As a Compact contributor, I enjoyed this. Not because I‘m masochistic, but because I still cannot get over Ben Burgis spreading his greasy wings over every “dissident” publication that comes his way.
The radical posturing reached a nadir when Walter Kirn published a whiny, anecdotal article about how airline travel is getting worse. The favored middle-class dinner party complaint from 1997, now in the intrepid pages of Compact. I expect a timely piece from Walter on how "everyone's looking at their phone instead of interacting with each other" sometime around 2026.
I have been very attracted to your essays on the anti-leftist Marx. In many ways the contemporary left has become the right: the left used to champion civil liberties - free speech, bodily autonomy, be anti-racist, support freedom of religion, be resolutely anti censorship, anti-war etc. Now they are the biggest censors, support vaccine mandates, decry the religious as domestic terrorists, are not the least hesitant to censor any views they even mildly disagree with and are bloodthirsty warmongers and racists when it comes to Ukraine and Russians.
I don't consider myself to be right or left as both confine one to the "2-party illusion." I don't even consider the political terms right and left to have much meaning anymore. We ought to dispense with them as we see so-called right-wing governments imposing the same "Covid" policies as so-called left-wing governments embracing the same Woke language.
One person who has a genuine socialist worldview that almost seems to stand alone and understands more deeply what has been going on for the last 2+ years is Simon Elmer. His book "The Road to Fascism: for a Critique of the Biosecurity State" is must read and will be seen as one of the most important books to come out during this period.
The missing piece of your story, as always, is What's Left. With a near 100% overlap in guests and contributors and audience, the What's Left to post-left to dissident right pipeline is foundational to this sphere.
I know you are trying to stick to the texts in these essays, but the fact that the founder of Bellows and Compact, when faced with one modest real world anti-liberal policy change, realized he's just a plain old liberal who should have a pmc job with a pmc salary told me a lot about what's really going on here.
it seems pretty a pretty obvious point to make but you make it so well.At the same time i note the purpose of journalism ,of any kind, in our society is to give work to journalist and provide readers with more to read, if they can. Also journalism as we know it mostly works in this way. The role of so called disidents in any known societey is unclear and hence i suppose news
I wanted to quibble; I wanted to think, "I don't like The Antileftist Marx anymore--I'm a Republican now!" Haha. But good piece. Not much to quibble about. Full disclosure, I canceled my Compact subscription last month for many of the reasons you mention: warmed over Burgis takes, warmed over Malcom takes (way too many Malcolm takes). I mean, those guys are fine, nothing personal, it's just not as dynamic a journal as I thought it was going to be. Matthew Schmitz's writing for First Things is much stronger; Sohrab's writing for TAC is better is also better.
Compact should lean into being full-on conservative, Christian, with Catholic social thought and Christian social-democracy. I think a move in that direction would improve it. They got rid of the atheist (or he quit), and their Catholicism, to their credit, clearly informs their political project. It's sleek, it's shiny, but it's not particularly radical.
Let's see you try to poke some holes in Postliberal Order. Now that's a journal to be reckoned with!
As a Compact contributor, I enjoyed this. Not because I‘m masochistic, but because I still cannot get over Ben Burgis spreading his greasy wings over every “dissident” publication that comes his way.
The radical posturing reached a nadir when Walter Kirn published a whiny, anecdotal article about how airline travel is getting worse. The favored middle-class dinner party complaint from 1997, now in the intrepid pages of Compact. I expect a timely piece from Walter on how "everyone's looking at their phone instead of interacting with each other" sometime around 2026.
Jacobin, compact, im1776, just different university faculties inside of a very gay university.
I have been very attracted to your essays on the anti-leftist Marx. In many ways the contemporary left has become the right: the left used to champion civil liberties - free speech, bodily autonomy, be anti-racist, support freedom of religion, be resolutely anti censorship, anti-war etc. Now they are the biggest censors, support vaccine mandates, decry the religious as domestic terrorists, are not the least hesitant to censor any views they even mildly disagree with and are bloodthirsty warmongers and racists when it comes to Ukraine and Russians.
I don't consider myself to be right or left as both confine one to the "2-party illusion." I don't even consider the political terms right and left to have much meaning anymore. We ought to dispense with them as we see so-called right-wing governments imposing the same "Covid" policies as so-called left-wing governments embracing the same Woke language.
One person who has a genuine socialist worldview that almost seems to stand alone and understands more deeply what has been going on for the last 2+ years is Simon Elmer. His book "The Road to Fascism: for a Critique of the Biosecurity State" is must read and will be seen as one of the most important books to come out during this period.
https://architectsforsocialhousing.co.uk/2022/09/28/the-road-to-fascism-for-a-critique-of-the-global-biosecurity-state/
The missing piece of your story, as always, is What's Left. With a near 100% overlap in guests and contributors and audience, the What's Left to post-left to dissident right pipeline is foundational to this sphere.
I know you are trying to stick to the texts in these essays, but the fact that the founder of Bellows and Compact, when faced with one modest real world anti-liberal policy change, realized he's just a plain old liberal who should have a pmc job with a pmc salary told me a lot about what's really going on here.
it seems pretty a pretty obvious point to make but you make it so well.At the same time i note the purpose of journalism ,of any kind, in our society is to give work to journalist and provide readers with more to read, if they can. Also journalism as we know it mostly works in this way. The role of so called disidents in any known societey is unclear and hence i suppose news
I wanted to quibble; I wanted to think, "I don't like The Antileftist Marx anymore--I'm a Republican now!" Haha. But good piece. Not much to quibble about. Full disclosure, I canceled my Compact subscription last month for many of the reasons you mention: warmed over Burgis takes, warmed over Malcom takes (way too many Malcolm takes). I mean, those guys are fine, nothing personal, it's just not as dynamic a journal as I thought it was going to be. Matthew Schmitz's writing for First Things is much stronger; Sohrab's writing for TAC is better is also better.
Compact should lean into being full-on conservative, Christian, with Catholic social thought and Christian social-democracy. I think a move in that direction would improve it. They got rid of the atheist (or he quit), and their Catholicism, to their credit, clearly informs their political project. It's sleek, it's shiny, but it's not particularly radical.
Let's see you try to poke some holes in Postliberal Order. Now that's a journal to be reckoned with!
i mean shullenberger is a fucking "managing editor" that kind of tells you what you need to know.