David Horowitz, born into a Communist family, raised to be a revolutionary, who eventually had "Second Thoughts" about the New Left and became one of conservatism's most eloquent champions, died on Tuesday at the age of 86.
The long, strange intellectual journey taken by Horowitz in the 1970s and '80s mirrored the road taken by millions of Baby Boomers who also grew up liberals and were shaken by the failures of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and liberalism's "riot of conciets," as R. Emmett Tyrrell described liberalism in the 1980s in his book "The Liberal Crackup."
For Horowitz, it was the murder of a close friend by the Black Panthers that shocked the "Radical Son" and forced him to re-examine the foundations of his beliefs. Horowitz was friends with Black Panther leader Huey Newton and suggested that he hire Betty Van Patter, who was working for Horowitz at the radical left journal "Ramparts Magazine." When Van Patter turned up dead a few weeks later, Horowitz began to rethink his radical beliefs.
Horowitz was not an instant convert to the right. But once he began questioning the essence of his beliefs, the journey had only one logical destination.
Millions of young Americans conducted similar re-examinations of their beliefs individually. I was one of them. At the time, I was far too Midwestern and Roman Catholic to be much of a radical, but I played one on campus. After college, I entered the real world. I saw the results of the Great Society and the McGovern revolution in identity politics. Even then, we could see where it was going.
For Christmas in 1978, my father gave me "The Conservative Mind" by Russell Kirk. The lightbulb went off, and I began paying attention to the thinkers and writers revitalizing conservatism.
Horowitz tried to hide his conversion from his leftist friends. He knew the consequences of apostasy, so it wasn't until 1984 that Horowitz and his fellow leftist apostate Peter Collier came out as supporters of Ronald Reagan.
In 1987, Horowitz hosted the "Second Thoughts Conference." The conference marked the 20th anniversary of the New Left's October 1967 march on Washington. Horowitz reflected on the moment he realized his entire life had been a Marxist lie.
In that very moment a previously unthinkable possibility... entered my head: The Marxist idea, to which I had devoted my entire intellectual life and work was false... For the first time in my conscious life I was looking at myself in my human nakedness, without the support of revolutionary hopes, without the faith in a revolutionary future — without the sense of self-importance conferred by the role I would play in remaking the world. For the first time in my life I confronted myself as I really was in the endless march of human coming and going. I was nothing.”
It was this crucible of despair in which my conservative worldview was formed, as I set about finding other reasons to go on than the political myths that had sustained me until then.
I honestly don't think that a conversion like Horowitz's could happen today. It took enormous courage for David to admit to himself that he had been wrong his entire life and then embrace the polar opposite ideology and advocate for it in the most eloquent, passionate way.
In 1998, Horowitz founded the David Horowitz Freedom Center, whose mission statement sums up Horowitz's beliefs: "We are dedicated to the defense of free societies whose moral, cultural and economic foundations are under attack by enemies both secular and religious at home and abroad."
The Center's "Restoration Weekends" were a highlight of the year with famous guest speakers and attendees. Horowitz believed that fostering a conservative community would strengthen the movement and develop communal values. It would also keep the fires of intellectual conservatism burning brightly.
Horowitz is survived by his fourth wife, April, and his four children.
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