Arguing the World (1997)

A true story of four Jewish intellectuals born in New York and educated at City College during the 1930s, and their divergent paths over the next six decades.

Director:

Joseph Dorman

Writer:

Joseph Dorman

Stars:

Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, Irving Howe

Cast

Credited cast:
Daniel Bell	...	Himself
Nathan Glazer	...	Himself
Irving Howe	...	Himself
Irving Kristol	...	Himself
Alan Rosenberg	...	Narrator

Storyline

This documentary tells the story of a hotbed of Jewish intellectualism, New York's City College c. 1930, and in particular follows the careers of four of the greatest minds to emerge from that environment. In following the divergent paths of Bell, Glazer, Howe, and Kristol, the film serves as a powerful record both of American intellectual history and of the peculiar role of a generation of Jewish thinkers in riding and shaping that history.

---

Plot Keywords:

intellectual | neoconservative | radicalism | politics | mccarthyism | 

---

Genres:

Documentary

---

Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 January 1998 (USA)

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$19,845, 11 January 1998, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$47,044, 23 January 1998

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

106 min

Color:

Color

User Reviews

generation gap

This is about left-wing eggheads from the 30's who are now bureaucratic right wingers. They seem to beat-up on Tom Hayden because he was from the rock and roll 60's. At that time they were the professors and writers who wanted to ignore the Vietnam situation because it didn't relate to their life and career. They weren't draftable. I think this is a good display of what youthful ideals and enlightened self-interest are really about. I was from the 60's but wasn't a radical. The music, though, gave me a feeling of change that was possible in an America that had been cheated by following a tight-lipped closed-minded patriotism. The thing about communism and marxism is that dictatorship of the proletariat will never lead to full communism, altruism and brotherly love are not a basic human characteristic but greed and love of power is.