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More than 40 students, faculty and staff gathered in the Kirner Johnson building for a lively debate titled "Can the Left and the Right Find Anything to Agree on About the Sixties?"  Maurice Isserman, William R. Kenan Professor of History and co-author of America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s, and David Horowitz,conservative activist and co-author of Destructive Generation, Second Thoughts about the Sixties debated the legitimacy and legacy of the radical movements of the 1960s.

Dean of the Faculty and Vice President of Academic Affairs David Paris introduced the speakers and moderated a question and answer follow-up session.

"How many things do you still have from 1971?" Isserman asked the audience. "I no longer have my copy of the White Album, but I have my copy of The Free World Colossus by David Horowitz."  Isserman said many of his political views in the 1960s were influenced by Horowitz before Horowitz's political conversion to conservatism.

Horowitz said he was grateful for the invitation to speak at Hamilton College. "There are 200 courses on the '60s in America and this is the first time I've spoken at one of them. That speaks volumes of the man who has invited me, [Maurice Isserman.]"

Isserman argued that if the right and left were ever able to come to consensus on the nature of the 1960s, they would have to embrace a "complexity-friendly" approach to its history, one that recognized that the values motivating the movements of the 1960s were "very American values," just as excesses associated with the decade were "very American excesses."

Horowitz explained his view that 60's radicals and those they influenced had strayed from their original intent and are unable to live up to their own standards. He explained his opposition to reparations, blamed Democrats for failing inner city school systems and denounced the "political litmus test" applied to the hiring of college faculty. He also said liberals support systems that build a divisive society whose ability to defend itself is undermined.

This debate was made possible by The Victor S. Johnson Family Lectureship Fund. The fund was established by the Johnson family to bring to the campus speakers who are alumni, public figures, scholars and others who have distinguished themselves in their respective careers and are recognized leaders in their fields.  The lectures are intended to address a significant aspect of American life and thought.

Following his visit to Hamilton, Horowitz wrote on www.Frontpagemag.com:
"...I am at Hamilton College in Clinton NY to speak on the Sixties. It is one of the rare occasions I have been officially invited, in this case by historian Maurice Isserman, with whom I have had an email correspondence for some time. Isserman is that rare specimen, an honest leftist. He has written an excellent biography of Michael Harrington called The Other American, and one of the only studies of the Sixties by a leftist that I would recommend, If I Had A Hammer. I had dinner with Maurice and another leftist here whom I respect, Phil Klinkner, the author of a book on the civil rights movement, The Unsteady March, whom I once blasted on these pages. Having talked at length to Klinkner I realize I misjudged him, an error encouraged by the fact that his article appeared in The Nation. Hamilton College scores better than your average school in terms of diversity of faculty views. In the history department I am told by these gentlemen, there are 2 Republicans, 3 leftists and 5 Democrats. By my count, that's 8 leftists to 2 conservatives, which means that there are at least twice as many conservatives as the national academic average." 

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