A Challenge to the Editors of the New Yorker: A Call to Open Your Pages
I have a simple question to ask. Would the Nation, or the New Yorker for that matter, print an article by a conservative that sharply criticizes a book by a liberal writer they all revere? Such a review would have to be from a position not shared by any liberals. For example, an article on race and affirmative action by Abigail Thernstrom or Shelby Steele. Articles like the recent one attacking Paul Berman from the left are not evidence for Hertzberg’s argument. Show me one example, if there is any. Yet, National Review, even if some of their editors did not like it, ran my review of Evans and no one asked me to change one word. Could it be that conservative journals and magazines are more open-minded than liberal ones?
Hertzberg goes out of his way to say about The Rosenberg File, which I co-authored with the late Joyce Milton in 1983, “thoroughly and convincingly debunked the ‘progressive’ mythology surrounding the famous Cold War espionage case.” I appreciate Hertzberg’s judgment of the case we made for the Rosenbergs’ guilt. But later he writes that because of the pro-Communist left’s reaction to the book, since then I have exaggerated “the influence of pro-Communists, anti-anti-Communists and lamebrained ‘New Left’ academic Rip Van Winkles on the center-left American liberal mainstream.”
Here, he is dead wrong. Let me take a key example: his colleague Nicholas Lemann’s essay on Soviet espionage which appeared in — you guessed it — the New Yorker. I have already discussed it at length earlier in one of my blogs so I won’t repeat all the arguments I made there. The main point is that in discussing this topic, Lemann repeated the old canard that those of us who write about Soviet espionage support “a conservative view.” I wrote the following in the blog:
Cannot someone who sees himself today as a political liberal acknowledge that his liberal ancestors might have had a blind spot in the late 1940s about the extent of Soviet espionage in the United States ? If they answer in the negative, they are substantiating the claim of Ann Coulter who continually argues that liberals are incapable of understanding that America has real enemies.
I could give Hertzberg chapter and verse about how very mainstream figures continually argue that Alger Hiss is innocent; that the Rosenbergs gave nothing of value to the Soviets even though they may have spied for them, etc. As Hertzberg knows, NYU’s Center for the Cold War ran a major pro-Hiss conference two years ago, and hosts a website pledged to Hiss’s innocence. And The American Scholar ran a lead story by Pulitzer Prize winner Kai Bird co-authored with Svetlana Chervonnaya which argued that if there was a Soviet spy at Yalta, it was a man named Wilder Foote and not Alger Hiss. Can one get any more mainstream than this publication?
I would also refer Hertzberg to the review of Spies by Amy Knight that appeared in the prestigious Times Literary Supplement (London) in the June 26, 2009, issue. Knight accused co-authors Harvey Klehr and John Earl Haynes of trying to punish Cold War dissenters by accusing them decades later of having been Soviet spies, and “to silence those who still voice doubts about the guilt of people like Alger Hiss, Harry Dexter White, I. F. Stone and others.” Ignoring the fact that Klehr and Haynes offer solid evidence, she reverts to the standard Old Left argument meant to close off all discussion — that of accusing her intellectual opponents of McCarthyism. And Knight is a respected author firmly part of the mainstream liberal community. I do not recall Hertzberg or Nicholas Lemann taking her on at all.
So I would like to see Rick Hertzberg be brave and open the pages of the New Yorker to a wider spectrum of views, if only to hold an honest debate on the important issues facing us today.
Hertzberg is a doctrinaire left-liberal whose editorials unfailingly express that view of the world. I have no problem with that; the expression of political opinion is a primary function of editorializing. But under Hertzberg’s leadership bits of the left-liberal catechism have increasingly polluted the factual articles and non-political reviews that appear in the New Yorker. That is not OK.
To cite only one recent example, in the May 17 issue, in an essay reviewing a new book on Tocqueville, we find the following: “These pages are followed by Tocqueville’s lucid, bitter attacks on the way America was acquiring Indian land; in a moment that reminds the contemporary reader of the Iraq occupation, he notes that America is expert at talking a noble language while committing ignorant deeds.”
Just a simple statement of self-evident truth, right? Not to me it isn’t. A subscriber for nearly 20 years, I threw the magazine against the wall, and not for the first time, by far. There is no excuse for this kind of nonsense, except an editorial policy that encourages it.
Byron — 20 years? What took you so long?
Byron, I’ve been a subscriber to The New Yorker for 30 years, except for the Tina Brown interlude. I have noticed the shift to the left primarily since the July 2008 Obama fist-bump cover episode. A nedia furor, which, by the way, was a very clever ploy to keep people from noticing Ryan Lizza’s profile of Obama as slick Chicago politician inside. Then Lizza was banned from the press pool that went on Obama’s Euro-trip. THAT really intimidated Hertzberg.
It will never be the magazine it was before Tina Brown and Conde Nast. However, as long as I ignore Hertzberg on anything Israel in Talk of the Town, I do see signs of independent thought returning.
I rarely read their fiction, but that same May 17, 2010 issue you threw against the wall had Nathan Englander’s powerful gem “Free Fruit for Young Widows”, a parable of what Israel means to those who, like ‘Professor Tendler’ DID try to go ‘home’ to Poland in 1945 Europe.
I used to read the New Yorker, leftover copies from a co-worker who subscribed. I always found the magazine amusing, as a window into a fishbowl that grandly imagined itself to be the entire world. So long as I kept four precepts in mind (not accepting them, just holding them in view) I could read the magazine without becoming angry.
The precepts were:
One, New York City is not only the center of the universe, but the justification for it.
Two, anything wrong in the world going back to the last ice age is America’s fault.
Three, whenever America errs, it is always because of Republicans and/or conservatives.
Four, there is no problem in the world that cannot be solved by a government – the larger the better – taking charge and throwing money at it.
Ron, if they did any of the things you are asking then it just might shake their firm beliefs…that conservatives are evil people who want to make money out of everything and do nothing good…that smug attitude might end up shaken to the foundation…
“…that of accusing her intellectual opponents of McCarthyism.”
Specifics are conveniently ignored behind the charge of McCarthyism. This is the ever-ready excuse to justify intellectual laziness—and perhaps also cowardice. Left-wingers are inherently utopian and prefer to forget past failures. We need to move on and stop dwelling on all those eggs that were broken to prepare a great omelet. What’s a few million dead bodies when you are creating a secular paradise? People come and go on this planet all the time. No big deal. Stalin and Mao may have “behaved in an excessive manner,” but the dream remains alive. The elites who attended the best schools and are benevolently inclined should get it right the next time.
Ann Coulter accurately describes left-wingers as incapable of realizing America has real enemies. She is not even slightly exaggerating. Today’s mainstream Democrats are existentially committed to the notion that the United States is primarily a racist nation that has filthed on its dark skinned victims throughout the world. When we are attacked—it is simply an example of well-deserved “blow back”. They have the right to be good and angry with us. We are truly disgusting and vile. It is fair to say that Americans are a cancer on the Earth. The Zeitgeist should be enraged at our wickedness. Violently fighting our declared foes will only get them angrier and make things much worse. Softer responses are preferable. We should instead reach out and beg for forgiveness and offer reparations.
The real problem with McCarthy is that he was right, without knowing it. He didn’t really care about Communists as such, he just wanted an issue to ride into the public view. He was a charlatan and fraud, but sadly he inadvertently chose a real problem, that Communists had infiltrated parts of the US government, many labor unions, and the entertainment business. His clownish actions forever discredited serious people who were researching and uncovering these dangerous enemies.
The left is a church: Once you’ve stated your disbelief, you’re an enemy pure and simple.
Akin to my experience as a born-and-raised Mormon, who came out to his family as agnostic … now, with my active-Mormon relatives, if I raise issues about the church or its history, however trivial or innocuous, their teeth clench, reflexively, and they look at me as if I’m pure evil, as if I’m out to destroy everything they are.
(And no, the church newsletter just.would.not.publish a piece by me, about a church issue from an agnostic’s perspective).
The modern left has become anti-intellectual, even as they praise themselves as being the only true intellectuals.
Intellectuals welcome debate, they acknowledge the possibility that they might be wrong. When presented with a counter argument they examine it both to spot any possible flaws and to see if these arguments are superior to theirs.
Liberals declare that anyone who disagrees with must be stupid, and since they are stupid they can’t possibly have anything worth saying, so it’s OK to censor them.
Well said Mark.
Countless numbers of “elite” intellectuals are poorly read individuals. They have cowardly hidden behind their academic credentials and self-reinforcing cultural milieu to rationalize away their intellectual laziness. Ron Radosh has often been severely criticized by those who probably haven’t read more than a few paragraphs of his entire work. They feel justified in ignoring it. These people are embarrassingly shallow.
The Ivy League universities are mostly intellectual whorehouses. Harvard might be the worst of the lot. This is why mediocrities like Barack Obama can become the top person at the Harvard Law Review. Standards have significantly dropped in the last some forty years. The American public is starting to realize just how bad things are. Better late than never. A soft science Ph.D. today is more often than not a badge of shame. One should not say in public what that individual probably had to do to “earn” the credential. An individual’s adherence to politically correct doctrines matter more than anything else.
Aren’t you embarrassed to come back to this over and over? At least acknowledge that this is one of your favorite whipping boys, rather than evoking the tone that you are revealing something new, EACH time you write it.
My guess is that Dwight is an example of what David describes.
They can do that because everyone else is so obviously stupid. They should not have to lower themselves to arguing with stupid people. The stupid people should just do what they are told.
I don’t think I could consider anyone with their head buried in the sand, as intellectual. It doesn’t matter whether they work at The New Yorker, The New York Times, NYU, Columbia, or The Obama Administration.
“I don’t think I could consider anyone with their head buried in the sand, as intellectual. It doesn’t matter whether they work at The New Yorker, The New York Times, NYU, Columbia, or The Obama Administration.”
………. or at National Review, WSJ editorial pages, Washington Times, Pajamas Media, Regent University, or worked in the Bush administration. True everywhere.
I just love how the left assumes everyone else is as intolerant as they are.
I just love how the left assumes but never checks their assumptions.
The WSJ editorial page has a guest slot every day for a liberal.
PJM routinely puts up articles by liberals.
National Review doesn’t have many liberals on staff, but they are constantly linking to articles by liberals.
this whole notion of left being blind or careless about
“America has real enemies” is a bunch of B….
there are huge difference between/left/and right.
we all see danger differently and view them differently as
well. most of us to the left and center we think that
Israel the biggest threat to our national security
where most people on the right would think it is
Iran. for now we are in charge and that is how we are
going to deal with.
as for Ann Coulter and the rest of the right wingers
she makes a lot of noise because she is sexually frustrated.
MarkTheGreat what is your take on this?
Why do I get the feeling that miriam spends her day checking under the bed to see if a Mossad agent is hiding there?
Day after day, she posts the same lies that have been refuted many times. Each retelling gets more hysterical and more innaccurate.
Anyone who thinks Israel is a danger to the US has lost all contact with reality.
Miriam, seriously, get help. You are delusional. If you think Iran is less of a threat to the US than Israel, why don’t you move to Tehran. Here’s something to occupy your time while you’re there. Try speaking your mind while at the same time keeping your head attached to your body. No problem in Israel or the U.S.A. A little tricky in the islamic republic.
It’s true, everyone has different levels of risk tolerance, Miriam, and different perceptions of what constitutes a survival situation. For example, the New Left cultural revolutionaries of the 60s typically thought they were exempt from micro biological evolution during the “free love” era, and that there would be no negative sociobiological consequences to extended periods of multiple partner recreational unprotected sex while on the pill in a world of morphing viruses. Then HIV happened. And then the hedonistic Left wistfully moved on to different modes of suicidal behavior in search of social justice, to be paid for by other people. Obviously todays outbreaks of sudden jihad death syndrome can be traced back to the Beat Generation and Allan Ginsburg’s The Howl. It’s all the Jew’s fault, Miriam.
“Then HIV happened.”
Well, among heterosexuals it was herpes.
Friends with Helen Thomas and Pat Buchanan?
miriam, you should avoid trying to psychoanalyze anyone until after you have spent a few decades on the couch yourself.
When I subscribed to the New Yorker I read from back to front. The movie and literary reviews were good to excellent, the long reporting pieces when done by untainted sources like Seymour Hersh were often well worth it. I knew I was finished with the issue when I came upon something by Hertzberg. His stuff was written to be read at left wing think tanks and for the faculties at Berkeley, Cambridge, Madison and so forth. Has a word of criticism about Obama crossed his lips yet? I would be surprised. Upper West Side deracinated Jews will be on board to the very last iceberg collision, blaming Bush all the way down to the bottom..
” untainted sources like Seymour Hersh”???!!??!?!?!??
Dude! Put the bong down, you’re way too wasted.
Crikey, I meant “tainted” sources like Hersh. He’s done more damage to our national interests than Izzy Stone could ever hope to.
“Could it be that conservative journals and magazines are more open-minded than liberal ones?”
Uh, yes, it could be. And is.
And Hertzberg is a clown.
Que me chupan mis huevos, miriam, you dang female canine, you are funny like the serote I dump in the toilet this morning. Again, I feel for Israel being unfarily attacked by the left. All I can say, Que Joden su madres!!!!
“be brave and open the pages of the New Yorker to a wider spectrum of views” Not.Going.To.Happen.
“starts by saying that I am “disliked by many on the left,” which is putting it mildly.”
Why do I have the persistent feeling that the “left” is like middle school. “The popular girls don’t like you.”
Leftists are seemingly incapable of holding these two truths in their mind(s). Joe McCarthy was a liar, a scoundrel and an shameless opportunist (that is, like many a politician including BHO) and that there were communists directly controlled by Moscow and many useful idiots working against America’s best interest and undermining American society on their behalf. To accept this is to think that Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen may be wrong. Nah, couldn’t happen.
Do miriam rove’s minders know she is out loose again? My guess is that they actually set her loose since she is clearly insane. Either on or off her meds.
Have I missed something? I don’t hear Israeli leaders promising the destruction of Iran or the United States, but I do hear of Iranian leaders talking of the destruction of the United States and Israel. Israeli leaders don’t talk of getting a “Jewish bomb” as the Muslim leaders speak of getting a “Islamic bomb.” Miriam, I’m amazed that you come to the conclusion that Israel is a bigger threat to our security than Iran. As a friend used to put it “What color is the sky in Lala-land? You have obviously been there recently.”
Sorry Mr. Radosh, that’s a request that will go nowhere. My personal experience is that conservatives are more open-minded.
I had an interesting conversation some time ago with a Democratic friend. He and I actually share perspectives on a lot of things. However, I pointed out to him I myself, as an independent/conservative, was able to openly break ranks on a variety of philosophical points, and suffered no social consequences from conservative peers. He, on the other hand, conceded that he felt forced to keep secret his more conservative opinions, for fear of outrage from his liberal circle of “friends”.
Here’s a little experiment for you: pick several conservative columnists, and make a note of the diversity of opinion when it comes to issues like same-sex marriage, drug legalization, abortion, etc. You will find surprising diversity.
Then try the opposite. Try to find a single liberal columnist who breaks rank with the leftist orthodoxy on those issues (particularly gay and abortion issues).
Can’t be done.
I agree with all of your points, and I understand that you were wielding a figure of speech, but when I read that you wouldn’t change one word of the articles you’ve written . . . I feel deep envy.
I keep thinking that the speech from the hard left reflects a genuine pathology underlying? For example, as mentioned above, what is the logic of standing in an obviously free land, as regards speech and responsible voluntary actions, while claiming support a land where you would be killed/imprisoned for the same?
How is this different from the indivduals who travel to the wilderness and attempt to seek accord and understanding with wildlife — including brown bears?
These individuals are eventually killed and at least partial eaten — but do we not consider them to be a tad deranged in their thinking that this arangement would work out for them? So too individuals who express views such as in #7 above?
National Review tolerant of a range of opinion? That’ll be good news to David Frum and Christopher Buckley. So we can expect to see them welcomed back at NR any day now?
A challenge to The Weekly Standard, open your pages.
The most intellectuaaly challenging thing to do with the New Yorker,and other examples of soft,stalinist porn,is opening the pages precisely where my two parakeets defecate, so that their poop doesn’t hit the floor.Don’t bother justifying youorself to the remnants of the Stalinist media Mr. Radosh,they are becoming irrelevant,and therefore, not worth your time and effort.However, if you can let me know where I can find unsold copies of this rag,I would be very grateful,and so would my parakeets.
‘But Hertzberg goes on to say I have “undeniably fallen into bad company,” that being primarily Pajamas Media….’
You haven’t fallen into bad company; you’ve fallen into the gutter. Some of the blogs and comments in PJM would make a Bircher blush.
Alger Hiss is only one name that stands for the whole Communist penetration of Government. He could not be exposed without raising the question of the real political temper and purposes of those who had protected and advanced him, and with whom he was so closely identified that they could not tell his breed from their own–Wittaker Chambers
Nothing has changed.
Gutter update:
Here’s a comment PJM allowed to run:
“Let him apologize for whatever he wants, I’ll never apologize for my effort to have him peaceably and or if necessary, forcefully removed from a position he is usurping.”
Of course, they deleted my protest of it.