In his book Unholy Alliance, David Horowitz said of Hobsbawm:

Hobsbawm’s reflection is striking in a way that provides profound insight into the mind-set of the radical left. Even though he now “knows” that the Communist project “was bound to fail,” the dream of Communism still lives inside him. In other words, the belief in an alternate world to replace the one into which he has been born is not really connected to any reality. Moreover, the belief in the utopian future is impervious to its failure in practice, even at the cost of a hundred million lives.

This is an acknowledgment, in effect, of the religious dimension of radical belief. In Hobsbawm’s own words, his life would “lose its nature and its significance” without the revolutionary project. Without, that is, the project of first destroying the world he has been born into. The destruction is justified by the desire to create an alternative future; but the practicality of that future is not an important issue for Hobswbawm or for the millions of leftists like him, who proceed with the destruction without regard for what will follow. So strong is the psychological need for the utopian illusion and its project of destruction, that it does not matter to Hobsbawm (and to radicals like him) that the noble future to which he actually dedicated his life did not work and could not have, and in fact created monstrous injustice in its place. After it is all over and the corpses of the victims are all laid to rest, Hobsbawm still clings to his revolutionary fantasy and remains a dedicated enemy of the system it intends to destroy. Even though the utopian future is only an impossible dream, and has been the cause of immeasurable tragedy, it is still the center of his intellectual and political life.

For radicals like Eric Hobsbawm the revolutionary project is less about creating the future than it is about a war against the present. This is what gives their lives and their actions meaning. By his own account, Hobsbawm had doubts about the Soviet system all along the way. But his antagonism towards the capitalist democracies (despite the fact that they provided him with a privileged life) was even greater. Hobsbawm’s admissions reveal this salient fact: Ungrounded hostility towards the present is the practical inspiration of the radical faith

What Horowitz misses in this astute observation is the subtle but by no means minor point that people like Hobsbawm may not actually be true believers; in fact, it’s likely he isn’t. The people in positions of power in a cult need not be faithful to reap its benefits. This isn’t to say his hostility toward the western world and capitalist democracy isn’t sincere, but his hostility toward the rubes who buy his book is just as real and palpable to the keen observer. Hobsbawm doesn’t even bother actually trying to make his lies convincing because he knows the people who will read them are a flock of misanthropic sheep who are looking for reasons to “rebel” against a society that is a stand in for their distant fathers. He knows he can say anything as long as he prefaces it with some suitably high minded, Marxist sounding rhetoric and the activist Left won’t even bother putting down their bongs before agreeing. They are willing pawns and thus, unworthy of respect, just as The Family was, to Charles Manson, unworthy of his respect.

Which is why it’s almost pointless to engage people like Hobsbawm and his dedicants in a debate about the so called “crisis of capitalism” without realizing that they will never be swayed because they already know that they’re wrong. They just don’t care. Hobsawm, in true evil capitalist fashion, makes a living vomiting out coffee house Marxism to people who put Earth Liberation Front bumper stickers on the SUVs paid for by their rich parents. Hobsbawm then lives comfortably while an endless string of Squeaky Frommes clutch his poorly written books tight to their chests while telling him he’s a genius.