Are you from new york . Originally a lot of people think of you mostly as a political conservative but in your book radical son where you talk about your life story, you reveal a side of herself that i would say a good writer, not just somebody with great ideas but you write well. In this book are probably not the first one to call it a beautiful tone and mortality, that is the title. When you decided to write this, why did you decide to write this book . If you read the book radical s son, maybe you would assume that your story. That was the story of my political transformation from a leftist somebody who described themselves as a revolutionary to conservative. At what point did you stop describing herself as a marxist revolutionary. Roughly 1974 when a woman that i recruited for the black Panther Party was murdered by the panthers and that really was the end of my career in the left when i realized i was among gangsters and people who supported gangsters. What really hit me, although my friend defended the panthers and blamed the death on the white power structure instead of what they do today, they blame on trump in the white supremacy. A lot of people dont remember that. But the violence of those years. It is interesting to me, if you dont mind, before we get into the new book which picks up your story, those who were not familiar with your story and your seminal book radical semi, i want to ask you if you dont mind, reprice that story for a bit to give us a running start. Rosa quite carrying communist. Literally . Our whole community wanted stalin to win the cold war and create a soviet america. Where were you raised and what was the community . I was raised in sunnyside in group and bliss street. In queens question works yes. Most people think of sunnyside or queens, the Upper West Side of manhattan, communist, but sunnyside. It was colonized by the communist party. I lived like a development of rural houses and Eleanor Roosevelt broke the ground there. And they were built like english rowhouses, the backyard had a commons and the interesting thing, when the fortyyear easement was lifted on the commons, everybody extended theibackyards into the center. Which is what the left is always fighting which is why they end up with a firing squad. You were raised among cardcarrying communists were rooting for stalin. How so . Thats a fascinating idea, its one thing to be leftist and one thing to be a democrat, you talk about something a little different. What was this group and who were your parents that you found yourself in this situation . When you get into that, people have the need first of all this book is not a political book and there is politics and it but its out of. A level. I think this might be the best book ive written and people who have read it certainly feel it in the writing and so forth. The writing is very beautiful. I have read parts of this book all the way through its a joke, i read parts of this book all the way through. It is very beautiful so youre right the mortality that were thrown into this world and people have a great need to think of their lives as meaningful, the idea that we are all going to disappear someday and be forgotten is very hard for people to take. So they develop various kinds of faiths. In their faith because you cannot know that god exists. You can know i quote stalin in this book and you can know through the heart but you cannot know with your intellect. Nobody can prove that god exists and that he does not exist or she. With interviewing you your man of religious faith but this is my perspective. So people develop the faith, it can be a communism, social justice is not on there. Or you can have a faith and a divinity and the way i described in the book, to believe in the divinity who will sort things out on the other side and for now we see it starkly as the new testament says and then only then facetoface. To me, that is a healthy faith but if you do not believe in the divinity, most people cannot face the meaninglessness of her life. Its dustin to win this. For those people, to get meaning in their lives, they get the crypto religious faith which was listed as leftism, social juste him, the world will be made into a kingdom of heaven on earth really. The interviewer would say how do you live without an eschaton. Is everybody looking for the same thing . Even misguided radical communist, leftist, were all looking for the same thing but we disagree on how to get there, what the nature of that thing is, what the nature of reality is but it does seem that people who maybe believe life has no meaning that they cannot stand the idea so they want to create many. The meaning is crated that you create the world, you act as god and you have a new deal and youll rearrange everything. And the only way to do that is through a authoritarian police and they say cant do it anyway so you just shoot a lot of people. Thats what the soviet union taught us in the last century. I dont think this is a book about ideas, theres a lot of narrative in my life lessons. You go through life and you have to deal with death, i had a daughter who had a birth defect that caused her to die in her 40s and they take lessons from these, i tried to deal with the infirmities of age as you know people dont talk about this too much, but people are living 10 y ever did because of science. But they do that because you have parts removed by surgeons and so forth. I put some of that in the book in each point, i try to give whatever wisdom i have for my life experience. You do some of what the book . I talk about i had prostate cancer, one that metastasize, ive had serious reengineering of my body. Is that your original head . Everything else is negotiable but the head at least so far we are going to a break but we will continue talking for as long as you will stay here, its an honor to have you, the new book is mortality and faith, reflections on a journey through time, stick around. [inaudible conversations] today we are coming to you on book tv as well im talking to David Horowitz about mortality. I have to ask you before we go further, how many books have you written . You have written a few books. Probably 20 that are worth reading. I wrote quite a few of the leftist. Its funny to think that you really were a radical, committed leftist until 1974. So you were not playing at this, you are very seriously involved. It is really the origins of the division and this book. To make our lives meaningful, we live inside stories that we tell ourselves. And they vary, you will create a dynasty is one, they are all designed to give you hope or you will become a famous athlete and be in the hall of fame in a thousand years. That is my story. It can happen. To design the story that i got from my parents and my community how we were going to change the world in my whole life was oriented around changing the world. Through communist revolution. Yes. That is what its supposed to do. And it ends racism, sexism, all these identify ob a, well be one big family, thats the division of progressives. United by this belief and redemption. And if you do not believe in that . If you do not believe in that and you get in the way well you know what happens, the progressives killed 100 Million People in the 20th century. So the progressive worldview that you are describing is with the american worldview we will call freedom or liberty. That is another story. That is the key problem. Again if you look at the Green New Deal that want to pay people who do not want to work, what is that thats an incentive to be lazy and live off other people. And if the other people resent them sooner rather than later than those people become problems, you identify them as racist or whatever you want to call them people dont want to work or marginalize its ridiculous. But its billions and billions of people who believe it and i would say ten or 15 of the 20 democrat candidates for the nomination also believe it. Let me ask you, when we live inside stories and create stories. We give her lives meaning and hope in the illusion that is going to go on forever. It is so easy to forget that you are going to die, its very easy thats the normal human denial. So this book, i talk a lot about the stories and for example there is a lot of literary. Julian barnes who wrote a number of postmodern novels, i cannot think of the one that he wrote the most famous one. Nothing to be afraid of which is when he was a little kid and he was afraid of death. His friend said its nothing to be afraid of in the whole book is about this and the fact that hes a famous writer and theres probably millions of people who read his books but he figures in a generation or two there will be nobody reading his books. Not only are people reading it, im sure most people dont remember it, it was a big book at the time and he sort of right about that that we are reading his book. He calls it scratching on the walls of the prison which is life and it does not have a religious faith. It is a great consolation and thats why people are so passionately committed to ideas that a been proven to be incredibly destructive like social justice and socialism and communism because it is such a consolation for the meanest of our lives. Do you believe that life is meaningless . Im in a gnostic which is why i think im a good witness on all these issues. When you say that, when were talking about communist radicalism, when you say its the odds with reality, is that we start . With human nature, when you say the odds with human nature is interesting the american view of selfgovernment and liberty and what i would say is a more conservative view is not at odds with human nature. Correct when we come back i want to ask you about that. Will talk about the palladian heresy. Coming up public t enter book b. We are coming to you on book tv talking with author, thinker, David Horowitz, his new book is mortality and faith in reflections through the journey in time. In this book were talking about the meaning of life. And what were talking about a moment ago, the idea that you are saying your previous you, the communist view, is at odds with human nature. The murder of my friend in the murder of 100 billion people in the 20th century and with that story that i lived inside was shattered, thats how i came to all these views, you only see a piece in the people who are in the planet and they get meaning out of that but you do not look outside, you live inside it because it gives your life meaning and if youre not saving the planet or the planet cannot be saved then it shatters your personal peace and it takes away your consolation. You have to have seen that event in 1974 and away as if severe mercy as if though it took something that horrible to wake you up to the idea i was clinically depressed for seven years. Seven years . At what point did you shift . How do you get out of that . Actually thats a subject of radical son, he put 1 foot in front of the other, you get involved, i had a writing partner and for some reason, hes a catholic so he had a faith and he would get interested in stories that we did together when we were journalist and i had no interest in but i would follow him and because i had to support my children, i did that and you put 1 foot in front of the other and after a while it turns out the good inside another story. The story now isnt going to save this country, i think this country is threatened by people who do not understand the founding, they dont understand where freedoms come from they have content for the people who created our freedoms based on this reading of history but i understand this is a story and it could be meaningless. It could be meaningless . But your banking history has no right side, is not moving anywhere. Why do you say that . It is a classical view, in this book itar about mark is h. Until you get to the western christian biblical everybody but the jews thats why the christians did that. A lot of christians actually worship do you might not realize that. Im always finding it out. You dont have to pointed out to me, all pointed out to you. Once the bible enters history and creates at least in part, the west and leads to what we have today in america, its at odds with the idea that history has no right side or the history is not going anywhere. Its what reagan said, were a generation away from losing all her freedom, we have to fight for in every generation and if the islamists when then theres no reason that they shouldnt, theyve infiltrated our societies, they have a barbaric view of the world the jew haters, i admit christians haters as well and if they win were going back to the dark ages and its all done. So no, everything is fraudulent that sense but not as fragile as they want to be an extremist on that, i think the dark has a lot of resilience. I cannot believe you just said that,. Is a fundamental divide in the judeochristian view is contained in genesis, the first chapters of genesis, the paradise is a better than the Green New Deal or socialism or communism. You can die of the fruit that fell from the tree, but theres one condition and that remains in the garden and you do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in other words you do not want to do evil and adam and eve defied god and eight off the tree. Human beings enjoy doing evil, human beings we have inside of us, we have free will, that is the basic judeochristian idea, god could ease easily told jesus risen off the cross, you can come back today but god gave us free will which is the freedom to do evil as well as good and as human corruption is the problem and the source of social problems is no such thing as a collection of who we are as individuals we have bad tendencies that we fight all the time and weve created religion as one morality. You say this is inherent to your green with the biblical view. Yes i definitely do. But the question people on the left are followers of pelagius. Pelagius believed that sin is against human nature that human nature left to itself is good. According to pelagius. According to pelagius. To commit a send is to go against your nature you believe people are good christians and all they have to do is want to be good i hate to cut somebody off and discussing this but well be right back. Hello folks, David Hurwitz you were just talking about the pollution heresy, socalled, so continue please. If you understand that the source of our problems is us, its a corruption inside every human being, take this for example, and you can see in infants if you put two yearolds in a room with a lot of toys and leave for five minutes you hir here screams, wt you understand that and you understand that people in government are more dangerous than people who are not in government because they have more power, theyre the same people that caused the problem, we see this all around us today. The corruption is epidemic. And even worse someone i call the social redeemers, they think they can redeem the world, we will save the planet. Politics. Yorty have environmental radicals talk about putting people in prison and they dont believe in global warming. And when the legislative who are behind the green deal you ask them how they will do it and they say globalization, so will live under a military regime. Great. In the defense they say this is a much as a threat as the nazis. Of course they wanted to be a threat so they can get much power. And you end up with a tote hurry and state. How are you going to compensate 60 million gas cards in ten years if you dont institute a military dictatorship. This is what makes people conservative, your view of human nature. People on the left think that people are doing good in Society Makes them evil, corporations make them evil, the patriarch makes him evil and so forth. Cheney. [laughter] hes behind it all is using ivanka beneath the earth. This idea is something that you obviously disagree with but i want to go back in the 70s, yet the shattering experience of somebody you knew was murdered by the black panthers, how long did it take before you realized i was with the wrong story. It was almost instantaneous. First of all because my closest friends, when i told them that the panthers had murdered him, they said it was the white power structure. And you know we have this today were a big icon of the left on Race Relations said theres no such thing as black on black crime, its white people behind it. It is crazy stuff. It is fascinating, you are talking about fertility and faith and its about stories and we grab onto stories and people call narratives, and that is the question, we will not have time to get into it in the segment but when we come back i want to talk to you about whether there is an overarching narrative that is consonant with reality, i want to get into that. Were talking with David Horowitz, mentality and faith, reflections through time. Hi folks, i am talking to the author of a brandnew book, mortality and faith. David horowitz, faith in reflections through the journey through time. A lot of people i admire praise this book, dennis has said that he has never been so moved by davids writing as by this profound book, reading about it. And i to say david your writing is great. And we were talking earlier about your contention which i think i agree with, we have to grab onto stories or narratives and you are talking about when this momen woman was murdered i4 a lot of people could not get out of the narrative, rather than say i have missed something they say, no you missed something, she was murdered by the white power, the man did it. And isnt it like being brainwashed. At some point it seems that you are talking about taking your thinking in the line of what you are calling reality in human nature and saying people who are stuck on these narratives are not willing to do that. The whole world which is completely outside my worl world, that is the key to it all. So with my books probably 10000 books in the bookstore and when i realized it was just another story completely false as it turns out it was like being in a desert completely flat with no landscape. What do you mean quick sure in a bookstore in the seventies in berkeley. I realize it was idea of false because millions of people live off of these bad and unproven and stupid ideas so that i had to face my own mortality and nothingness that was difficult to think that you could possibly have to do. You talk about that in the new book mortality and faith but it seems you suggest you are going along for the ride but then you realized i was going in the wrong direction. Maybe i had written ten books at that time. I had devoted my life spending five years i devoted my life to this false idea and very destructive and evil idea so the first thing i wanted to do is against falling into the trap and the people who go through it they are still communist they were all brought up that way but they wanted to detach themselves from it. Host i just want to go back. Is there a brand narrative cracks it seems you are suggesting there might be but you dont know that there is fickle grand narrative that actually not only h