I really like this: "The bully pummeling the nerd, the latter reasons, is himself the pawn of a vast, subtle system of evil only someone as smart as a nerd can helplessly decipher. This illusion gives the nerd a way to enjoy himself during and between pummelings. Moral reasoning as masochism—a way to get off from being beaten."
I think you're too hard on James Wood but I agree that The Drift sucks. It bills itself as something different but it's definitely more of the same. I wonder if that's partly because it's from Brooklyn? If all the people who moved to NYC to be writers had moved to a wider variety of cities we might have a better literature.
I'm pretty skeptical about claims about the problem of our national discourse being that it's too NYC-centric or that we're not exposed to the views of the provinces (I've never lived in NYC myself)--I take it The Drift is like all of these little magazines mostly para-academic types trying to combine grad school cred with outsider posturing, but that's the shape of nearly every sort of thing from contemporary socialism to the dissident right--and even the shape of my own career! So idk. I have no opinion about James Wood in general, beyond not reading him, but what he wrote in this email sucks and I hope for his sake it's not representative of his mind at work.
I didn't say anything about our national discourse, just our literature. It might be true of national discourse too, I'm just too disconnected to know. I tend to think that internet people underestimate how much their physical location affects their view of the world.
I agree about grad school + outsider posturing. But I think if someone lived in a less central city, was less educated, and spent time hanging out with similar people in their city, they might actually be an outsider and have more original views, rather than just pretending. The Drift just makes the barest attempt at outsider posturing.
This is an extraordinarily silly post. Wood makes a serious argument: that "free markets" and "personal liberties" are not, as Bezos blithely assumes, invariably mutually reinforcing but are, on the contrary, frequently irreconcilable. A very large branch of political philosophy makes the same point, though plutocrats like Bezos and bloggers like Blake Smith are apparently unaware of its existence. Maybe you could address the issue rather than trying to make your bones by throwing shade at America's best literary critic.
As for your intrepid assertion that good writing doesn't make for good politics, you might have gone on profitably to consider whether bad writing doesn't make for bad politics. In evidence: George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language."
I imagine that bad writing--of which I think Wood's email is an example--might make for bad politics, although I'm not sure there's any relation. He and I probably agree on much politically. As for his being our best literary critic, it certainly wouldn't seem to be so from what he wrote here, but I don't think I've read enough of America's literary critics to say! Ofc he calls you "one of America’s best all-round intellects" so you're as entitled to your mutual admiration society as I am not to be a member...
Is Wood making a 'serious argument' though? I take it that it's indeed bad what Bezos is doing, but Bezos surely has a definition of 'personal liberties' that includes his right to do what he wants with the papers he owns, while Wood seems to take it that 'personal liberty' is more about, he says, " — oh, I don’t know — the personal liberty to write the occasional opinion piece critical of “free markets.”"
Am I being sillier than Wood in tone and thought? Not just his grating "oh I don't know" flourish, but his framing the issue as if 'personal liberty' were a matter of being able to 'write'--and here he means, in fact, to have published in a particular newspaper--his own opinion.
I don't know that I'm any less free for not being able to get my views published in the Washington Post. Certainly our democracy depends on having a decent press, and it's a shame for a major paper to keep declining, but this isn't in fact what Wood says, and indeed I don't know what 'large branch of political philosophy' makes quite the same rather specific and odd point that he does make.
I'm not sure what it accomplishes to call me a 'blogger', as if this were a way of putting me in my place... you, famously, were a janitor-manager, and we're both here on Substack!
Yes, the moral critique of markets is a large branch of political philosophy, including Marxists (G.A. Cohen), social democrats (Michael Walzer), liberals (Robert Dahl, Charles Lindblom, Thomas Piketty, Robert Kuttner, and of course, John Rawls).
Yes, Wood is a brilliant literary critic. You might start with "The Broken Estate,"
Didn't mean "bloggers" pejoratively. Well, maybe a little, and to that extent, I'm sorry.
ofc there are many critiques of the market, moral and otherwise; I'm not a libertarian or unread. Wood was not making an insightful critique of the market, he was offering a quite badly written 'interpretation' of Bezos' email. Behind what he wrote may stand a vast body of brilliant criticism he has written elsewhere, and somehow by implication the whole political-philosophical tradition critical of the market... but those were not what the Drift sent to my inbox, and not what I was writing about.
Btw I read this morning and quite enjoyed your review of Musa al-Gharbi's book in Commonweal!
I really like this: "The bully pummeling the nerd, the latter reasons, is himself the pawn of a vast, subtle system of evil only someone as smart as a nerd can helplessly decipher. This illusion gives the nerd a way to enjoy himself during and between pummelings. Moral reasoning as masochism—a way to get off from being beaten."
thank you!
I think you're too hard on James Wood but I agree that The Drift sucks. It bills itself as something different but it's definitely more of the same. I wonder if that's partly because it's from Brooklyn? If all the people who moved to NYC to be writers had moved to a wider variety of cities we might have a better literature.
I'm pretty skeptical about claims about the problem of our national discourse being that it's too NYC-centric or that we're not exposed to the views of the provinces (I've never lived in NYC myself)--I take it The Drift is like all of these little magazines mostly para-academic types trying to combine grad school cred with outsider posturing, but that's the shape of nearly every sort of thing from contemporary socialism to the dissident right--and even the shape of my own career! So idk. I have no opinion about James Wood in general, beyond not reading him, but what he wrote in this email sucks and I hope for his sake it's not representative of his mind at work.
I didn't say anything about our national discourse, just our literature. It might be true of national discourse too, I'm just too disconnected to know. I tend to think that internet people underestimate how much their physical location affects their view of the world.
I agree about grad school + outsider posturing. But I think if someone lived in a less central city, was less educated, and spent time hanging out with similar people in their city, they might actually be an outsider and have more original views, rather than just pretending. The Drift just makes the barest attempt at outsider posturing.
good poast
thanks!
also it’s *the grift*
lol--I mean, whether it's them or Jacobin (to which I recently subscribed, so willing am I to be tricked!) or Trump, I respect the hustle...
i respectfully recommend that you can mediate your thinking many other ways---!
This is an extraordinarily silly post. Wood makes a serious argument: that "free markets" and "personal liberties" are not, as Bezos blithely assumes, invariably mutually reinforcing but are, on the contrary, frequently irreconcilable. A very large branch of political philosophy makes the same point, though plutocrats like Bezos and bloggers like Blake Smith are apparently unaware of its existence. Maybe you could address the issue rather than trying to make your bones by throwing shade at America's best literary critic.
As for your intrepid assertion that good writing doesn't make for good politics, you might have gone on profitably to consider whether bad writing doesn't make for bad politics. In evidence: George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language."
I imagine that bad writing--of which I think Wood's email is an example--might make for bad politics, although I'm not sure there's any relation. He and I probably agree on much politically. As for his being our best literary critic, it certainly wouldn't seem to be so from what he wrote here, but I don't think I've read enough of America's literary critics to say! Ofc he calls you "one of America’s best all-round intellects" so you're as entitled to your mutual admiration society as I am not to be a member...
Is Wood making a 'serious argument' though? I take it that it's indeed bad what Bezos is doing, but Bezos surely has a definition of 'personal liberties' that includes his right to do what he wants with the papers he owns, while Wood seems to take it that 'personal liberty' is more about, he says, " — oh, I don’t know — the personal liberty to write the occasional opinion piece critical of “free markets.”"
Am I being sillier than Wood in tone and thought? Not just his grating "oh I don't know" flourish, but his framing the issue as if 'personal liberty' were a matter of being able to 'write'--and here he means, in fact, to have published in a particular newspaper--his own opinion.
I don't know that I'm any less free for not being able to get my views published in the Washington Post. Certainly our democracy depends on having a decent press, and it's a shame for a major paper to keep declining, but this isn't in fact what Wood says, and indeed I don't know what 'large branch of political philosophy' makes quite the same rather specific and odd point that he does make.
I'm not sure what it accomplishes to call me a 'blogger', as if this were a way of putting me in my place... you, famously, were a janitor-manager, and we're both here on Substack!
Yes, the moral critique of markets is a large branch of political philosophy, including Marxists (G.A. Cohen), social democrats (Michael Walzer), liberals (Robert Dahl, Charles Lindblom, Thomas Piketty, Robert Kuttner, and of course, John Rawls).
Yes, Wood is a brilliant literary critic. You might start with "The Broken Estate,"
Didn't mean "bloggers" pejoratively. Well, maybe a little, and to that extent, I'm sorry.
ofc there are many critiques of the market, moral and otherwise; I'm not a libertarian or unread. Wood was not making an insightful critique of the market, he was offering a quite badly written 'interpretation' of Bezos' email. Behind what he wrote may stand a vast body of brilliant criticism he has written elsewhere, and somehow by implication the whole political-philosophical tradition critical of the market... but those were not what the Drift sent to my inbox, and not what I was writing about.
Btw I read this morning and quite enjoyed your review of Musa al-Gharbi's book in Commonweal!
Thank you -- very gracious of you. I'll keep reading you here, and good luck with it.
always happy to be read--and when not blogging, I even appear in some of the same publications you do!
Well, send me links and I'll be glad to give you the benefit of my advanced age and great wisdom.