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It was inevitable that Know Your Enemy would eventually discuss Arguing the World, the 1998 documentary about four Jewish intellectuals who emerged from the alcoves and arguments of City College in the 1930s and influenced American politics and letters for much of the rest of the twentieth century, and beyond: Irving Howe, Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell, and Nathan Glazer.
Why now? Most of all, it's the kind of documentary we love—the personal rivalries, the gossip, the self-conscious intellectuality, and the, well, arguments. But we'll also be publishing an episode next week with historian Ronnie Grinberg about her new book, Write Like a Man: Jewish Masculinity and the New York Intellectuals, and while the overlap in subject matter is not perfect, this documentary would make for a great primer for listeners (since we know you're the kind of listeners who do not despise homework). It's also an excellent chance to revisit the history of the left, old and new, and their fraught relationship with each other; to consider the place of intellectuals and thinking in a time of urgent action; and, as ever, to talk about the ways the subjects of Arguing the World might fit into America's right turn and "how we got here."
Watch:
Arguing the World, dir. Joseph Dorman (1998); YouTube, PBS, IMDB
Read:
Irving Howe, "This Age of Conformity," Partisan Review, Jan-Feb 1954
Irving Howe, "Socialism and Liberalism: Articles of Conciliation?" Dissent, Winter 1977
Irving Kristol, “Memoirs of a Trotskyist,” NYTimes, Jan 23, 1977
Know Your Enemy