hiliary crowd involve:

Raise taxes to 45% of GDP. Hire and tenure the politically loyal. “Re-educate” dissenters and seize their property without their permission. Pack the Supreme Court, if necessary (see F.D.R.).Concentrate power in the Ivy League.

We know what you are trying to do. You will never succeed.

Ayn Rand fan, at 7:09 am EDT on April 30, 2005

Someone please wake me up when the high-volume, low-content reactionary writing against David Horowitz, like this article, finally subsides.

There are some points that Horowitz makes well that nobody else bothers to think about (e.g., the concept of intellectual diversity on college campuses) and some things he says that are highly questionable and easily refuted (e.g., supporting the enactment of the Academic Bill of Rights into law). Fine. Attack the bad points and keep an open mind about the good ones. But for crying out loud, titling an essay about a “War on Rational Discourse” — and then filling the essay full of content-free invective like the oh-so-popular “neocon” label and “bull****” (since when is cursing part of “rational discourse"?) — does not move your ideas in the right direction, or really in any direction. You just come off as badly-thought-out as the person you’re attacking. (Because you are attacking the PERSON.)

One could take these articles about Horowitz and almost make a drinking game out of them — one shot every time you see the label “neo-con", three shots if Horowitz and Coulter are mentioned in the same sentence, etc.

And please, insidehighered.com editors, let’s have a few less articles about how Horowitz threatens the very lifeblood of the academy, etc. They stick out like a sore thumb among articles that are insightful and interesting.

Robert Talbert, Asst. Prof. or Mathematics, at 10:12 am EDT on May 1, 2005

Finding a balance

Do we spend too much time in these debates on gibes and sarcasm? Detailing specific examples of bullshit has greater impact than several paragraphs of hyperbole.

Horowitz may indeed cite false or misleading examples. He deserves correction when he does. But our emotional responses shouldn’t put us in ideological blinders of our own. Anyone who thinks classroom indoctrination does not occur(from left and right) may want to read the following OCR letter ruling (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights):

http://www.nacua.org/documents/UNC_OCR_Letter.pdf One example, of course, isn’t an argument. But, if your campus is like mine, the language used by the teacher in this instance is widespread and commonplace. Should we be surprised when it is tied to coercion in the classroom? We’re healthy skeptics about so many issues, except our own biases.

Likewise, Ward Churchill has just returned from adoring audiences in Hawaii. Legitimate issues are being raised about his accuracy and honesty:

http://www.colorado.edu/news/reports/churchill/report.html

Do our bullshit detectors scan in only one direction?

gary Pavela, at 10:13 am EDT on May 1, 2005

Left-wing thugs’ war on rationality

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/...splay.v/ART/2005/04/18/426364779c914

Six students were arrested at the University of Texas School of Law last Wednesday while protesting a speech by right-wing author David Horowitz. Horowitz, the author of the Academic Bill of Rights, had been speaking about academic freedom at an event sponsored by the Texas Federalist Society. The Daily Texan reported that protesters interrupted the speech by holding signs, yelling, and using air horns. Anastasia Breloff, the president of the Texas Federalist Society, said that the activists were warned to stop multiple times.

“Protesters chose to disrupt Mr. Horowitz’s lecture by moving threateningly toward the stage, shouting at the speaker, and blowing foghorns and other noise-making devices,” she said in a statement published in The Daily Texan. The six protesters were arrested and jailed under the misdemeanor charge of disrupting a meeting or procession. All were released late Thursday afternoon.

Not paying 4 academic dreck, at 9:52 pm EDT on May 1, 2005

Sinking Deep in Drivel

I know I will be vilified as being “old-fashioned” or worse, but when so-called intellectual discourse is filled with such highbrow words as “bullshit,” I must protest. Don’t get me wrong; I use such language everyday — but in the right company. I don’t print it in public places or spew it out when in line for a table at a restaurant. In short, I use it among friends and mostly for effect. But as I intimated in my opening sentence, I must be way out of step with the rest of the world. Too bad.

marty, at 6:48 pm EDT on May 2, 2005

Hypocrisy

This article certainly proves all the points Horowitz has been bringing to the public’s attention. Such hyperbole, hysteria and potty-mouth language. Is this the best academe has to offer our children? Could a conservative make it in this guy’s class?

Norma, Faculty Emeritus, at 12:45 pm EDT on May 3, 2005

James D. Miller

James D. Miller and Rational Discourse, now that’s an oxymoron in the making.

If ranting, inane prattle, as expressed by Mr. Miller, passes as “Rational Discourse” in today’s institutions of higher learning then our future is looking pretty bleak indeed.

Carl, at 8:39 pm EDT on May 3, 2005

Missing the Point?

I’m a random passerby who followed a couple of links here. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m a libertarian, but a relative nobody—just a grad student who has a question.

If we take away all of the Horowitz hype and pretend that there was an organic movement by a majority of students to implement a “Bill of Rights” that says students wouldn’t be graded based on their political or religious orientations but their mastery of ideas and concepts, would professors be willing to honor it? I think that’s the much bigger issue here that is being ignored.

Horowitz is crazy, to be sure, but all Larkin does here is tear down the man, which isn’t that hard. Larkin doesn’t address at all the substance of the underlying debate, which is that all to often, right-leaning students can’t get a fair shake in the classroom. I would think that a publication on higher education would want to address something like that, rather than devoting space to attacking someone who is so obviously crazy as Horowitz.

Robert K, Student at American U, at 10:15 am EDT on May 4, 2005

REPLY FROM GRAHAM LARKIN TO ROBERT K

Dear Robert K,

As the author of the above article, I feel I can offer some further clarification. “Relative nobody” or not, yours are the sanest and most productive comments on this thread (not to mention some of the hate e-mails I’ve been receiving), so thanks for your thoughts.

Of course it is utterly repugnant for a professor to grade students on the basis of their political or religious orientations. Universities should do their best to ensure that this never happens. But one cannot safeguard against professorial prejudice by legislating intellectual “diversity” or ideological balance, as Horowitz hopes to do with the more troubling parts of his affirmative action campaign. Such regulations would only lead to the chilling or perversion of open discourse.

For some detailed criticisms of the ABOR, follow the first link in paragraph 7 above. You’ll notice that the present article, with its exclusive focus on Horowitz’s modus operandi, is but one small part of a more extensive campaign against the ABOR.

Wishing you the open-minded education you deserve,

Graham Larkin, at 5:53 pm EDT on May 4, 2005

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David Horowitz’s War on Rational Discourse

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Larkin’s “Arguments”

touche!

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re:Aaron Lercher

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not enough

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Horowitz wrong on Lenin

Pol Pot, perhaps, comrade?

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Horowitz and Lenin

Horowits on His Own Dime

Weasel FPM God. . .

Horor Wits

McCarthy Lives!

Bored To Tears By Bored To Tears

YOU CANNOT LIE IF YOU HAVE NO CONCEPT OF THE TRUTH

Girly-men Volvo Utopians

David Horiwitz

neo-conservatism

To Lifelong Center-ist

my reply to FrontPage and its writer Debbie Schlussel

further reading

Berube’s a girly-man radical

“Rational Discourse” revealed

Finding a balance

Left-wing thugs’ war on rationality

Sinking Deep in Drivel

Hypocrisy

James D. Miller

Missing the Point?

REPLY FROM GRAHAM LARKIN TO ROBERT K

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