Word: argumentative
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...leftist today. The Movement is characterized by anti-intellectualism; the cult of direct action and all the nonsense about guerrilla warfare in America leaves little legitimacy among radicals for intellectual concerns. The activist proves his worth by "doing" rather than by "talking." Such theory as will be needed, the argument goes, can be developed as the Movement progresses: a program can work itself...
...ELITIST bent of Lasch's argument should by now be apparent. Lasch makes no apologies for his emphasis on the importance of intellectuals in producing social change. He sees intellectuals as essential catalysts in the restructuring of societies, and believes that the history of major periods in American history is in large measure the history of its intellectual elite...
...social engineering and many Faculty members will argue that Harvard still has an obligation to produce leaders for American society. As long as most positions of leadership are being given to males, most of Harvard's products ought to be males, the traditionalists will claim. That line of argument has an ugly elitist ring to the large number of people around Harvard who think the University should be reforming rather than playing ball with the establishment. Perhaps the issue can be glossed over with a compromise, but probably not. Thus the merger involves much more than bringing boys and girls...
...WISH they didn't want us to laugh so much. Admittedly, we can always defend ourselves. We can tell ourselves our laughter is being evoked only to demonstrate once and for all just how cruel society is. But it's an unconvincing argument. No matter how we hide it, it is the fags--and the fags alone--whom we are deriding. That's how audiences work. A few years ago, the musical Cabaret learned something similar during its Boston tryout. One mock love song between the ghoulish and decadent German emcee and a fake gorilla ended with the emcee assuring...
...final scenes of James L. Dickson's Monmouth went their way, this reviewer was, at length, able to articulate the queasy sensation which had been plaguing him for the bulk of the evening. It was all like being locked into the fifth reprise of an ineluctably boring family argument: the grand issues reduced, more or less, to formalistic gabble, the verbal talent still in play diverted to scoring of debater's points, and the participants--persons deserving at least of interest, if not of affection--making themselves generally intolerable. I was, of course, merely imprisoned in that bituminous vacancy which...