Arguing the World

The New York Intellectuals in Their Own Words

Joseph Dorman

• Publisher: Free Press
• Year: 2000
• Print ISBN: 9780684862798
• eBook ISBN: 9781439136508
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

From cafeterias to cocktail parties to the pages of influential journals of opinion, few groups of friends have argued ideas so passionately and so publicly as the writers and critics known as the New York intellectuals. A brilliantly contentious circle of thinkers, they wielded enormous influence in the second half of the twentieth century through their championing of cultural modernism and their critique of Soviet totalitarianism.

Arguing the World is a portrait of four of the leading members of the group in their own words, based on the extensive interviews that formed the basis for Joseph Dorman's acclaimed film of the same name, which New York magazine named in 1999 as the Best New York Documentary. The political essayist Irving Kristol, the literary critic Irving Howe, and the sociologists Daniel Bell and Nathan Glazer are brought into sharp focus in a vivid account of one of the century's great intellectual communities.

In this wide-ranging oral history, Dorman documents the lifelong political arguments of these men, from their working-class beginnings to their rise to prominence in the years following World War II, particularly through their contributions to magazines and journals like Partisan Review and Com-mentary. From the advent of the Cold War and McCarthyism, to the rise of the New Left on college campuses in the sixties, to the emergence of neoconservatism in the seventies and eighties, the group's disagreements grew more heated and at times more personal. Driven apart by their responses to these historic events, in later life the four found themselves increasingly at odds with one another. Kristol became influential in America's resurgent conservative movement and Glazer made a name for himself as a forceful critic of liberal social policy, while Bell fought to defend a besieged liberalism. Until his death in 1993, Irving Howe remained an unapologetic voice of the radical left.

Weaving personal reminiscences from these towering figures with those of their friends and foes, Arguing the World opens a new window on the social and intellectual history of twentieth-century America.

Index

Abel, Lionel, 34-35, 37, 57, 60-69, 72, 74-75, 77-79, 101

Abstract Expressionism, 91, 204

Adventures of Augie March, The (Bellow), 91

affirmative action, 22, 161-62

Affirmative Discrimination (Glazer), 162, 163

African Americans, 22, 192, 195, 199-200;

see also civil rights movement

Akhmatova, Anna, 111

Amalgamated Clothing Workers, 36

American Committee for Cultural Freedom (ACCF), 114, 115

American Historical Review, 200

American Jewish Committee, 86, 87, 109

American Judaism (Glazer), 12, 106, 109

anti-Communism, 105, 113-25, 132, 140, 188, 200, 204; see also anti-Stalinism

Anti-Defamation League, 87

anti-Semitism, 44, 83, 86-88, 91, 105-8, 110, 112, 132

anti-Stalinists, 54, 71-72, 79, 125; at City College, 2, 3, 47, 50, 57, 72, 81; McCarthyism and, 17, 123; at Partisan Review, 4, 59, 72, 81, 113

antiwar movement, 9, 148-51, 166

Arendt, Hannah, 89, 90, 102, 109, 138, 202

Armed Prophet, The (Deutscher), 35

Armies of the Night (Mailer), 8

atom bomb, 134

Auden, W. H., 59, 72

Avukah, 12, 48, 109

Awake and Sing (Odets), 37

Babel, Isaac, 111

Baldwin, James, 88, 199

Barrett, William, 7, 101

Beat writers, 164

Beginning of the Journey, The (Trilling), 6, 86

Bell, Daniel, 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 16, 17, 22-23, 126, 182-85, 191-92, 196-98; and academia, 132, 203; adolescence of, 33, 35-39; and anti-Communism, 114, 115, 118, 121, 123, 124; background of, 25-27; childhood of, 25, 27-29; at City College, 1-4, 41-43, 46, 47, 49, 50, 53, 56, 193; Jewish identity of, 11-13, 23, 105-9; as liberal critic of liberalism, 20; and neoconservatism, 157-59, 162-68, 173-74, 180-81; and New Left, 17-19, 131-37, 151-55; Niebuhr and, 92-93; in old age, 22-23; and Partisan Review, 14; during postwar years, 93-95, 96, 100, 111-12; and sociology, 15; during World War II, 82, 83, 85-86; and younger intellectuals, 201

Bell, Pearl, 23

Bellow, Saul, 69, 71, 77, 78, 80-81, 91, 95, 96, 101, 202

Bennington College, 101

Berman, Paul, 152-53, 155, 164-65, 196-97, 201

Berryman, John, 59

Beyond the Melting Pot (Glazer and Moynihan), 5, 12, 131

Bible, Hebrew, 10

Black Power, 11, 142

blacks, see African Americans

Bodenheim, Maxwell, 78

Bolsheviks, 55, 169

Boorstin, Daniel, 109

Boys’ High School, 30, 47

Browder, Earl, 58

Buber, Martin, 107, 108

Buckley, William F., Jr., 167, 168

Bukharin, Nikolai, 48, 49, 53, 80

Butler, Nicholas Murray, 44

Caldwell, Erskine, 37

California, University of, at Berkeley, 18, 144-47

Cambridge University, 86

Cannon, James P., 56, 65

Capone, Al, 91

Carmichael, Stokely, 142

Castro, Fidel, 132, 140

Catholics, 47

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 114-15

Chagall, Marc, 101

Chamberlain, John, 85

Chambers, Whitaker, 116

Chicago, University of, 71; Committee on Social Thought, 201

Churchill, Winston, 80

City College of New York, 1-4, 14, 16-17, 20-23, 40-56, 63, 83, 146, 182, 183, 196; anti-Stalinists at, 2, 3, 47, 50, 57, 72, 81; diversity of groups at, 46-47; Jews at, 2, 43-45; Partisan Review and, 1, 4, 59, 61, 62; ROTC at, 41, 42, 46; Trotskyists at, 24, 47, 48, 51, 54-56; Zionists at, 12, 48, 86, 109

civil rights movement, 18, 136, 144, 146, 152

Clinton, Bill, 171

Cohen, Arthur, 108

Cohen, Elliot, 10-11, 86

Cohen, Morris Raphael, 41, 44, 63

Cold War, 19, 188, 198; Communist party and, 112-13; end of, 172; Howe during, 125, 128, 191; Kristol on, 180-81; New Left and, 132-34, 151

Columbia University, 1-2, 6, 43, 63, 87, 92, 195; quota for Jewish students at, 2, 44; student unrest at, 18, 151-55

Coming of Post-Industrial Society, The (Bell), 5, 174, 185

Commentary, 9, 19, 94, 95, 168, 202; African Americans and anti-Communism of, 120; book reviews in, 8; Glazer and, 105-6; Howe and, 14; Jews and, 11, 86; Kristol and, 87-89, 105-7; and McCarthyism, 121, 122; social life around, 100; Zionism and, 109

Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels), 34, 35, 169

Communist party, 4, 15, 37, 40, 63, 115, 203, 204; at City College, 51; Cold War and, 112-13, 116; in Eastern Europe, 111; front groups of, 14, 58, 59, 119; in Greenwich Village, 77; and Hitler-Stalin Pact, 79; intellectual inquiry shunned by, 17, 65-66; Jews and, 36; Modernism and,

61, 65, 164; Partisan Review and, 57, 60-62, 64, 66-70; Popular Front of, 66, 68; and Russian Revolution, 34, 52; Socialist party versus, 38; see also anti-Communism; Stalinism

Community Action Program, 159

Company She Keeps, The (McCarthy), 91

Conference on Peace and Scientific Progress, 113

Congress, U.S., 105, 116, 147, 172

Congress for Cultural Freedom, 114

Conrad, Joseph, 15

Constitution, U.S., 168, 178, 179; First Amendment, 17, 116, 145; Fifth Amendment, 17, 105, 118-19

Contemporary Jewish Record, 86

Correspondence, 23, 185, 201, 203

Cowley, Malcolm, 52, 68

Critical Crossings (Jumonville), 191

Critic’s Notebook, A (Howe), 185

Cuban revolution, 132, 140, 142

Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, The (Bell), 185

cummings, e. e., 78

Daily Worker, 68, 70

Dangling Man (Bellow), 91

Day, John, 85

Debs, Eugene V., 32, 39, 85

Declaration of Independence, 168

Democratic party, 38, 55, 93, 167, 168, 172, 173; Bell’s criticisms of, 192; civil rights movement and, 136; during Great Depression, 94; New Left and, 19, 157, 166

Democratic Socialists of America, 175

Depression, see Great Depression

Deutscher, Isaac, 35

Dewey, John, 63

Dickstein, Morris, 132, 136, 195, 201, 205-6

Displaced Persons (DP) camps, 106, 110

Dissent, 19, 24, 128, 129, 203; African Americans and, 199, 200; founding of, 5, 127; New Left and, 18, 138, 139, 150, 176; Walzer at, 21, 125, 139, 175

Dos Passos, John, 59

Dostoevski, Feodor, 92

Dry Salvages, The (Eliot), 59

Dupee, F.W., 69, 70, 91, 151

Duranty, Walter, 52, 68

Eastman, Max, 85

Einstein, Albert, 87, 109-10

Eliot, T.S., 3, 59, 175

Ellison, Ralph, 199

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 141, 165, 175

Encounter, 115

End of Ideology, The (Bell), 132-35

Engels, Friedrich, 48, 49, 80, 93

Enquiry, 20-21

Esquire, 19, 104

Fadayev (writer), 113

Farrell, James, 61, 66-67, 69

fascism, 2, 42, 57, 68, 82, 83, 134

Fast, Howard, 60, 105

Federalist Papers, The, 168

“fellow travelers,” 4, 58, 69, 120

First International, 75

Fourth International, 75

Franco, Francisco, 57, 59

Frankenthaler, Helen, 101, 103

Free Speech Movement (FSM), 144, 146, 147

Freiheit (newspaper), 36

French Revolution, 135

Freud, Sigmund, 87, 102, 201

Fromm, Erich, 109-10

Fur and Leather Workers Union, 36

Gates, Henry Louis, 199

Gestapo, 53, 112

Gide, Andre, 59

Gingrich, Newt, 20

Gitlin, Todd, 3, 134, 135, 138-41, 143, 150-51, 156, 166, 176, 194

Glamour, 103

Glazer, Nathan, 5, 8-9, 14, 16, 22, 128-29, 182-85, 187, 191-92, 196-98; and academia, 132, 203; adolescence of, 36, 39-40; and anti-Communism, 114, 117-20, 122-24; background of, 25-27; childhood of, 30-31; at City College, 1-4, 12, 40, 41, 43-44, 46-49, 51-52, 59, 83, 86, 109; and Commentary, 86-89; Jewish identity of, 12, 13, 105, 107-10; as liberal critic of liberalism, 20; and neoconservatism, 157, 158, 160, 162-63, 166, 168, 173, 177-78; and New Left, 17-19, 132, 144-49; and Partisan Review, 10-11, 14, 59-60, 72-73; during postwar years, 84-86, 93, 95, 99-100, 112; and sociology, 15, 131; television appearances of, 207; during World War II, 83

Goldberg, Jackie, 144, 145, 147-48

Goldwater, Barry, 167, 173

Good Housekeeping, 19, 104

Gorky, Arshile, 79

Great Depression, 14, 18, 26, 31, 61, 78, 83, 134; City College during, 1, 2...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• The Participants
• The New York Jewish Intellectuals
• A Note on the Text
• A Lifetime in Argument
• History at the Kitchen Table
• A Harvard for the Poor
• The Most Interesting Place in the Soviet Union
• The Newness of Ideas
• Darkness Descending
• The Mood of Two Generations
• The Neoconservative Revolt
• Two Cheers for Utopia
• Worrying with a Purpose
• Index