A couple weeks ago we interviewed David Horowitz. Once we're done transcribing and editing everything, we'll be posting it, of course. Should be good.

In the meantime, I've been emailing back and forth with him a little. Though I disagree with 99% of what Horowitz says (or perhaps because of it), arguing with him has been interesting so far. I've posted a couple emails after the jump, with more to follow tomorrow. This particular chain was set off when I sent him to a recent blog post I wrote in reaction to a Weekly Standard article of his. (My co-associate editor, Kay Steiger, reacted here.)

From: david horowitz [mailto:***]
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 5:23 PM
To: Jesse Singal
Subject: Re: What's happening with the interview and article?

Thanks Jesse. I'll be patient.

I read your article. Thank you! This is of course the main point. If we agree on this, we can work together and end the pointless food fight that has characterized this debate for the last four years.

What we seem to disagree on is whether this is a serious problem or not. If 11 intelligent Michigan upperclassmen are in denial about the clearly proven scientific data concerning men and women at so fundamental a level, I would say the problem is very large indeed. You have a professor who is teaching that the earth is flat, and 11 of 12 students agreeing. How many other professors are there in the liberal arts college at Ann Arbor who have a similar problem with the truth? How many are willing to keep from students the fact that the views they are promoting are contested or controversial?

Perhaps you would go to the next step and tell me why, given your own experience, you think this is not a problem?

BTW: You may post this correspondence and begin a dialogue if you like.

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From: Jesse Singal

Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 9:11 AM

To: david horowitz

Subject: RE: What's happening with the interview and article?

David,

Yes, 11 Michigan upperclassmen were in denial about a very basic thing. But none of them was a science major and none of them was zealous about this belief (it was more of a hunch, really). If any of them took a neurology course, I’m confident he or she would come away with more nuanced, accurate beliefs on this subject.

There are some dogmas that have a bigger impact than others. The fact that some people in comp lit and women's studies departments believe silly things simply doesn't bother me much. I think these disciplines also do valuable academic work, despite the fact that they're not hard sciences and are therefore dealing with more slippery notions of "truth."

Can you name one example of a liberal dogma that has infiltrated higher levels of policy- and decision- making? You can't. (Or if you can, I'm curious as to what it is.) But we both know that conservatives have dogmas as well. Hard-line economic conservatives have a bizarre attachment to supply-side economics, an idea that has been thoroughly debunked by experts in the field. But they cling to it because it’s so politically expedient (“You mean we can cut taxes and raise revenue! Amazing!”) and because it conveniently short-circuits any real debate about taxation. Social conservatives, for their part, are obsessed with abstinence-only sex ed. Again, experts have shown this doesn’t work. It’s a bad idea.

These are only two examples, but the Bush administration—and many prominent conservatives—has fully embraced them both. In fact, you can’t really run for an office as a Republican unless you put your right hand on a printout of a Laffer curve and pledge fealty to a thoroughly debunked economic fallacy. Terrible, misguided ideas are guiding policy at the federal level. This worries me more than whether my classmates fully understood the hardwired biological differences between men and women. None of them will be writing health policy in Washington.

There’s dogma everywhere. For me, it’s a matter of priorities. The wackiest campus ideas are just those: campus ideas. They will never have as much impact as other, more politically valuable sorts of lies.

-Jesse

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From: david horowitz [mailto:***]
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 1:01 PM
To: Jesse Singal
Subject: Re: What's happening with the interview and article?

The issue, Jesse, is not the subject of Women's Studies, nor the ignorance of students. The issue is the attitude of the professors. Is it professional? Do they inform students when viewpoints are controversial or do they teach their personal prejudices as scientific fact? If the latter (as in this instance seems to be the case), they are violating the academic freedom provisions and the professional standards of modern research universities. The problem is that right now no one in the university system is holding them accountable or even reminding them what their responsibilities as academics are. This is the problem I set out to solve. If you want a critique of my position to be persuasive you need to show me how you propose to accomplish this.

I'm not sure why your email suddenly shifts to national issues. I'd like to stay focused on the academic ones. I'm happy to discuss the others with you, but we're unlikely to resolve those and believe it or not I actually am interested in an academic reform that is non-partisan and that can be supported by liberals and conservatives alike.

YOUR OTHER QUESTIONS:

Unfortunately, our political vocabulary has been so corrupted that there is no common understanding of the terms liberal and conservative, which makes your statement that no liberal dogma has become policy unintelligible to conservatives like me. The entire welfare state, the social security system (and the refusal to reform it), the tax system, immigration policy, the intrusion of the courts into policy-making, are all "liberal" policies are firmly entrenched. I am not an economist and neither are you so I don't think it would be useful for us to debate this issue, but the fact -- and it's a well-established fact -- is that cutting taxes has historically raised revenues (the reason is the money the government doesn't take is invested in enterprises that generate additional income). I think if you discipline yourself by reading conservative responses to these standard liberal claims you will not only learn something but you will be a wiser liberal. Unfortunately your education was so one-sided that you also obviously regard one side of contentious and controversial issues as scientific fact ("thoroughly debunked").

Wacky campus ideas have consequences.

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Like I said, more tomorrow. I should say that my initial argument (the idea that there's no "liberal dogma" in government) was a bit of an oversimplification and didn't quite get across the point I was trying to make. But I'll address that in my response to his response to my response. Or wherever we are.