An urgent message from Z magazine

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sat Aug 31 09:44:44 PDT 2002


Michael Pollak wrote:
>
>
> The only nonboring left magazine is LBO.

Have you ever read _Prison Legal News_?

Of course all left periodicals have an initial disadvantage in that they can't depend on their reader "knowing everything they have to say" in advance, as can right or "center" publications, which share an immense area of agreement as to both fact and principle with their readers (whether the readers are aware or not. For example, all readers know as simple fact that the U.S. may commit errors or even serious blunders but its intentins are ALWAYS good and any facts which seem to indicate otherwise are are false and probably maliciously false. Someone should do a detailed empirical study of what the viewer must know in order to see the typical political cartoon as funny. That would be a pretty good indication of what "everyone" who reads the daily paper _already_ knows; hence writers need not prove it.

And as soon as you attempt to prove it, you become dull. Hence the worst temptation of left writers is not dullness but attempts to shape their message in such a way that they too can depend on this huge accumulation of falsity -- such as the kneejerk assumption that of course it is always a good thing for a Democratic "leftwinger" to win in Senatorial races.

Carrol



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