> I do not think that Mr. Horowitz jumping ship is a good metaphor. I think
> he stayed the course using any ship going in that direction. That
> "direction" is being a career Verbal Hit Man (VHM), making a living by
> smearing and assassinating the character of others. Louis Proyect seems to
> be of the same persuasion - the only difference is that Horowitz got hired
> by the right, whereas Proyect remains largely unemployed.
I've read Horowitz's books and some of his articles. I think I've come up with a good pyschological explanation of his motivations. Somebody yesterday came up with an interesting take on his guilt concerning Horowitz's association with the black panthers, but I think at the basic level Horowtiz is an insecure egomaniac who craves attention and credit.
The best way to retaliate against him (other than ridicule) is to point out that he is a marginal academic figure with an inflated past.
I was reading one of his recent books (which I didn't bother finishing because it was so bad) and I noticed that the first part of the book devotes large numbers of pages to establishing Horowitz's academic reputation and history with the Left. I consider myself to be quite well read about the history of dissent in the 1960s and I had never read anything about Horowitz's involvement in the activism of that period. Of course, I knew that he had been a leftist during that time, but his name was never mentioned in any of the histories I read of that time. If it was mentioned, it was as a footnote.
Horowitz's obsession with Noam Chomsky and his disruption of college campuses demonstrate the huge chip on his shoulder concerning his academic reputation. Horowitz wants people to take him seriously as an academic and major intellectual figure. Of course, the crap he posts to his website each weekday pretty much undermines whatever academic reputation he has left. I can't see Horowitz getting hired at any university with the public evidence of his intellectual dishonesty displayed on his website. Ultimately, I think the best way to diss Horowitz is to say that a year of his work cannot compare to Chomsky on a bad hair day.
Horowitz is a fucking joke and I doubt that anybody will remember him twenty years from now.
Chris Doss writes:
>> Why doesn't somebody sue this guy? It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to get him for defamation of character.
I can't speak to the legal efficacy of such a strategy, but it should be understood that cockroaches such as Horowitz thrive on attention. The more attention they get, negative or positive, swells their ego. Egomaniacs such as David Horowitz have an addiction to public attention. Like any addict, he will do anything to keep generating attention, even if it includes publishing defamations of people everyday. Horowitz reminds me very much of the infamous racist Bill White, whose attention-seeking behaviors paralleled Horowitz right down to making up stories about leftists.
If Horowitz was a more minor person than he is currently, the left could marginalzie him simply by ignoring him. Shunning attention-seekers is a difficult although highly effective tactic.
Chuck