David Horowitz - "My Daughter Sarah and the Lack of Civil Dialogue in our Culture"

My Daughter Sarah and the Lack of Civil Dialogue in our Culture  by David Horowitz

From David's piece:

Tikkun olam means “repair of the world,” and in the arguments of Jewish progressives it is generally associated with a global transformation and “social justice.” My quarrel with progressives is that they believe human beings can be fundamentally changed by revolutionary upheavals, and a more perfect world can be created by political actors. From this view, terrible consequences have followed — mass genocides and human catastrophes on an unprecedented scale. But this was not the way my daughter approached tikkun olam and the task of achieving social justice (a term I still find problematic). Sarah was not a sentimentalist and she cast a properly skeptical eye on human actors, their motives and behaviors. Her view was that if the world is to be redeemed it would have to be one individual at a time, and should not be based on the expectation of miraculous changes in human character. This was a view I could live with.

The Collected Writings of Sarah Rose Horowitz

A remarkable woman and gifted writer, Sarah Horowitz was afflicted with a birth condition that, while complicating and ultimately shortening her life, never affected her dreams or her commitment to her art. Throughout her life she displayed inspiring courage in facing her own difficulties and boundless compassion for others less fortunate. This book of her Collected Writings, contains the only novel she was able to finish in her short life, a brilliant set of short stories, her complete poems, and commentaries on the Old Testament. It also features her account of the Abayudayah, an African tribe that converted to Judaism, whose underserved children she volunteered to teach. Sarah Horowitz’s writings are rich in observations of the people she encountered and resonate with the themes of compassion and social justice to which she dedicated her life. Collected Writings includes an interview she gave shortly before her death and a eulogy by her father, the writer David Horowitz, which provides a biographical portrait of her life.

I haven't read the book yet, but I plan to and will give my personal view of her works later.

When I was young I looked up to David and others in the "New Left" such as Abbie Hoffman, as I was looking for a way to deal with the chaos of my youth. Funny I have never meet David but did meet Abbie Hoffman the year just prior to his suicide. No it is sad.

David had the courage to look at the New Left and socialism with an eye on truth and reality, realizing that believing human beings can be fundamentally change by revolutionary upheavals, and create a more perfect world has terrible consequences,  for to do so is to ignore, as he points out, that so far such revolutions tend to create mass genocides and human catastrophes on an unprecedented scale. Only revolutionary means that can change human beings come from an extra-human source and that revolution is spititual converison and comes from God, not human will.

Abbie Hoffman committed suicide, if you take what others have said, because he was disappointed with America's youth and lack of vision when in fact he should have been disappointed with the failure of revolution and change his course as David did. But Abbie did not have the courage nor the humility to do so.

I have also come to reject progressive ideologies such as socialism and liberalism. Now for myself there is no longer chaos within my heart and mind, even though chaos seems to be tearing the world apart. I have hope, belief in something, no someone greater then myself that is in control. My battle is to only to look and dig for truth and expound it the best way I can with my limited God given abilities.

Part of that truth, as I understand it, comes from those like David, and when I order a copy of his daughter's Collected Writings, I am going to order his book Cracking of the Heart. 

And what about civil dialogue? ummm