Symposium: Radical Son: The Ten Year Anniversary
The year 1997 marked the tenth anniversary of the publication of David Horowtiz’s autobiography Radical Son. Upon its publication, the memoir was immediately recognized as the most important literary memoir by anyone from the 60s generation. Radical Son has earned a place among the best in the genre of ex-revolutionary literature, a company that includes Chambers’ Witness, Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon and George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The author’s achievement prompted George Gilder to call Horowitz’s book “the first great American autobiography of his generation.”
With the year of the tenth anniversary of Radical Son’s publication having just passed, Frontpage Symposium has assembled a distinguished panel to discuss the meaning of the memoir. Today we ask: what explains Gilder’s comment about the memoir? And has Radical Son stood the test of time?
Our guests today are:
Paul Hollander, an expert on anti-Americanism and the author of two masterpiece works on the psychology of the Left: Political Pilgrims and Anti-Americanism. He has gathered together an unprecedented volume consisting of more than forty personal memoirs of Communist repression from dissidents across the world in the new book From the Gulag to the Killing Fields: Personal Accounts of Political Violence and Repression in Communist States. His latest book is The End of Commitment: Intellectuals, Revolutionaries, and Political Morality in the Twentieth Century.
Philip Terzian, the Literary Editor at The Weekly Standard.
Douglas Murray, a bestselling author and commentator based in the UK. His most recent book is the critically acclaimed Neoconservatism: Why We Need It. He appears regularly on the television and radio across Europe and America. He is a trustee of the newly founded European Freedom Fund and a member of the Advisory Board of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. He is the Director of the Centre for Social Cohesion in Westminster, London.
Claudia Anderson, the managing editor of The Weekly Standard.
***
FP: Paul Hollander, Philip Terzian, Douglas Murray and Claudia Anderson, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.
Paul Hollander, let me begin with you.
Your view on Gilder’s description of Radical Son? And do you think the memoir has stood the test of time?
Hollander: I do think that it stood the test of time very well and has very few counterparts. Actually it is an exceptional document because most other members of David Horowitz’s generation refrained from similar soul searching, refusing to confront their youthful illusions and delusions. Thus it is quite unrepresentative (but not uninformative) of his generation.
Presumably, Gilder called it a great autobiography of his generation because of its authenticity and the light it shed on the subculture and ethos of the radical activists and true believers of the period. Moreover it helps to grasp both the differences and (the more often ignored) similarities between the new and old left. It also is enormously informative of other important figures, fellow radicals and their mindset; not only a credible and often moving autobiography and memoir but a rich social history.
FP: Thank you Prof. Hollander. Let me follow up for a moment: in the introduction. Horowitz noted that the people who could benefit most from it -- young leftists like himself – would never read it. Was he right?
Hollander: It is of course very hard to know who read a particular book and who did not but it is very likely that many of his contemporaries and fellow radicals would refuse to read such a book. And in the unlikely event if they read it, they would reject it or scorn it. I suspect that most left-of-center publications (e.g. Nation, Village Voice, NYR of Books) did not review it or if they did managed to dismiss it. People avoid the kind of information that conflicts with their deeply held beliefs.
FP: To be sure, the Left ignored Radical Son or instead completely castigated it without considering its main themes and arguments. Yes, people avoid the kind of information that conflicts with their deeply held beliefs. But the Left has a special talent in subordinating reality to utopian dreams....
Read entire article at Jamie Glazov at frontpagemag.com
With the year of the tenth anniversary of Radical Son’s publication having just passed, Frontpage Symposium has assembled a distinguished panel to discuss the meaning of the memoir. Today we ask: what explains Gilder’s comment about the memoir? And has Radical Son stood the test of time?
Our guests today are:
Paul Hollander, an expert on anti-Americanism and the author of two masterpiece works on the psychology of the Left: Political Pilgrims and Anti-Americanism. He has gathered together an unprecedented volume consisting of more than forty personal memoirs of Communist repression from dissidents across the world in the new book From the Gulag to the Killing Fields: Personal Accounts of Political Violence and Repression in Communist States. His latest book is The End of Commitment: Intellectuals, Revolutionaries, and Political Morality in the Twentieth Century.
Philip Terzian, the Literary Editor at The Weekly Standard.
Douglas Murray, a bestselling author and commentator based in the UK. His most recent book is the critically acclaimed Neoconservatism: Why We Need It. He appears regularly on the television and radio across Europe and America. He is a trustee of the newly founded European Freedom Fund and a member of the Advisory Board of the European Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. He is the Director of the Centre for Social Cohesion in Westminster, London.
Claudia Anderson, the managing editor of The Weekly Standard.
***
FP: Paul Hollander, Philip Terzian, Douglas Murray and Claudia Anderson, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.
Paul Hollander, let me begin with you.
Your view on Gilder’s description of Radical Son? And do you think the memoir has stood the test of time?
Hollander: I do think that it stood the test of time very well and has very few counterparts. Actually it is an exceptional document because most other members of David Horowitz’s generation refrained from similar soul searching, refusing to confront their youthful illusions and delusions. Thus it is quite unrepresentative (but not uninformative) of his generation.
Presumably, Gilder called it a great autobiography of his generation because of its authenticity and the light it shed on the subculture and ethos of the radical activists and true believers of the period. Moreover it helps to grasp both the differences and (the more often ignored) similarities between the new and old left. It also is enormously informative of other important figures, fellow radicals and their mindset; not only a credible and often moving autobiography and memoir but a rich social history.
FP: Thank you Prof. Hollander. Let me follow up for a moment: in the introduction. Horowitz noted that the people who could benefit most from it -- young leftists like himself – would never read it. Was he right?
Hollander: It is of course very hard to know who read a particular book and who did not but it is very likely that many of his contemporaries and fellow radicals would refuse to read such a book. And in the unlikely event if they read it, they would reject it or scorn it. I suspect that most left-of-center publications (e.g. Nation, Village Voice, NYR of Books) did not review it or if they did managed to dismiss it. People avoid the kind of information that conflicts with their deeply held beliefs.
FP: To be sure, the Left ignored Radical Son or instead completely castigated it without considering its main themes and arguments. Yes, people avoid the kind of information that conflicts with their deeply held beliefs. But the Left has a special talent in subordinating reality to utopian dreams....