394
PARTISAN REVIEW
ence, twenty-five years ago, you couldn't name ten associations of a
national sort. Now there are around seventy-five. That is a very impor–
tant aspect of democracy and points to openness.
WilliaI11 Phillips:
Are you saying that these professional organizations
are serving as a corrective to the left ideology?
Irving Louis Horowitz:
Yes. Another thing that has to be said with
some frankness is the change in the orientation of all the publications.
Certainly you cannot talk about
Partisan Review
in 1990 the way it was
in
1952. It is a different entity.
WilliaI11 Phillips:
You can't talk about Horowitz the same way.
Irving Louis Horowitz:
That is right, although I feel that I've
changed very little.
Marjorie IseI11an:
Is there an organization which has the sole purpose
of doing what we have in mind, of working with the universities or
within them, as you say, to collect information and really openly tty to
influence them in the direction you've been talking about?
Irving Louis Horowitz:
There is one such organization, the National
Association of Scholars.
Edith Kurzweil:
When we broach this question broadly, some people
tend to flinch. They feel they don't want an organization; they want to
talk just for themselves. And, to take off from what Irving said, we have
plenty of organizations. Sometimes it's much more difficult to come out
as individuals, to state a strong point that will offend some colleagues.
However, I would add that we may become more effective by having
meetings like this one. I think by talking to each other and to
all
those
who are willing to read us, and those who are going to think about
what we're writing, we might have some impact - without frittering
away our energy in yet another organization. I think we're really talking
about ideas - which we hope to get across.
Ronald Radosh:
I think what Irving said may be true in other fields. In
American history there are still only a few limited journals that record
the ever-changing trends. In each year's convention bulletin of the
Organization of American Historians, almost every session is about gen–
der, class, race. There was an article in the
Journal oj American History
about the Leo Frank murder in Atlanta in the 1920's. It was a lo,ng,
