Rethinking Foer.
I wrote before that I wasn't overjoyed with the Beinart for Foer change-up at TNR. But maybe I spoke to soon. The Editors have just published the third true-blue editorial in as many weeks, one of which included a brief apologetic nod to their role in damaging the Clinton health proposal back in 1993 by publishing Betsy McCaughey's critque of it. (For the record I've never read McCaughey's article or James Fallows' account in Breaking the News of how it got published. So I can't say I fully share the liberal grievance against it. I might if I knew the story better than just the outlines in the liberal press.) But the grievance is real, and Foer's first act as editor was to acknowledge it sympathetically, a point in his favour.
Much more cut-and-dry among TNR's sins though was the magazine's early-90s promotion of Charles Murray and his "genetic inferiority stuff" thesis. Murray was a simple creation of the VRWC (see Eric Alterman's invaluable discussion in What Liberal Media) and even if most of the Contributing Editors to the TNR Bell Curve issue (even the unorthodox Mickey Kaus) ripped Murray's racist conclusions and helped expose the sham-science on which they were based, the basic decision to take the bait, splash Murray across the cover and raise his and co-author Herrnstein's status to cross-ideological intellectual celebrity really did represent a horrendous error of judgement for which the magazine should be forever ashamed.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that one of Foer's first acts as editor (I assume) has been to bring in Ezra Klein to ask: Can we stop paying attention to Charles Murray now? Ezra trashes Murray's latest Big Right Wing Ideas book in a short, delciciously derisive piece. He concludes:
Having quickly rewritten all of U.S. social policy in a scant 79 double-spaced pages, Murray moves on to even more outrageous claims. The last section of his book, "The Larger Purpose," unveils his true messianic intentions. There is, he writes, a "momentous effect of the Plan: the revitalization of the institutions through which people lead satisfying lives." Thus follows an extended discourse on how the United States can avoid the perils of becoming like Western Europe--where many countries, surveys show, register higher levels of happiness than this country, but not the sort of happiness of which Murray approves. Murray then embarks upon a meditation on the nature of happiness. One such section is titled, modestly, "The Nature of Man as Social Being." The following Murray sentence, from his Journal op-ed, captures much of the flavor: "[I]f you agree with me that to live a human life can have transcendental meaning, then we need to think about how human existence acquires weight and consequence."
Apparently, the timeless quest for meaning comes back to abolishing government programs. "The welfare state is pernicious ultimately because it drains too much of the life from life," he argues. The ordinary conservative pundit maintains that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--which together account for over 75 percent of what the Plan would abolish--are unaffordable. Murray argues that they have created an existential spiritual crisis. Our lives would have more meaning if we spent more time haggling with health insurance bean-counters rather than having Medicare bureaucrats do it for us. Because Murray is not an ordinary conservative think-tank hack. He is oh-so weightier, oh-so-much more meaningful.
Ezra was a great pick to write the piece. But I just love the bigger symbolism involve (or I think it's involved). If Sullivan's TNR ushered in the Murray Era with a bang, maybe Foer's TNR is doing what it can to end it with a whimper. And what an improvement in the world that would be!
Update: Whoops, I wrote this before noticing Ezra's happiness over the direction in which Foer seems to be taking cover pictures. I could have done without last week's Anna Nicole one, but this week's cover does have a certain post-modern something. I suppose, though, I might as well round out the cliche by pointing out that I've always liked TNR's covers.
Much more cut-and-dry among TNR's sins though was the magazine's early-90s promotion of Charles Murray and his "genetic inferiority stuff" thesis. Murray was a simple creation of the VRWC (see Eric Alterman's invaluable discussion in What Liberal Media) and even if most of the Contributing Editors to the TNR Bell Curve issue (even the unorthodox Mickey Kaus) ripped Murray's racist conclusions and helped expose the sham-science on which they were based, the basic decision to take the bait, splash Murray across the cover and raise his and co-author Herrnstein's status to cross-ideological intellectual celebrity really did represent a horrendous error of judgement for which the magazine should be forever ashamed.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that one of Foer's first acts as editor (I assume) has been to bring in Ezra Klein to ask: Can we stop paying attention to Charles Murray now? Ezra trashes Murray's latest Big Right Wing Ideas book in a short, delciciously derisive piece. He concludes:
Having quickly rewritten all of U.S. social policy in a scant 79 double-spaced pages, Murray moves on to even more outrageous claims. The last section of his book, "The Larger Purpose," unveils his true messianic intentions. There is, he writes, a "momentous effect of the Plan: the revitalization of the institutions through which people lead satisfying lives." Thus follows an extended discourse on how the United States can avoid the perils of becoming like Western Europe--where many countries, surveys show, register higher levels of happiness than this country, but not the sort of happiness of which Murray approves. Murray then embarks upon a meditation on the nature of happiness. One such section is titled, modestly, "The Nature of Man as Social Being." The following Murray sentence, from his Journal op-ed, captures much of the flavor: "[I]f you agree with me that to live a human life can have transcendental meaning, then we need to think about how human existence acquires weight and consequence."
Apparently, the timeless quest for meaning comes back to abolishing government programs. "The welfare state is pernicious ultimately because it drains too much of the life from life," he argues. The ordinary conservative pundit maintains that Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid--which together account for over 75 percent of what the Plan would abolish--are unaffordable. Murray argues that they have created an existential spiritual crisis. Our lives would have more meaning if we spent more time haggling with health insurance bean-counters rather than having Medicare bureaucrats do it for us. Because Murray is not an ordinary conservative think-tank hack. He is oh-so weightier, oh-so-much more meaningful.
Ezra was a great pick to write the piece. But I just love the bigger symbolism involve (or I think it's involved). If Sullivan's TNR ushered in the Murray Era with a bang, maybe Foer's TNR is doing what it can to end it with a whimper. And what an improvement in the world that would be!
Update: Whoops, I wrote this before noticing Ezra's happiness over the direction in which Foer seems to be taking cover pictures. I could have done without last week's Anna Nicole one, but this week's cover does have a certain post-modern something. I suppose, though, I might as well round out the cliche by pointing out that I've always liked TNR's covers.
1 Comments:
Dustin! your bloviations are always welcome! Yes -- that's the formula I like too, from the humourless tv critic who moonlights at The Nation right up to the maniacal narcissist at the helm (things have gotten so much more fun too since Marty learned to blog!) I agree; it will suck if TNR starts "reaching out" on things that define them from other liberal magazines. But Murray and HillaryCare -- and not, say, disliking Howard Dean -- were just the right things to apologize for imo -- Murray especially. And Foer is such a contrarian I doubt we'll see him turn TNR too earnest.
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