I think this is more like a bad infinity than a knot-tying.
Speaking of the ways elitism codes itself into language, someone should take this post out behind the archives and shoot it.
Jeez Ham-Love what is it with you and shooting my writing?
Speaking of the ways elitism codes itself into language, someone should take this post out behind the archives and shoot it.
Oh, now, how can you want to shoot a sentence like "Problem: while, speaking of the kind of observation that is, we may correctly observe that n+1 editorials are full of it, that observation is not 'great', but, actually, rather superficial"?
I loathe the name n+1; it captures too well the wormy, self-loathing vanity of the Geisteswissenschaften before Science's gilt throne.
I'm just going to assume the mangled html at the beginning of the post is intentional.
Science's gilt throne
It is dope, though. Once a year they let all the grad students sit in it and mark one person for death.
Against my will, I acknowledge that 8 is good.
(Lest it be thought that my standards are leading me astray: I checked with Kotsko, and he agreed.)
I thought this was the best part of the whole post--and there was a lot to pick from.
5: wow, I really am a one-note writer, aren't I.
Or, alternately, when all you have is a Glock, every problem looks like dauntingly complex prose.
Were I to continue along my one-note writing, I'd say something along the lines of, "huh, I guess n+1 is still around." Also, whatever happened to "the successors of n"?
Also, whatever happened to "the successors of n"?
Since I was quoting something which frequently referred to the magazine in question by its given name, I decided I would follow suit (though I briefly considered referring to American Circus as "the successors of the successors of n").
Is the period before "Discussing" in the last paragraph also intentional/sic and twisted.
I finally read the opening of the linked post:
The demons are dancing for n+1. It wasn't long ago that liberalism seemed catatonic, snowed in by the pragmatic sobriety of the Obama administration. The Republicans were the party of emotions, and in their radical re-envisioning the romantic left became no more than a set of charts on a policy brief. The poles had been reversed, and the progressive coalition of artists, writers, and poets was looking at bigger problems than the death of media. Literary magazines like n+1 were last bastions. Intellectuals flocked to support them not just to forestall the collapse of thought, but to forestall the collapse of romance.
It's possible my reading comprehension is failing, but n+1's roots are in the Bush era, and unless it's changed a lot, the style of the intellectual situation pieces was set during that time.
The banker who made money on Wall Street became the banker who made money criticizing Wall Street and n+1 was there to facilitate the transition.
I don't think that HFM "made money criticizing Wall Street." Call it a hunch.
"Literary magazines like n+1 were last bastions. Intellectuals flocked to support them not just to forestall the collapse of thought, but to forestall the collapse of romance. "
Wow. Good thing they didn't fall prey to self-aggrandizement. That could've gotten embarrassing.
Parts of the bits about fake activism and the ways that activists can be self aggrandizing really grated, particularly where the author quotes David Brooks approvingly:
"People are really good at self-deception," wrote David Brooks in a recent New York Times piece titled "Let's All Feel Superior." Dissecting the moralistic outrage in the wake of the Penn State sex scandal, Brooks found more than a touch of insincerity. "Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence," he wrote. "Everyone gets to proudly ask: 'How could they have let this happen?'" The incident was a horrible tragedy, but people mostly just used it as an opportunity to brandish their ethical credentials.
I mean, sometimes activists do seem to be promoting themselves more than a particular cause, but people who criticize the Penn State case are just using it "as an opportunity to brandish their ethical credentials." Really? Come on.
Really? Come on.
This response is so often appropriate to Brooks columns, that the reasons for continuing to read them become worthy of examination.
to forestall the collapse of romance
Thank goodness for Flippanter and Lunchy!
I'm pretty sure that the only times I've read anything in n+1 is when Flow-Nozz has linked to them dismissively. Maybe I read that "what was the hipster" piece independently.
Anyway, who cares. Everything you actually need to know about culture is in Variety or the Hollywood Reporter -- the rest is wankery.* Except physical culture, which you can read about in the Crossfit Journal.
*I may not actually believe this, but "Robert Halford" is prepared to defend it. In any event, you can surely learn more that is useful about culture by reading the Hollywood Reporter than you can by reading n+1.
27: I wouldn't have read it if it hadn't been excerpted in an article to which neb linked.
Everything you actually need to know about culture is in Variety or the Hollywood Reporter on Facebook, Unfogged, or both -- the rest is wankery.
31: The Unfogged and FB parts are also wankery, of course.
I'm really enjoying the asterisked comment in 29.
Honestly, I actually liked a lot of what I saw in the first few issues of n+1, which I think I learned about from Crooked Timber or possibly The Valve back when it was new. They probably still publish some stuff that I'd like. I just don't check anymore.
I subscribe and enjoy it. There's a soupcon of truth in nosflow's campaign, but I'm glad it's around and I wish I took the time to read more of it and try writing for it.
I insist that there is at least a ladle of truth in my campaign.
32:"Wankery! Wankery!"
says the teo.
"Utter wankery!
Everything is wankery."
What do people gain from all their words
at which they toil out of the sun?
Front page posters come and front page posters go,
but the blog remains forever.
All threads flow into the archive,
yet the archive is never full.
To the place the threads come from,
there they return again.
All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new out on the 'net.
Is there anything of which one can say,
"Look! This is something new"?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
32, 37: I vote that we rename Unfogged "Wankery Fair".