Really thoughtful, accurate piece. I too am optimistic that a course correction in the culture toward reasonable, impassioned debate is inevitable (newsletters like this seem proof). Incidentally, I tracked down Chen's essay after reading about its cancelation. It is absolutely lovely - so well written and with such novelistic nuance and moral clarity. It deserves to be amplified, not erased.
I applaud your call for debate and am appalled by the atmosphere of self-righteousness on all sides. I never read the Voice or Guernica, but I perceive NYRB as both consistently on the left and yet iconoclastic toward all sides. A couple of weeks before Oct 7, David Schulman wrote a forceful condemnation of West Bank settlers. Totally in character for NYRB.
On one hand we have sick kids and their families put off by a display shown where they receive medical treatment, on the other hand we have fully grown intellectuals who are incapable of handling moral complexity or a challenging perspective in a literary magazine.
Yeah I mean why can't the intellectual culture still be what it as in the 60s? Why is everyone so loath to debate ideas that have been widely discredited for over half a century? People should be more willing to debate the merits of colonial expansion, collective punishment, and military adventurism. The sign of a healthy intellectual culture is when the debate is never over and we don't have to make decisions about the comparative merit of ideas. The point is to have the conversation, not solve any of the problems! If some group of people thinks your ideas are beyond the pale, well, that's not a normal thing communities of people do all the time, that's called cancelling.
Maybe this is the reason "debate culture" is death. As I understand The Voice was an unique in its genre newspaper - unless even other journals like NYTimes or Washington Post had similar policies, I don't know,I don't live in US and in any case I would be still to young to remember - while today with social media you have literally an overdose of debate wich paradoxically got an exasperated rejection like the ones you are citing. My theory is having Internet opened the possibility to interact with tens or hundred people at time has exacerbated every discussion. I can notice it when I google "facebook" and under the news you always read stuff like "Guy sues another guy because of a FB post" or "Girl/guy suicide him/herself after FB harrasement". This exacerbation caused cancel culture sentiments on both sides, a bit like mass immigration cause racism and xenophobia.
Worth recalling that Alexander Cockburn was fired from the Village Voice, basically for being too critical of Israel. I believe Lucy Lippard was axed because she was insufficiently deferential to the trends promoted by New York galleries.
I loved the Village Voice. It was never boring, and was a big part of my intellectual / political growth in the '80's and '90's. Way back when I was a young public school teacher raking in $27K (before taxes), I used to take the 2 train down from the Bronx to Union Sq., pick up a VVoice, and go to the diner that used to be on the east side of the square and get a cheap breakfast and read the paper. Hours of good time spent at a low price. Perfect.
The timing of Uri Berliner's "How NPR Lost America's Trust" and articles like this makes me wonder if macroculture is desperately trying to win back its readership in time for the 2024 election. That said, it is nice to see biased media admit its mistakes. Is Washington Post or The Atlantic going to write a similar Mea Culpa? https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
I'm confrontational quite often, and yet few appreciate it. As you say, Substack is no substitute - it's an order of magnitude above most of the rest, but it's still perfectly possible for people to form bubbles brooking no dissent on certain subjects. I will say, fewer people delete confrontational comments than I might have guessed. (Although they might not know they can.)
As for that ur-publication, why not put a few bucks where your mouth is? As for who to hire - these scurrilous journalists of today all being so timid and tepid as you say - I can confront like twelve people at once, hint hint.
Thing is, though, at the helm of such an ur-publication, you'd have to stand between your new-golden-age-of-debate writers and the vermicious masses, or whatever it is exactly that's enforcing all this conformity. Will you do that? Can you do that? If I say something as mild and, to me, self-evident as "therapy is bunk" will I be thrown out on my ass? (Not here to debate said assertion -- if you'd like to, find a related post on my blog and do it there.)
I'm not saying to hire me, precisely, but nobody worth even a slight dang is going to waste their time at yet another pettily censorious outpost of the "new media." Editors are supposed to be like tanukis -- nutsacks so big we can hide under them. Now they don't even stand behind their own opinions [i]f the vermicious mass is irked. They're pathetic and repulsive.
If you won't be the change, can I have it? I'm kinda broke.
I disagree. I think downplaying how extremely popular political debates are on YouTube (just look at how many leftists have been engaging back at Destiny, Ben Shapiro, & the other Zionists).
This is not even getting into sports debates which ESPN has helped spread throughout the sports ecosystem.
It's funny -- I'm left but most of my readers are right-wing. I'm still breathing.
Insightful essay - well done!
Really thoughtful, accurate piece. I too am optimistic that a course correction in the culture toward reasonable, impassioned debate is inevitable (newsletters like this seem proof). Incidentally, I tracked down Chen's essay after reading about its cancelation. It is absolutely lovely - so well written and with such novelistic nuance and moral clarity. It deserves to be amplified, not erased.
I applaud your call for debate and am appalled by the atmosphere of self-righteousness on all sides. I never read the Voice or Guernica, but I perceive NYRB as both consistently on the left and yet iconoclastic toward all sides. A couple of weeks before Oct 7, David Schulman wrote a forceful condemnation of West Bank settlers. Totally in character for NYRB.
On one hand we have sick kids and their families put off by a display shown where they receive medical treatment, on the other hand we have fully grown intellectuals who are incapable of handling moral complexity or a challenging perspective in a literary magazine.
Yeah I mean why can't the intellectual culture still be what it as in the 60s? Why is everyone so loath to debate ideas that have been widely discredited for over half a century? People should be more willing to debate the merits of colonial expansion, collective punishment, and military adventurism. The sign of a healthy intellectual culture is when the debate is never over and we don't have to make decisions about the comparative merit of ideas. The point is to have the conversation, not solve any of the problems! If some group of people thinks your ideas are beyond the pale, well, that's not a normal thing communities of people do all the time, that's called cancelling.
"The Voice was the internet before the internet"
Maybe this is the reason "debate culture" is death. As I understand The Voice was an unique in its genre newspaper - unless even other journals like NYTimes or Washington Post had similar policies, I don't know,I don't live in US and in any case I would be still to young to remember - while today with social media you have literally an overdose of debate wich paradoxically got an exasperated rejection like the ones you are citing. My theory is having Internet opened the possibility to interact with tens or hundred people at time has exacerbated every discussion. I can notice it when I google "facebook" and under the news you always read stuff like "Guy sues another guy because of a FB post" or "Girl/guy suicide him/herself after FB harrasement". This exacerbation caused cancel culture sentiments on both sides, a bit like mass immigration cause racism and xenophobia.
Worth recalling that Alexander Cockburn was fired from the Village Voice, basically for being too critical of Israel. I believe Lucy Lippard was axed because she was insufficiently deferential to the trends promoted by New York galleries.
I loved the Village Voice. It was never boring, and was a big part of my intellectual / political growth in the '80's and '90's. Way back when I was a young public school teacher raking in $27K (before taxes), I used to take the 2 train down from the Bronx to Union Sq., pick up a VVoice, and go to the diner that used to be on the east side of the square and get a cheap breakfast and read the paper. Hours of good time spent at a low price. Perfect.
I miss those days.
The timing of Uri Berliner's "How NPR Lost America's Trust" and articles like this makes me wonder if macroculture is desperately trying to win back its readership in time for the 2024 election. That said, it is nice to see biased media admit its mistakes. Is Washington Post or The Atlantic going to write a similar Mea Culpa? https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-trust
the Voice was the internet before the internet 😎👍
I'm confrontational quite often, and yet few appreciate it. As you say, Substack is no substitute - it's an order of magnitude above most of the rest, but it's still perfectly possible for people to form bubbles brooking no dissent on certain subjects. I will say, fewer people delete confrontational comments than I might have guessed. (Although they might not know they can.)
As for that ur-publication, why not put a few bucks where your mouth is? As for who to hire - these scurrilous journalists of today all being so timid and tepid as you say - I can confront like twelve people at once, hint hint.
Thing is, though, at the helm of such an ur-publication, you'd have to stand between your new-golden-age-of-debate writers and the vermicious masses, or whatever it is exactly that's enforcing all this conformity. Will you do that? Can you do that? If I say something as mild and, to me, self-evident as "therapy is bunk" will I be thrown out on my ass? (Not here to debate said assertion -- if you'd like to, find a related post on my blog and do it there.)
I'm not saying to hire me, precisely, but nobody worth even a slight dang is going to waste their time at yet another pettily censorious outpost of the "new media." Editors are supposed to be like tanukis -- nutsacks so big we can hide under them. Now they don't even stand behind their own opinions [i]f the vermicious mass is irked. They're pathetic and repulsive.
If you won't be the change, can I have it? I'm kinda broke.
ok, i'm in.
i wish i were as optimistic as you.
I disagree. I think downplaying how extremely popular political debates are on YouTube (just look at how many leftists have been engaging back at Destiny, Ben Shapiro, & the other Zionists).
This is not even getting into sports debates which ESPN has helped spread throughout the sports ecosystem.
I spent my life in midwestern small towns. My fellow citizens would think I was putting on airs.