Last week NEW CRITERION declined to post from me a response to recent mocking remarks on their blog from Stefan Beck and John Jackson, citing my letter's rudeness. I'll post my letter here so folks can judge for themselves.
Our exchange didn't rise even to the level of a flame war-- and TNC backed off. They shirked from what I most sought-- a clash of ideas.
Privately they and their allies dismissed my words ("the cad!") without addressing them, and in so doing, turned themselves into stereotypes.
That said, they offered more fight than the demi-puppets at BOOKFORUM, THE NEW YORKER, and THE NATION, who allowed themselves to be pummelled without one word of protest. I feel like Cortez confronting the Aztecs: Observing the facade of a glamorous empire which has no confidence or spark of enthusiasm behind it.
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To see the comments TNC fellow-travelers make to themselves is to know they think in stereotypes; in categorized boxes. In their remarks they say that the ULA is somehow a return to the 60s. I guess, to them, anyone who doesn't think as they do is stuck in the 60s.
The truth is that our D-I-Y ideas are entreprenurial in spirit, and are drawn from as unlikely sources as the punk movement, the early days of rock n roll, the Lost Generation in 1920s Paris, the Davy Crockett Almanack, Thomas Jefferson, and the original Christians, among others.
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