The New Yorker

I've been reading The New Yorker since the 50s. In college, my subscription copy arrived in my mail slot every Friday afternoon, making for an enjoyable start to the weekend. (I had a student subscription, which cost, as I recall, $4 for the year.)

Like many others, I did not like the politicization of the magazine in the late 60s, which filled the Talk of the Town pages with antiwar pieces then as well as now. I also missed the quirky columns on subjects like Ivy League football and trains; these subjects, like nightclubs and boxing, were dropped over time. Still, there remained the cartoons and the ads, although I liked both more in the past. But the occasional piece still succeeds in winning my attention and repaying it, e.g., many of James Surowieki's pieces on finance.

But an article on Hugo Chavez a while back illustrates what is wrong even with the financial or economic stuff. The gist of the article was that oil companies, despite their opposition to Chavez, were finding ways to work with the new leader, showing a realism and flexibility at odds with (and better than) a reflexive conservative dislike for the leftist. What does this view make of the latest news from Venezuela, of further nationalization of oil production in the country. Sounds to me like the reflexive conservative reaction was the correct one all along.

Then there was a piece about an interview with a Hezbollah official in Beirut, around the time of last year's war. Maybe it was before the fighting actually began. The article describes meeting this guy for ice cream and having a civilized chat. What are we suposed to make of this account? That we should not demonize Hezbollah? That they are regular guys and we should get to know them better? That we should discount their pronouncements about death to Jews and Israel as mere posturing? That we should ignore their murder of innocent civilians? Talk about cognitive dissonance! But the piece didn't take up any larger argument, only the narrative of the meeting, leaving us to draw conclusions about the humanness of this guy and, presumably, his fellow members of Hezbollah. I could not do it, knowing what else I know. It was like reading a piece about a Gestapo official in his free time, who shows a friendly and human side at home. In their effort to have a different take, the magazine succeeds only in being willfully blind to reality.

Posted by Finn MacCool