ARGUING THE WORLD

• by Thom Powers, March 12, 2009

Written by Hugo Perez

A brief surf of cable news shows and their speaking-points, sound-byte oriented talking-head experts might lead one to ask where public intellectual discourse has gone in our media saturated 21st century world.  This week’s STF presentation ARGUING THE WORLD is a swansong to the golden age of New York public intellectual life through a portrait of several of its most influential participants: Daniel Bell, Nathan Glazer, Irving Howe, and neo-con godfather Irving Kristol.  New York doc veterans Director Joseph Dorman and Editor Jonathan Oppenheim joined the STF audience for a discussion of the circumstances that made the City College of the 1930s the cradle of public intellectual discourse for the remainder of the 20th Century, and how the changing nature of our society and media-scape perhaps no longer allow for public intellectuals to have the prominence and influence that they once did.  As is traditional, the conversation continued at STF hangout 99 Below where Dorman and Oppenheim were joined by a slew of familiar faces from the New York documentary scene: Jean Tsien, Jenni Livingston, Pola Rapaport, Martina Radwan, and others.  Several hours later, fueled by good conversation and perhaps the special pear schnapps STF drink special, one left thinking that perhaps the prognosis for intellectual discourse was not as bleak as one thought.

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