>>> dhenwood at panix.com 06/27/00 02:36PM >>>
>Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> And of course there was the snotty Economist cover, with a picture of
>> Kim waving to the world, with the headline "Greetings, Earthlings."
>>
> That was pretty funny, though.
Yes, it was. Their photo captions are often hilarious, though nasty.
> I wish that kind of humor could be
>found on the covers of magazines with better politics.
Years ago, at an URPE summer camp, Alex Cockburn picked up a copy of Against the Current, with the headline "Stop the Killings!" AC said, "No, why? Can't we have some of our own killings?"
Most "magazines with better politics" are full of earnest, deadly headlines like that. They're afraid of slang, irreverence, or anything to aggressive. Fear of aggression or of giving offense rules out most humor. So you get the exhortatory and obvious instead. Or the wonkish.
______________
CB: I am trying to think whether this generalization is accurate. I have seen humor, cartoons and the like, on the cover of _Political Affairs_.
But assume the generalization is true. I think it results in part from the following: Radicals are already "giving offense to rules" by their very radicality. In other words, radicals are more vulnerable and likely to be slandered as "wild , unserious and wanting to destroy everything". So, what Doug observes is the result of a tendency to overcompensate in the other direction to retain credibility.
Also, radicals tend to be angrier about about what is happening in the world, and so things are less funny to us.
CB