Arguing the World (1998)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Director:

Joseph Dorman

Writer:

Joseph Dorman (writer)

Release Date:

7 January 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

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.

Plot Keywords:

Politics | Argument | Idealism | Radicalism | Friendship Between Men

Cast

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

Runtime:

106 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

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.