Slate (no spoilers, only brief TRP reference)

[still lookin 4 the face i had b4 the world was made]

On Wed, 7 May 1997, Bill Millard wrote:
> > You left out slate's penchant for meta-crit: I think they refer to art,
> > culture and political events only so that they can talk about (and one
> > up) what other magazines are saying. 
> 
> This strikes me as a potentially useful function, a kind of 
> commentary that could give readers something of real value -- if only 
> the Slaters were better at it, less inclined to sneer at the 
> competition.  

Media analysis is not a bad idea.  But careless writers of the Time/Newsweek
variety tend to confuse incisive metacriticism owith reducing everything to
a conflict of rhetoric...i.e., "Clinton's latest proposal will win him
points with such-and-such a constituency, while House Republicans are
maneuvering to position themselves in such-and-such a light..."  Not that
politicians (and other public figures/forces, including the media) don't
sometimes play cynical games.  But some nowadays would reduce all events to
such game-playing.  They mistake their cynicism for true insight.

> > Another big turn-off is the
> > mindless and banal unconventionality just to be different from anyone
> > else. It's like the evil twin of Time and Newsweek - anyday now I expect
> > to see a slate article titled: "Oxygen: why it may not be as good for
> > you as you think". Although I won't see it as I stopped reading slate a
> > few months ago :-). But it sure is a good place to get an idea of what
> > the national media are obsessing about this week.

Ha!  Indeed.  I would note that some publications (IMO, _THe Atlantic
Monthly_), while often running intentionally contrarian-looking cover
stories, usually offer genuinely thoughtful analysis...not like
Time/Newsweek's cud of conventional wisdom (the latter rag even has an
annoying little "Conventional Wisdom" column that gives thumbs-up or
-down to the actions of public figures over the past week).
 
> pointless contrarianism in academic writing -- especially among the
> theory-drunk francophile pseudoleft -- is practically mandatory:

Great epithet!

> this is how I'd describe the Alan Sokal "quantum gravity" incident in
> a nutshell -- Sokal knew exactly what sort of wool could be pulled
> over certain eyes -- but that's a whole separate topic for

Is the guy who jokingly suggested that the laws of physics were an
oppressive patriarchal conspiracy (or something like that), and actually
got published?

Max

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