MONDAY, JULY 11, 2011
The social concerns of the Hamptons: Paul Krugman starts his new column which some unkind words. His words suggest that American pundits may be too well-off to give a flying fig about the U.S. economy:
KRUGMAN (7/11/11): If you were shocked by Friday's job report, if you thought we were doing well and were taken aback by the bad news, you haven't been paying attention. The fact is, the United States economy has been stuck in a rut for a year and a half.
Yet a destructive passivity has overtaken our discourse. Turn on your TV and you'll see some self-satisfied pundit declaring that nothing much can be done about the economy's short-run problems (reminder: this ''short run'' is now in its fourth year), that we should focus on the long run instead.
In the rest of his column, Krugman explains that a great deal can be done about the economy's “short-run problems.” As he closes, he again suggests that the “supposedly serious people” you see on TV are too well-off, too self-satisfied, to give a fig—to care.
Could it be true that our High Pundit Class is simply above such concerns? Could it be that those Millionaire Pundit Values have wiped away such concerns? Could it be that they’re too well-off—too isolated, too uncaring—to worry about our ongoing economic disaster? Our possible debt ceiling debacle?
Could any of that be true? Consider what Krugman’s colleague, Roger Cohen, wrote at the start of his own op-ed piece in Saturday’s New York Times.
It sounds like Cohen has been to the Hamptons. He knows what they’re saying out there:
COHEN (7/9/11): For almost two months now, the chattering classes in London, Paris, New York and the Hamptons have struggled to talk about anything but D.S.K. The old animalistic elements have exerted their magnetism: power, sex, violence and race.
The 20 minutes from 12:06 to 12:26 in suite 2806 of the Sofitel New York have become the object of a thousand theories and a French-American bust-up. Yes, there’s talk of a U.S. default and Greece is a bottomless pit, but those 1,200 seconds spent together on May 14 by Dominique Strauss-Kahn and a Guinean housekeeper trump every geostrategic lurch.
According to Cohen, the chattering class in our finer locales want to talk about DSK, nothing else. Darlings! The case is loaded with violence and race! And it’s spilling with sex!
As a naive reader, you might have thought Cohen was offering this thought as a criticism of this chattering class. Sorry! In his column, he too discussed the DSK case in exclusion to everything else! He devoted his column to DSK too! Rome, Georgia—or Dubuque—can pretty much burn.
Cohen’s column was all about that sexy-time race talk too! But this is in keeping with the dominant culture of the New York Times op-ed page. Yesterday, in the Sunday Times, three regular columnists published columns. None of the three showed any sign of knowing that their nation’s in trouble, especially so as the deadline for possible default looms.
Straight from the fancy restaurant beat, Frank Bruni is the Times’ latest star columnist. On what did he opine in yesterday’s column? Of course! On Casey Anthony! Darlings! She “partied while her daughter was missing!” And not only that: “For a court appearance after the verdict, her long hair was once again undone, and she petted it.” And not only that: Her lawyer “start[ed] two businesses, Bon Bon Bikinis and Brazilian Bikinis!”
Bruni’s brain was all wrapped up in murder and sexy-time sex. Then we turned to the clown, Maureen Dowd. Here’s the way her column started, sexy-time headline included:
DOWD (7/10/11): Erotic Vagrancy, Anyone?
Whether to wuther?
I’m never in doubt.
I’m obsessed with obsessions.
Give me a book or a movie about lovers in the depths of a “Wuthering Heights” passion or a Proustian fixation, and I’m off to the moors with a box of madeleines.
So my interest was aroused when I read that one of our most celebrated obsessive filmmakers was going to make a movie about one of our most celebrated obsessive couples. Martin, Liz and Dick—what a threesome.
News reports say that Martin Scorsese plans to make a film of Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger’s 2010 book “Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century.”
Dowd, who is obsessed with obsessions, was aroused by Liz and by Dick. Does a bigger fool exist on the planet? As usual, she tossed in a few allusions to high literature, making her garbage seem smart. (If we were Dowd, we’d be wracking our brains for a play on words involving “lit” and “clit.”)
One more regular columnist published—Nicholas Kristof, who offered his summer reading list. There was nothing “wrong” with this column, which followed a weak attempt last week to analyze the debt ceiling talks. But the column was headlined like this:
“Action! Romance! Social Justice!”
Social justice? Darlings, please! Who let that one in?
Given the new lay-out of the Sunday Review, quite a few other columns and analysis pieces appeared in yesterday’s section. But no one seemed to have any idea that our nation is in bad trouble. Erica Jong wrote about the future of sex (or something); Diane McWhorter wrote about the legal problems of a relatively minor figure from the Birmingham civil rights era. Dudley Clendenin, a very fine person, discussed how to face the end of life. Peter Kramer discussed antidepressants; Ta-Nehisi Coates discussed a Gil Heron song he heard in 1994.
There was nothing “wrong” with any of these columns; you may feel that some of them were quite good. But something was grossly wrong with the editor who picked these columns while picking no others. Reading yesterday’s Sunday Review, you would have no idea that anything is wrong with our economy—that millions of people are out of work, that we are facing a possible debt ceiling disaster.
Who chose that array of columns? (There were others.) We’re not sure. But in recent months, we’ve often been struck by this paper’s “What, us worry” approach to its guest op-ed selections. On its op-ed page, the New York Times rarely seems to know—or to care—that this nation is in major trouble.
Who is making those selections? We aren’t sure, but here’s our question: Has he or she been out at the Hamptons, “struggling to talk about anything but DSK?” Cohen says that’s all they discuss; Krugman suggests they don’t care.
Final point: This has been going on roughly forever. Columnist Krugman to the side, why haven’t career liberal leaders ever complained about this upper-class culture? Why haven’t “liberal journals” ever profiled Dowd as one of the world’s leading fools?
Are they out at the Hamptons too? Perhaps on their latest job hunt?
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