A Point in Time: An Interview with David Horowitz
Be not troubled, for all things are according to nature and in a little while you will be no one and nowhere. – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
People usually associate David Horowitz, former radical leftist and founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, with the intellectual pugilism that has made him the nemesis of the left, in books such as Indoctrination U: The Left’s War Against Academic Freedom and Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left. But his new book A Point In Time caps an unofficial trilogy of lyrical meditations that began with The End of Time, then progressed through A Cracking of the Heart. In his latest, he uses the works of Marcus Aurelius and Fyodor Dostoevsky as starting points for his own intimate reflections on meaning and mortality.
Mark Tapson: How does this new book relate to your previous work?
David Horowitz: Most of my writings are engagements in the battles of our time. They are books designed to defend free societies in the face of the assault the left has mounted against them. I have written books to support individual rights and therefore property rights, and racial tolerance, and to uphold intellectual standards and intellectual freedom. My new book has a different inspiration, and in that way is a kind of sequel to another I wrote in the wake of 9/11.
A month after the Islamic attacks, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which brought me up against the wall of my own mortality. I was fortunate enough to survive this round in a war we are all destined to lose, but it changed the way I looked at myself and the world. It caused me to step back and take in our human predicament, and to think about how we address it. The book I then began to write about these matters was different in both substance and tone from the other books I had written. I called it The End of Time. It was partly memoir and partly a reflection on what I had learned.
My new book, A Point in Time, is also partly memoir and partly reflections. It attempts to look at who we are as transient actors in all these dramas, and to consider what they mean to us. It is a summing up of what I have learned over the course of a lifetime.
The subtitle of this book is “The Search for Redemption in this Life and the Next,” which is the way I sum up the escapes we attempt from the no-win situation that mortality imposes on us. Our quests for happiness, for fame, and especially for a “better world” are efforts to distract ourselves from the fact that our lives are meaningless, and that life is meaningless, and that one day all our achievements and all of the achievements of mankind itself will disappear and be forgotten.
MT: You begin by describing your daily interaction with your dogs and horses, and return time and again to them in the book. Why did they serve as inspiration and points of reference for the meditations in this book?
DH: Our predicament lies in the fact that while we are animals and share in their fate, we alone among living creatures are aware of it. My dogs are my connection to my animal self. Observing how they go through life brings me to earth along with my all too human illusions.
MT: Marcus Aurelius and his Stoic acceptance of the stark reality that one day we will all die and be forgotten was “a practical wisdom,” as you call it. But “in his heart of hearts,” you write, “not even a Stoic can live with the thought that all his efforts are without meaning and that every trace of him will one day vanish.” The best way to make sense of our lives is “by inhabiting stories that have no end.” Can you elaborate on that?
DH: If we were to really face the fact of our irrelevance — that we are going to disappear without a trace and everything we do and know and care about will come to an end and be forgotten — if we were to keep that in front of us every minute of every day we would be completely paralyzed. Nothing we did or felt would matter. How could we get on with our lives? We couldn’t. So we tell ourselves stories that have no end, and we live inside them. “I will love you forever,” “we will never forget you,” “history is a progress towards better tomorrows” — all lies. But all necessary to sustain an ordinary human existence.
Holding and rocking your grandchild makes all life meaningful. Worrying about that which you cannot control makes life miserable (for you and everyone around you.) Be still!
Barbara -You are right on the money… before they arrived how could anybody know the power of grandchildren’s presence? Its amazing…
I’m sure that children and grandchildren bring much joy to life.
Procreation cannot be the meaning of life, because we know that the Earth and the universe itself will die a heat death. You cannot create meaning without immortality.
Sure you can. Well, I can, anyway.
I hope you have good placebos conjured up. Pure atheism means emptiness and despair.
DH says, “Who could possibly argue that the world is more just, safer, more morally decent today than it was fifty or five hundred years ago?”
It seems to me that many people could argue that, beginning with women, former slaves, and people who used to die before age fifty. Yes, we know only too well how imperfect the world still is. Part of the issue is the outrage now felt at things which were accepted in previous times.
In DH terms, I suppose that it is possible that people were happier 500 years ago, because they were a little closer to his dogs and horses and less aware of all the bad things out there to menace them or their children.
We need the guvment to help us and we need people like DH to remind us that the guvment is not run by saints. So it goes.
The root of why liberals are always 100 percent wrong about everything lies in the fact that they cannot accept the obvious fact that we are inherently fallible beings who live in a fallen world.
OBJECTIVE/SUBJECTIVE REALITY
I lecture a few days a month at a local University in Naples on two subjects: the Odd Couple Syndrome and Illusions and Transitions.
Each time I do the class on Illusions and Transitions (usually about 15 adult students) I always find a general resistance to the idea that all of us live in sequential Illusions which are interrupted by periods of transitions or disorientation. When I introduce the idea of Illusions, they often react with, “I don’t live in an Illusion…I live in reality.”
I understand the fear that invokes …by the time the class is over, by using many examples and elaborations they leave mostly convinced, but by the following week, they are just as much in denial.
Now, last week, I had a wakeful sleep and I came up with another interpretation of the phenomena:
Think Objective Reality/Subjective Reality. All “illusions” are merely subjective reality (the way each of us perceive life within our own constructed borders, often influenced by culture, but not always.)
Objective Reality is the way things are; things we don’t control…climate, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, accidents not of our making, (a sinking ship like the Titanic, a man walking down a city street and is hit by a falling concrete pediment, cancer, a stroke)
Subjective Reality (Illusions) is a built-in defense against Objective Reality. Objective Reality is the way the world is. No one can consciously experience that on a daily basis.
If you ask anyone if they live in “Reality” they would say “Of course.” Which is, of course, not true. They live in Subjective Reality. That is why when an Illusion dies and they necessarily go into a Transition there is so much fear, uneasiness, and impatience to find another “illusion” – because you are left with raw Objective Reality.
Addendum
Assuming this is true, that each of us has this Subjective Reality that we believe is the real thing, and even if we believe in the corner of our minds that danger lurks around every corner we don’t live that way because it is too scary.
Instead we invent a thousand different familiar illusions which we call “reality” but it is really Subjective Reality.
Belonging to a church or congregation and praying once a week or five times a day does not affect Objective Reality. One person or five hundred people praying for rain does not make the difference.
If every person in a relationship, a group of similar interests, like a political party, a photography club, and ethnic group share the same Subjective Reality for a long period, over time it will change for some at different times and the cohesion will be affected. A marriage which starts with mutual Subjective Reality might experience a break with the shared Subjective Reality either singularly or mutually, each in different directions at different times.
My teen-age belief and involvement with the Communist Party which I shared with many other young people at the time was seen as a betrayal of our shared Subjective Reality when I changed my ideas about Marxism and left the Party.
Thirty years later I came in contact with a former Comrade with whom I had been very close at the time. We socialized for a few weeks and found we both were living in different worlds. He was still living the Subjective Reality of the Communist Party even through all the twists and turns of policy changes, lies, corruption and the demise of the USSR. He considered me an enemy who threatened his Subjective Reality.
This whole theory, idea, observation I have studied is little known as a strong factor in the clash of relationships. Objective reality remains fairly constant, Subjective Reality is in constant flux.
What makes for the changes? People find that their Subjective Reality is not working as a defense against Objective Reality. An accident, or mental breakdown, or boredom, or children leave home, retirement, loss of a job, one spouse falls out of love with the other who needs more, all these things can happen and yet with some people there will be no reevaluation of their Subjective Reality. Sometimes the fear of letting go of their way of thinking is so frightening that they will perpetuate their old Illusion… which does not really allow them to make necessary changes to improve their situation but are viewed as a better solution than going into a transition.
Recognition that a change of Subjective Reality is important can lead to opening up a broader experience of life and even help during a time of crisis to know there is another way to thinking about life which brings one into a higher level of consciousness even though a period of upsetting transition may be necessary.
Selwyn Mills author of “Dreams of Lucifer and Barack Obama” and “Confessions of a Color-blind House Painter”
Baloney!
Wow, what an insightful disclaimer of the comment. Do you even realize that you proved what the above comment stated? Probably not.
Coeurmaeghan in 29 Palms
You say, “Belonging to a church or congregation and praying once a week or five times a day does not affect Objective Reality. One person or five hundred people praying for rain does not make the difference.”
That is your subjective reality. Mine is that it can under certain conditions. I have come to this conclusion reluctantly, somewhat like you giving up Marxism.
The evidence for psychic gifts is so widespread and present in every culture that to disbelieve is a leap of faith that boggles my own imagination. I have come to believe that God speaks to all people in all cultures and through the highest and best of every religion. While I am a Christian, I now know that there will be Buddhists and Moslems and heathens in heaven.
In the innocent mind all things are possible. The sophisticated mind sees little is possible. And so it becomes true with each mind.
Hi Lynn,
You seem some kind of universalist, and that is problematic with Christianity.
You can say that people of other religions have moral knowledge, and ability to reason, and have some sense of higher being who is worthy of worship. But to make the leap that every religion leads to heaven is not warranted if you’re a Christian.
Christianity teaches that God has given us moral knowledge in the form of commands, which are binding on every human being, not just Christians. The failure to follow these commands leads to separation from God, which can be permanent after death. This is the worst possible outcome for a human being.
Jesus Christ incarnated to this world in order to carry the sins of humanity, and trough His sacrifice receive everlasting life in the presence of God. To deny the deity of Christ (what every other religion does) means that they cannot receive His sacrifice, and are naked with their sins before God. I feel sorry for these people.
Another point is that rejecting Christ means rejecting God, which is a violation of the first commandment. So as much as I want every human being to live in peace and love in heaven, I cannot follow your reasoning.
Seems to me that if belief in Jesus were a requirement to go to heaven, and most religions reject this, or haven’t even heard about it yet, then God really needs to open a PR department. Doesn’t seem to be able to get the information “out there” very effectively for an omniscient, all powerful being.
Those poor, poor babies in Somalia. Haven’t heard about Jesus. Going to die of starvation and then burn in hell forever. I feel sorry for them. Honey, what’s for supper? I hope it’s lasagna! Do we have a nice bottle of wine to open?
Religions are only specific ways to approach God. In Germany, the Catholic and the Protestant Churches are very active and very good organized in helping people. Hunger and famine are the result of failed states, wars and environmental factors. Furthermore, some regions in Est Africa seem to have enough food, but there are problems of distribution – farmers have no opportunity to sell their products. Concerning starvation, both, the family of my husband and mine faced tragedy after World war II. That’s why we are very eager to help people, especially children.
I comment on Christianity, others can defend their religions if they want.
“Seems to me that if belief in Jesus were a requirement to go to heaven,”
If you can live a perfect life, I guess you can get to heaven without the grace of Jesus. He came to Earth for save sinners, not for people who are perfect (or think they are).
“and most religions reject this,”
This is exactly not news that Christianity differs from other religions.
Doesn’t seem to be able to get the information “out there” very effectively for an omniscient, all powerful being.
I believe He has inspired many people trough-out history to get His will known to man-kind. And I think this is the most reliable way, when you seriously think about it. He also has given human beings conscience, or a compass for moral knowledge, the existence of which can lead some people to Him.
“Those poor, poor babies in Somalia. Haven’t heard about Jesus. Going to die of starvation and then burn in hell forever. I feel sorry for them. Honey, what’s for supper? I hope it’s lasagna! Do we have a nice bottle of wine to open?”
You point out why the preaching of gospel and missionary work is important. I’m much more sorry for people who have heard it, and after that reject it without thinking about it. But in the end, God cannot force anyone to believe in Him, or to receive his grace, because we have free will.
It is funny, isn’t it Claire, that only Chrisitan and Jewish civilizations were able to completely eradicate the hunger problem to the point where obseity became the number one problem and no citizen dies of hunger unless hidden from society.
Too bad those Somali kids weren’t born in a Christian society. Chances are they would not have been hungry in the first place. Maybe some Christian missionaries will come in and help with getting medical aid, clean water and teaching them how to help each other.
Or maybe the Saudi’s will help. Or maybe the buddhists. Maybe the Russians. haha. You know who sends the most money in aid to prevent hunger? Those same societies based on Judeo/Christian principles.
I’d be willing to bet that your hypothetical Chrisitan couple has donated to missionary causes. How about you, Claire? What have you done? Anything besides ask for more of other peoples taxes to go to the cause?
“This whole theory, idea, observation I have studied is little known as a strong factor in the clash of relationships. Objective reality remains fairly constant, Subjective Reality is in constant flux.”
Interesting observation.
I had a professor once, who I enjoyed clashing, with who once stated, “everyone has a paradigmatic view of the world and pending on a number of variables (eg. religion, ideology, sexuality, etc..) your window may be smaller or bigger than others, but you never get a full view of what is going on (objective reality). Most people never leave the house to discover that.”
You both remind me of Plato’s Cave Allegory.
Well, that was a cheery, uplifting little interview. I feel better already.
If a man feels his life has no meaning, then his conviction becomes a self-fulling prophecy. If, on the other hand, he finds meaning to his life, then it has meaning – at least to him. We are not all powerful observers of our fellow man. We are not omniscient beings who can determine the arc of another’s life.
I’ll bet even Madonna with her tragically Hydrangea free life has found meaning.
I read Mr. Horowitz’s fine autobiography where he described his transition from a red diaper baby to a conservative. David Horititz’s books and his thoughts have given his life meaning, and helped others find theirs. I just wish he had called me so I could have cleared that up for him.
Cheer up David.
Hmmm, maybe David Horowitz is right. But we all have an impact in our own here and now. As we float down the river of life we can have fun with old friends and meet new. We can work hard and avoid the rocks and waterfalls, or we can make no effort and get caught among the trees and branches. We can choose to do evil, or we can choose to do good by helping others and trying to protect them from those who are evil.
But the fact remains that we will never, no matter what we do, change the course of the river.
The question is not, will we change the course of the river, because the answer is no. It was all written long ago. But rather, will we do right along the way? One thing is for certain, no matter what wrong you have done in the past, you can start each day a new day and make those same choices once again.
Reread Emily Dickinson; After great pain, the butterfly obtains..clarity.
If DH actually believed this tripe, he would have ended his meaningless existence immediately after he arrived @ his conclusion. Instead, he wrote a book, hoping to induce the deep thinkers among us to part with their money so that DH could continue to enjoy the good life, even though it has no meaning. What a crock. GBA and RICO all banksters, their prostitutes in government.
To have meaning in life, you need God and immortality. David Horowitz showed how his own encounter with mortality clarified this idea for him.
Different ideologies or other placebos will comfort, but they don’t change the underlying reality.
Have you ever built a compost heap ? The right amount of soil, moisture, heat, and mixing to keep its organisms alive. This is a microcosm of planet earth spinning through space. The human organism is in part the stuff that devours the other organisms to keep the process working. Did you ever look at the heap and try to determine which are the good vs bad organisms at constant war for survival ? No, you just kept it active for the purpose of applying it to the garden for the next generation of growth. The human organism is blessed/cursed with insight and foresight – the stuff of both joy and suffering. Areulius summed it up best and DH finally is commimg to terms. Religeous beliefs and other mythologies, or outright denial, are escapism from the grim reality. Enjoy the moment. Everything else is history or anticipation. Get out of your abstractions (head) and into reality. Your time is quickly running out. If you want “Meaning” then appreciate the current moment as the outcome of your life thus far. Lets hope the heap continues.
I pray DH will come to see why a Savior for humanity has been needed. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob came to came to the earth and took on flesh to redeem His creation- A creation which is flawed but which desires in deed demands Eden.
Human effort to erect Eden, with flawed humanity will always result in “hell on earth”.
A God who takes (took) away the sin of the world by taking on Himself the Sin of the world can Himself place His redeemed creation/man in the Kingdom/ the human heart longs for.
I thank you Mr. Horowitz for all your work and efforts and I hope you’ll accept the God of Israel gift of redemption!
.
I do not know what Mr.Horowitz knows of his Jewish birthright. Perhaps despite his name he is not Jewish at all. I say this because his comments regarding the hopelessness of existence and that death means nothingness are demonstrably false and have been resolved thousands of years ago.
The Jewish Matriarchs and Patriarchs have influenced the lives of billions of people. We learn from their lives and become better human beings as we hold them for role models. They grapple with the eternal questions that we, alive today, still face. Their lives have changed the world.
And death is merely a transition. Because the shell we call our bodies no longer works does that mean we are only shells? The great mystery of life and death is not resolved through cognition. It is resolved through faith, and an understanding that is beyond cognition, but is still quite real. There is much of the universe we do not know or understand but because we do not see it does not make it less real.
Today, more so than at any time since Revelation, we are witness to the fulfillment of G-ds promises. They are writ large on the world stage. Yet Mr. Horowitz does not see it. He is obviously an educated and articulate man. Yet I do not know where he has looked for answers. I do know that prayer is the method Man uses to speak with G-d. And that study is the way G-d speaks to Man.
” A G-d you could explain, I could not worship. ” Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTq9RGqi5Hk&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL21AEA8F49E8F1088
I have begun a pre-calculus algebra course (grade 12), because I want to actually ‘UNDERSTAND’ all that stuff I worked through years ago in University, without having a clue. The first part of the first class was your usual, don’t plagiarize, you will have so many assignments worth so much, etc etc., which was wearying. But then, we went on to the Number, and all the different ways of looking at “numbers” (whole, rational, integers, etc etc), and my brain awoke, and I was entertained. Today, in contemplating “zero”, I have had to (a) find the basic meaning of “integer” (integrity, integral…), and (b) the difference between ‘infinite’ and ‘undefined.’ The last I figured out on the drive home, and yes, I felt pretty great about that…
plus, the whole Battle of Marathon, and the Spartans, and Scotland’s religious history…etc
In my opinion, the point of my stay on this earth is to learn more than I knew when I was born. And if there is another life for me somehow, somewhere, I cannot prove it – yea or nay – to myself or anyone else, so the point is to do as well as possible within my own limits (which are many).
David Horowitz has been riding on Anger for a very long time and as such has asserted the power of freedom of thought in the US and in universities. Maybe he should leave that for others now, and find something else to care and think about.
“In my opinion” means that you’re asserting a subjective truth, whereas David Horowitz was asserting an objective truth. It’s perfectly fine for you to “create” meaning for your life, but that does not change reality.
“I really like country music” vs “Country music is objectively beautiful”
Markus says: “It’s perfectly fine for you to “create” meaning for your life, but that does not change reality.”
So, Markus, how do you ‘know’ that ‘reality’ is not thus ‘changed’? If you accept that we are limited in our perceptions of ‘reality’, if we are stuck in that old cave, seeing only a very dark and flickering reflection of what is ‘reality’, than you and I are in the same boat, aren’t we? Along with David Horowitz, of course.
My stance is therefore, to learn what I can in this life (even what exactly was going on in my long ago calculus lessons) which is – I think – OK. I do not aim to ‘change reality’ because I am not sure what that is anyway. Still less am I being ‘creative.’ But, I am entertained nonetheless!
Hi heathermc,
I don’t want to mock you, studying and learning new things is most of the time a good thing, and if it brings you comfort, joy or entertainment, I’m not suggesting you should stop it. I was pointing out that studying cannot be the meaning of life.
I was simply pointing out that simply wanting something doesn’t make it happen. I want many things, but my thoughts don’t change the reality. Say I want a Ferrari: I really, really wish for it to appear overnight in the car lot. But my wanting something doesn’t bring me that Ferrari. Same thing with the meaning of life.
There is no such thing as zero.
Tell that to the bank when your checking account is overdrawn.
I just read this article by Patti Davis, daughter of Ronald Reagan, and thought it addressed some of Horowitz’s concerns. I’m not sure if he or anyone else reading this article will find it satisfying but here goes anyway: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2092425,00.html.
Well, at least she kept her clothes on for that article.
For David Horowitz-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4sSfmBNJvw&feature=related
Strange to hear the anti–Islam warrior speaking about the God that will save as of socialism`s slavery.Many religions have coexisted with the slavery.Totalitarian collectivism( that some religions support) create the mental slavery.Ayn Rend`s objectivism ethic is more attractive for the individualist than the Allah`s creature`s existance (for instance).
Please assure Mr. Horowitz that his life has been far from meaningless, and that he has given hope and courage to millions.
The three big questions are always the same:
Where do we come from, where do we go, and how should we behave in the time that we are given between our birth and death.
For the questions of where do we come from and where do we go, I have no certain answers. For the question how should we behave, there are endless prescriptions that are the content of Religion, Philosophy, and Ethics, and despite many decades of searching and studying, other than a general Christian ethical framework i.e. the Ten Commandments–I have no certain answers to this third question either.
It does strike me, though, that if one believes they know where we come from and where we go when we die, then deciding which one of the myriad of prescriptions for how we should live our lives is correct and should be followed would be much easier.
But, to believe that all is empty of any meaning, that all is totally ephemeral—“all sound and fury, signifying nothing,” is the result of the chance combination of molecules, is to give in to profound despair and, as we have seen, “when you believe in nothing, you will believe in (and do) anything.”
Thus, to my mind, it is better for the individual and it is better for society to belive.
“chance combination,is to give in profound dispair”- the half-educated person`s condition alternating with the bliss. Science demonstrate us the intellectual reality with the eternal features.The belonging to this reality make as feeling of the Universal meaning of the life,just as some scientists predict.
Ben,
Science cannot be the meaning of life. It’s plain as day, yet many atheists fall into this trap every year. You could say the same thing about music, or art, or any other human pursuit, claim “eternal features” and still die along with the rest of humanity.
Another point on this matter is that if a person is intellectually gifted, and his intelligence is taken away, he has lost the means to pursue the meaning of life. That is a very desolate place.
David, we live on through our messages to the future. Be not afraid.
What’s to be afraid of?
Markus.Science is like the capitalism in a sence that both are despised and even hated by weak and ambitious people.Like the animal under an oak they are feed and taught by “plain as day” capitalism and science.
Hi Ben,
Science and capitalism are wonderful tools: the former to gather knowledge about the world, and the latter to create conditions for wealth creation. Sadly, they are both also idolized as “larger than life”, or even “the meaning of life”.
I don’t personally know anyone who hates science, I know a few people who dislike capitalism.
Before Dostoevski’s arrest he had already begun to reject the Russian radicals as essentially nihilistic. After his near-execution he was sent to Siberia where he endured many years of imprisonment. At that time he was given a copy of the New Testament by some peasant women who visited prisoners. It became one of the most profound experience of his life, the little book was with him when he died. He understood that the faith and humility of the uneducated, compassionate women represented the Christian ideal. He became a devout believer and denounced atheism as the foundation of all evil. I find it difficult to understand that such a brilliant man like Horowitz can admire and read Dostoevski and not himself be converted-after all, D’s major themes center on Jesus’ divinity and the promise of eternal life as the reason for our existence.
How to Live
By SelwynMills
Self out of sync with meaning panics. A loss of confidence,
conviction, certitude,
how to live?
Man lives with boundless perceptions attached to life
Aware of death.
Stripped of moorings we are wasted Aliens adrift
On a sea without end.
Faith, power, money,Beauty, celebrity
Mask our anxiety, but finally cannot conceal our dread.
How to live?
Longing for an affirmation that live matters…
A primoreal wisdom mystified by the eternal silence
yearns for the quest beyond reach.
My heart swells, An ethereal harbor
rises from the misty quiet of the sea.
A place to drop anchor and engage
The enigma once more
I had rather believe all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. And therefore, God never wrought miracle, to convince atheism, because his ordinary works convince it.
It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.
Francis Bacon -Of Atheism
as an atheist I still recognise wisdom in the Bible in a ”read between the lines” type of way …there is a clear warning from genesis with the story of the fall in the garden of eden ….the serpant temps eve with the apple of knowledge ” eat, and you too can be a GOD !!!!”…that’s the real danger to mankind , the malignant narcicism and lack of humility
I agree with David, but I am happy to be alive and to love. I will die someday.
But today I am having fun reading the exquisite thoughts of fellow human.