Responses:

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Subject: Review of the film Arguing the World
From: Lawrence Halperin
Date: 03 Mar 1999 2:47 AM

As a "student radical" at Harvard 1968-1972, I thought this was a most interesting look at the real people I had read about and had read. It is clear that there are no longer any thinkers and writers of their sort, and we need thoughtful people who can write about important topics that will actually reach out to the mind rather than the gut of the reader. That is, I think that Rush Limbaugh is what political discourse has degenerated into, with a large part of his listenership just blindly "dittoing" his inane statements; there does not seem to be any group of commentators that have any impact on those of us outside the university. That is, there may be some reading and thinking going on in universities, but I get the feeling that #1 the students don't care and don't know how to read or think about political subjects, or #2 the Political Correctness has gone so far that the left has come around to the right. When I was in college (at the time of Tom Hayden, whom the subjects of the movie don't like at all) there was at least a real feeling of engagement on these matters; now it seems that college students actually think that Reagan was a good President. Other than Irving Kristol, I find it hard to believe that anyone with a brain could think well of Reagan as an actual leader.\Anyway, the movie/TV show was intriguing, and I would tell anyone who cared that it is worth the time.