Thoughts from
San Diego on Law, Politics, and Culture

 
The New Yorker. You Betcha, The New Yorker
By Tom Smith

Here I was, about to write that the New Yorker really might have become worth reading again.

In the December 1 issue, there is an interesting account of a noise dispute in an expensive upper East side co-op building. On one side is an old time resident couple, on the other a resident and her recently moved-in boyfriend, who is the world's leading maker of replicas of famous diamonds. (Apparently some of the famous diamonds on display in museums are fakes.) He makes the fake gems using an industrial machine he moved into his girlfriend's apartment. And yet, upon inspection, it seems to be a remarkably quiet machine. The noise it makes is even kind of soothing.

Then there is a review of John Updike's new collection of stories by Louis Manand. It begins badly with this sentence: "I am not one who golfs." He's probably trying to be self-mocking to some extent. But that sentence stands at such a nauseating distance from "I don't golf" that it's hard to go on. But one must, mustn't one, if one wishes to be fair in one's reading of a review in the New Yorker. At least that's how I feel about it. At any rate, it turns out to be a pretty good review of Updike, and manages to say some true things about the modern short story, which is certainly more than one has any right to expect (especially if one has read any post-modern lit crit lately). And there are several cute to funny cartoons, such as one featuring two of Santa's elves, one saying to another "Well, at least it beats my old job working at Walmart."

But then, just as I was thinking I could safely open the covers of the magazine again, I foolishly looked at the "Talk of the Town" section. This section has evolved from discussions of urban trivialities to an op-ed space. It is a gaseous thing, so inflated by self-importance that one worries one might be injured by the explosion that surely must come at any moment. This week's flatus draws a strained comparison between the NFL and marriage, suggesting that people who care about "institutions" are a stupid, unprincipled lot. Institutions are what we run to when we can't find our principles, the writer opines, in a moment of astonishing pomposity. Here's the idea. The NFL is upset about the new steroids that avoid testing technology. This is silly of them, because professional football is such a violent, injurious sport that being concerned about damage inflicted by drugs as opposed to tackles is hypocritical. Limits of space and patience preclude one from listing all the ways in which this argument makes one want to pull out one's hair, if one has any hair.

But just a few points. Maybe the NFL thinks pro football is violent enough, and doesn't want it to become more violent, and so doesn't want defensive tackles getting any bigger or meaner than they already are. Maybe they don't want to pay any more for medical care than they already do when players' internal organs give out. Maybe they want to lengthen the careers of good players. Maybe they understand the game and business of football better than some writer at the New Yorker whose idea of violence is a really snide remark at a party, whispered so the lady it is about won't hear it and beat him up.

But it's worse, according to this chatterer. You see, people want to defend the silly institution of football, just like they want to defend the silly institution of marriage. Doing so, somehow, is supposed to lack principle. (At this point, I really wish this guy was a quarterback looking one way, and Dick Butkus, who had been sprinting for the last ten yards, was coming from the other.) I don't see how "football is worth keeping, and so is marriage" is not a principle. Or how about, "You folks seem to hold in contempt what I value, so maybe I should not listen to you." Sounds like a principle to me. And furthermore, what's wrong with taking refuge in institutions. When arguments fail, you need them to survive, or at least to make surviving worth doing.


posted by thomas at 11/30/2003 02:50:00 PM