More About Culture 11

Noah wrote for them and marked the site’s passing. At Balloon Juice, DougJ links to a Washington Monthly article about the site and adds his own thoughts.

The Monthly article says that one of C11’s founders was inspired by Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic,” the famous piece in which Wolfe tore into Leonard Bernstein and friends for holding a fund-raiser to benefit the Black Panthers. The C11 founder felt that this sort of approach was missing from conservative writing, the approach being (as the co-founder saw it) storytelling, the presentation of people doing things. He felt that conservatives leaned instead on the William F. Buckley approach of persuasion via argument.

At Balloon Juice, DougJ points out that a whole lot of conservative rhetoric comes down to exactly what Wolfe did in that essay. Conservatives paint a picture of the sort of person their opponents are; then they turn to the audience and say, “That person isn’t you. Don’t you hate him?” And very well they do it, but that is not well-honed argumentation; it’s persuasion via caricature.

I would add that, when it comes to the specific target of Wolfe’s “Radical Chic,” the MSM had already beat him to the scene. The essay describes Bernstein’s embarrassment and anger on reading a mocking, sneering, cutting satirical account of his Black Panther fund-raiser … in the New York Times. Of course Wolfe then came along and did a better mocking, sneering, satirical account of his own, because he’s a better writer than the Times has ever employed. But no conservatives at all were needed to spot the absurdity of the fund-raiser and deal with it accordingly.

0 thoughts on “More About Culture 11

  1. There’s no lack of traditional “well honed argument” in Conservative writing.Wolfe’s/C11’s approach just isn’t so common and therefore an interesting undertaking.
    I don’t think there’s a real dearth of the “paint a picture and sneer” writing among Lefties, anymore than there is among Conservatives.
    I’m not sure what the point of this is, sorry to say. It has nothing to do with real politics or political philosophy. It’s a point and sneer, I think.

  2. Wolfe’s/C11’s approach just isn’t so common

    I must disagree. Caricature/storytelling are conservative staples. One of my favorite lines from any election campaign was Lee Atwater’s description of Mike and Kitty Dukakis “sitting at home in Brookline and opening a can of quiche.”

    I don’t think there’s a real dearth of the “paint a picture and sneer” writing among Lefties

    There must be some. I remember when I was a kid the tv had Archie Bunker; then again it also had psychotic hippies and hypocritical limousine liberals. As to real liberal argumentation, the weaker examples strike me as leaning not so much on caricature as on a sniffy impatience with non-liberals — a sort of “we enlightened few” air. But that’s not universal, and the tone certainly has its counterpart on the right.

    I’m not sure what the point of this is, sorry to say. It has nothing to do with real politics or political philosophy. It’s a point and sneer, I think.

    Hey, come on.

  3. That’s interesting…but I’m not sure it really describes Culture 11 all that well. There were some funny satirical articles, I guess, but overall it seemed less mocking and more conversational than that. The distinction between C11 and a lot of conservative venues seemed more their interest in culture as something to discuss and think about, rather than as something to generate outrage. Whereas the Wolfe thing seems mostly about generating outrage.

  4. Nothin’ personal Tom. I’m just not into the back and forth quibbling so much. There’s room in all parties, all ideologies or belief systems for inanity, vanity and folly of all kind, I think.
    Sure, one demographic might have tendencies the others don’t, but I’m weary of using those as some kind of indicator of what it means to be ‘a’ or ‘b’.
    I mean, I don’t take Rachel Maddow or Al Frankens’ word on what it means to be a lefty, or whoever else about rightism. The thing about the media class is that they have a motive to turn these systems of thought into careers; they need things to talk about, constantly; They need content, lest readers forget about their op-eds and move on to a Russell Kirk or a Chomsky or Richard Rorty.
    Most of the time they rely on the simple formation of associations that only obscure the real issues at hand.
    I don’t expect everyone to stop their yattering and pick up a dense philosophical treatise, but I think people need to do their best to keep it in its proper place.

  5. Noah, you’re always surprising me. I haven’t read Chomsky yet and have to admit I’m not rushing to.

    From what I saw, C11 wasn’t much like the description offered by its co-founder in the Washington Monthly article. Beats me what he was up to.

    So, Uland, I’m not sniping to be a wise guy. From what I’ve seen, and by now I’ve read a bit of right-wing prose, conservatives often home in on feelings and personal impressions: what feels right, what feels wrong, what sort of person is this. True enough about media personalities and their need to generate noise, but Wolfe isn’t just some guy flapping his mouth. He’s one of the best known and most successful conservative writers of our time, and the personal and the immediate are how he understands big issues.
    Not once has he cited a statistic; it’s all clothing, body language and people’s personal little motives with him. It makes for some great writing, at least.

  6. He’s boring and sanctimonious. There’s a bit of the Friedman effect; you think, by God, if Chomsky’s opposed to butchering countless innocents, maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all.