POLITICS SEPTEMBER 10, 2009
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"Does the Magazine have an ideology?" This is the fine question that the editor of The New York Times Magazine attempted to answer last week. "At the risk of giving some of my colleagues hives," Gerald Marzorati wrote online, "I think it does." Good! A dissent, and a promise of seriousness. And then there followed this, which historians of culture may one day find useful:
Call it Urban Modern. That is, I think it reflects not a left-or-right POLITICAL ideology but a geographical one, the mentality of the place [sic] it is created: 21st Century Manhattan. So: the Magazine reflects a place where women have professional ambition, where immigrants are welcome, and where gays and lesbians can be themselves (if not marry, yet). The Magazine also reflects a place where being rich is not a bad thing, where fashion is not a sign of superficiality, and where individualism is embraced. Here, arguing is not bad manners. Here, a chief way of loving your hometown is criticizing it: For, say, not doing enough for those (children, the poor, the homeless) who are most vulnerable. Here, art is never spoken of in moral terms, and most aspects of everyday life--food and drink and bathroom fixtures--are mostly spoken of in aesthetic terms. And here, as E.B. White famously wrote, it tends to be those who come from elsewhere full of longing who make the place what it is. More generally, we reflect a place where change is not a threat, where doubt and complexity are more TRUE than certainty, and where most everything non-criminal is tolerated--except a bad haircut.
No dissent, then, and no seriousness. This anthropological jewel (which is an injustice to some of the magazine’s writers and editors) represents instead a flight from both. Urban Modern? That is not ideology, it is interior design. Marzorati’s credo is yet another expression of the adoration of Manhattan by Manhattan, though he does neglect to mention that if you can make it there you can make it anywhere; and it is also more Times happy talk about itself. (The good cheer of the paper’s managers is beginning to sound a little psychotic.) More interestingly, what is being celebrated here is the ideology of no ideology--the ascendancy of the Nora Ephron view of the world, which may be succinctly described as "food and drink and bathroom fixtures." What moves such a heart most (aside from children, the poor, and the homeless) are amenities and trivialities. The conferring of importance upon the unimportant, and of unimportance upon the important: this is a mark of decadence, the cognitive inversion of people who live "mostly in aesthetic terms" because they have secured themselves materially--or so they would like to believe—against philosophy and pain. They live for lightness and distraction. Their laughter is the sound of luck. They acquit themselves of their intellectual obligations with opinions. The anxiety that arguing may be bad manners is plausibly held by someone whose primary arena of political action may be the dinner party. (Darling, were we wrong about Obama?) And fashion, a sign of superficiality? Never! I saw how Malvin poured his soul into his hen-like maternity design. It was WRENCHING. Perhaps I am mistaking Manhattan for its media, which is of course a common Manhattan mistake; but neither the reality nor the representation seems able to acknowledge, for example, that Anna Wintour is the most boring person on earth.
I understand that The New York Times Magazine is not Mind, and it is certainly less pornographic about luxury than it used to be, though this may have more to do with budgets than with sensibilities; but all this jolly vacuity, this strident insistence upon silliness, this elevation of little things into big things, this insouciant defense of slackening (how else defend it?), gets me down. The pleasure of little things is owed in part to their littleness: ruin the scale and you ruin the experience. Real aesthetes know this. Marzorati’s manifesto has a quality of release about it, as if he has been given permission, and is passing the permission along, to free himself from an old ranking of values, from what used to matter but does no more. He is not alone in his feeling of relief. It is one of the characteristics of American culture now. It is sometimes mistaken for a freshness of perspective, a new critical standpoint, but there is nothing fresh about easing up and it is the antithesis of criticism, or the kind of criticism that discomfits powers and platitudes. For instance: when Marzorati jauntily protests that in Manhattan being rich is not a bad thing, it has the effect of concealing that in Manhattan being poor is a bad thing. That is how high spirits work in hard times. And what is so terrifying about seriousness, anyway? I like to think of it as nothing more than proof of consciousness. Happy is the man whose worst misfortune is a bad haircut, but no such man lives. There is only so much trivialization that a mind can withstand before it loses its capacity for judgment, its existential competence. Does Marzorati believe that America is suffering from a surfeit of seriousness? Is he fearful about the fate of fun? But it is possible, I swear, to be heavy and hilarious. Urban Modern is neither.
Why would one wish to be so completely saturated in one’s own society, so thoroughly absorbed into one’s own setting? In a small room at the National Gallery the other day, I had a lesson in the principle of standing out. Both of Tullio Lombardo’s uncanny double-portrait busts of mysterious and beautiful young people, a man and a woman, are there. The marble is carved in excitingly high relief--so high that, in the one called simply "A Couple," from around 1495, the necks are completely extracted from the ground, and light sneaks through some of the man’s wild curls. The figures seem almost to be free-standing, but of course they are not. They are merely asserting the greatest degree of autonomy consistent with what they are. The work is an unforgettable emblem of separation without severance. About this masterpiece, the catalog nicely observes that the figures "seem to strain against the plane from which they emerge." One should strain against the plane. We can do better, and be more, than low relief. The strain against the plane is one of the supreme achievements of the spirit, the one we call detachment.
Leon Wieseltier is the literary editor of The New Republic.
By Leon Wieseltier
10 comments
ouch Leon, remind me never to write anything flippant. I gotta agree I have not come across something as vacuous as "Urban Modern" in a long time. I do love this line: we reflect a place where change is not a threat, where doubt and complexity are more TRUE than certainty (I especially love the caps on TRUE). Is there a word in the English language that can accurately describe such a sentence? Glib or inane doesn't quite do it justice. I think we should take that word and create an award based upon it and award it to Mr. Marzorati. It takes a certain skill to produce such shallow profundity and apparent self-contradiction without awareness. And, to me, the most wondrous thing is that he was actually getting paid to write such things. I am definitely in the wrong line of work.
- blackton
September 10, 2009 at 11:59am
Damn, it just occured to me, we can call it the George Walton award.
- blackton
September 10, 2009 at 1:22pm
I like that, Blackton, The George Walton Award. Many self-important words that say worth than nothing--in other words, drivel. I love looking at comments, but when I see there are only two talk-backs, and one of them is George's, my heart sinks. What a waste of space. As for Leon's post, the editor of NY Times Magazine, is also talking drivel. That said, the mag runs plenty of serious, morally challenging articles. What's wrong with looking at someone else's beautiful antiques. Or taking fashion seriously. No one's saying it should be elevated to art. What a dull, straight-out-of-Soviet-Union world we'd live in if nobody cared about their clothes. What dose he want? That we should all wear drab Mao jackets? Does Leon ever have any fun?
- MOLLYSIMON
September 10, 2009 at 3:26pm
Perhaps your thoughts have crystalized something for me. I've been thinking lately that the magazine seems to have fewer and fewer articles that I find interesting. Maybe it's the flip attitude that is turning me off. Thanks for the new perspective.
- laurasmith
September 10, 2009 at 3:31pm
Remember Isaac Davis trying to capture Manhattan in Mnahattan? "Chapter one. " "He adored New York City. He idolised it all out of proportion. " Uh, no. Make that "He romanticised it all out of proportion. " "To him, no matter what the season was, this was still a town that existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin. " Uh... no. Let me start this over. "Chapter one. " "He was too romantic about Manhattan, as he was about everything else. " "He thrived on the hustle, bustle of the crowds and the traffic. " "To him, New York meant beautiful women and street-smart guys who seemed to know all the angles. " Ah, corny. Too corny for a man of my taste. Let me... try and make it more profound. "Chapter one. He adored New York City. " "To him, it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. " "The same lack of integrity to cause so many people to take the easy way out... ... was rapidly turning the town of his dreams..." No, it's gonna be too preachy. I mean, face it, I wanna sell some books here. "Chapter one. He adored New York City, although to him it was a metaphor for the decay of contemporary culture. " "How hard it was to exist in a society desensitised by drugs, loud music, television, crime, garbage..." Too angry. I don't wanna be angry. "Chapter one. " "He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. " "Behind his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of a jungle cat. " I love this. "New York was his town and it always would be. " george: I think we can all agree that Gerald Marzorati is no Isaac Davis. But, really, how would anyone go about encompassing the New York Times Magazine [or the National Enquirer for that matter] without sounding like they were hellbent on avoiding vacuity? Mostly intellectuals are hellbent on sounding like intellectuals. I never imagine them writing to be understood. Instead, I imagine them writing in order to imagine other people writing about how they consistently avoid being vacuous in their writing while being effortlessly fluent in, say, Irving, Mailer and Updike. You know, Tom Wolfe's "three stooges". Or read John Fowles' "The Collector"; than read "Daniel Martin". You tell me: Which author is the vacuous intellectual? LW: Happy is the man whose worst misfortune is a bad haircut, but no such man lives. There is only so much trivialization that a mind can withstand before it loses its capacity for judgment, its existential competence. Does Marzorati believe that America is suffering from a surfeit of seriousness? Is he fearful about the fate of fun? But it is possible, I swear, to be heavy and hilarious. Urban Modern is neither. george: Yeah, that's what I mean. george
- iambiguous
September 10, 2009 at 3:34pm
molly: when I see there are only two talk-backs, and one of them is George's, my heart sinks. What a waste of space. george: Golly Molly you make the same mistake all the other folks who loathe me do: You keep me on the front page. You contribute yet more wasted space by pointing out mine. And if all it takes to sink your heart is seeing my name you really ought consider a transplant. See if Blackton is doing anything with his. gw
- iambiguous
September 10, 2009 at 5:53pm
I agree about the Magazine Molly, I like to read it, but I also agree with Leon's takedown, it was pretty funny. gw, was that a riposte? Oh, you got me. I don't have a heart because I find you tedious and boring. You have had a few good posts when you stick to the topic at hand, but I certainly did not read that long one, as I scrolled down and saw Molly's name I checked it out to see if you could come up with something, but no.
- blackton
September 10, 2009 at 6:54pm
George, My point wasn't to put you on the front page. It was to vent. You're really annoying--though I do agree you occasionally get it right--and it's always reassuring to see that others agree.
- MOLLYSIMON
September 10, 2009 at 7:25pm
A thoroughly delightful piece. The follow-up question might be does the rest of the paper have a different ideology than the magazine? A few examples: Lately, the weekly Dining section largely reflects the sensibilities of the Marzoratis of the city. I still smile when I think about a piece not so many years back on Pietro's, a long-lived midtown Italian steakhouse. The major theme was that the restaurant had employed for many years a coat check person who didn't hand out claim stubs. She simply memorized what belonged to who. The sub theme was that Pietro's offered damned good steaks and traditional Italian fare to a clientele heavily loaded with regular clients. My guess is that most of Manhattan's diners--and who dines out more often than residents of Manhattan--are still regulars at restaurants that don't feature tasting menus or foie gras hamburgers. The current Dining section treats them as orphans. Then there's the weekly Home section. In fairness, it always focused on the rich. But the rich used to be portrayed as leaders of taste and decorum. Not lately. Now I think of a piece a year or so ago featuring a schmuck in Connecticut who bragged about spending $50,000 a tree for mature trees to surround his new palazzo. What do the Marzoratis find interesting about the new rich? They finance the artistes--painters, sculptors, interior and fashion designers, etc.; to say nothing of landscapers--with whom the Marzoratis like to break bread. Even the sports section manages to achieve a certain political tint. May the Old Grey Lady survive and prosper, despite, not due to, the leadership of the current Sulzberger proprietor. But at $2.00 per day, $5.00 on Sundays, it would do well to appeal to a broader audience than those with whom Mr. Marzorati might well feel most at home. Sorry, Marzorati. All I know about you I learned from Wieseltier.
- lsernoff
September 10, 2009 at 8:30pm
molly: ....You're really annoying--though I do agree you occasionally get it right--and it's always reassuring to see that others agree.... george: I'm annoying because I poke around in things that generally annoy people who like their topical discussions linear and literal. The irony challanged denizens of the mainstream media. And having been born and raised in the crude, scatological world of a hardcore working class community outside Wilkes Barre, I can be crude and scatological in a way that allows for many preening intellectuals to reduce my points down to that. I don't sound like them and that is often more important than whatever it is that is actually said. They interact as colleagues. And that's fine. But you don't have to be the colleague type to have piercing perceptions about human interaction. As with Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade, I'm feeding them pearls. And they don't even know it. But here's the most unsettling thing about me. Philosophically, I yank political pundits into the infinitely problematic thickets of Cioran, Pessoa, Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein and Rorty. I deconstruct identity and situate it in ever evolving contingency, chance and change. I'm less intrigued with what people think they know about something and more fascinated instead with how much thought they have given to the limitations of human knowledge. In particular, the inherent limitations of human language in professing moral and political value judgments. I am most contemptuous I suppose of those who feel compelled to embrace one or another rendition of The Whole Truth. The mindless religionists and the insufferable secular ideologues. The numbingly shallow palaver of a political class that gives birth over and again to truly stuptefying imbeciles like Palin and Kristol and Limbaugh and Hannity and Beck. I detest these people because they disgrace the human race everytime they open their mouths. Now, this is aimed not at you so much as a friend of mind who is a clinical psychologist. He does research on the behavior of crowds and on the endless varieties of MassThink. We explore this in philosophy venues and I do what I can to expose the authortarian anchors these psychological defense mechanisms rest on. Not without a healthy sense of humor I might add. george walton d/a
- iambiguous
September 11, 2009 at 12:52am