On Tue, 29 Dec 1998 17:44:52 -0600 "John K. Taber" <jktaber at onramp.net>
writes:
>
>> Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1998 18:54:37 -0800 (PST)
>> From: "C. Petersen" <ottilie at u.washington.edu>
>> Subject: heterodoxy
>>
>> my relative has been listening to too much Rush Limbaugh and
>> subscribed to
>> 'heterodoxy' a newspaper put out by David Horowitz, written
>> in about size
>> 14 type. I admit I'm a bit prejudiced against this guy
>
>Horowitz, I take it? I read one piece by him in Salon and IMHO
>he is detestable. Don't even remember what I read.
Yes, Horowitz is detestable but he used to be a leftist and indeed came from a 'red-diaper' background. He was also a protoge of the Marxist historian Isaac Deutscher, and he achieved notoriety in left-wing circles back in the '60s as an editor at Ramparts magazine. He also wrote or edited a number of books back then, some of which were published by Monthly Review Press. Some like his _Marx and Modern Economics_ are still rather useful BTW.
>
>> The works
>> of von Mises,
>> Hayek, Aron, Popper, Oakeshott, Sowell, Strauss, Bloom, Kirk,
>> Kristol and
>> other anti-socialist thinkers are virtually unknown on the
>> Left,
>
>Popper? I'm not very knowledgeable but I did read The Open
>Society, and I just don't see it as anti-socialist.
>
>And which Kristol? Maybe I'm being unkind but I see Irving
>Kristol more as a right-wing propagandist than a thinker.
>I don't see him in Popper's class at all.
No, Kristol is really little more than a popularizer with rather limited academic credentials, although he does hold some sort of academic chair. Horowitz's claim that leftists don't know about thinkers like Popper, Araon, Strauss, Hayek et al. is laughable. Right on this list there is a subscriber, Justin Schwartz who has referred to himself as a "Hayekian Marxist." Over a year ago on the marxism-thaxis list there ran a rather long thread on Popper and Marxism (initiated by myself BTW). I can recall Strauss & Bloom being discussed on the original Marxism List at Jefferson Village. I can't recall much discussion of Oakeshott but I doubt that many conservative intellectuals outside of Britain are very familiar with his work. One could say that this statement perhaps tells us more about Horowitz's ignorance than it does about contemporary leftists. On the other hand Horowitz is not by any stretch of the imagination an ignorant man. I think he is just trying to flatter his newfound right-wing friends. This is also a bit laughable since I find few conservatives who have actually read authors either. Probably, Horowitz is trying to flatter them by treating them as if they actually read serious books. I suspect there are more leftists who are familiar with the rightist thinkers that Horowitz cites than rightists who are familar with the writings of major left-wing thinkers.
Jim Farmelant
>
>But I sure would appreciate other people's comments. Maybe
>I just haven't read enough or didn't understand what I read.
>
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