A few weeks back I posted a reader’s e-mail letter to Arts Journal editor Doug He explained he “did not object to [my] writing about the mixture of art and politics.” I believed the root of his objection was itself partisan. “I don’t think you would have So why am I going over all this now? Because I promised him I would air his He no more appreciated “reading the condescension in The New Criterion or The City Dept. of Correction:<\/B> After this item was posted, my correspondent asked that he He also asks that I not understand him too quickly. (His way of putting it is that he feels he’s Further, he says he has never joined a political party, though he did vote in a Democrat To complete his self-profile, he says he’s a big fan of painters Cy Twombly, Jean-Michel Frankly, I wish he’d told me all that in the first place. He doesn’t say whether he voted for Gee A few weeks back I posted a reader’s e-mail letter to Arts Journal editor Doug McLennan which objected to the “political invective” in Straight Up. That posting, “Thou Shalt Not,” prompted several more e-mails from the reader, this time to me. He explained he “did not object to [my] writing about the mixture of art and politics.” He objected to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-5T","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMcLennan which objected to the “political invective” in Straight Up. That
\nposting,
\nprompted several more e-mails from the reader, this time to me. <\/P>
\n
\nHe objected to “nakedly political comments disguised as arts comments, with only a thin veneer of
\nmaterial to disguise” them. He felt that posting the
\nIraq<\/STRONG><\/EM><\/FONT><\/A> was uncalled for because it was irrelevant to the arts. It
\nwas “partisan” rather than merely “political.” <\/P>
\n
\nbeen upset had I criticized Bill Clinton,” I wrote him. “Am I wrong?” He replied, “I might hate
\nClinton, but I hate insults more.” And he admitted: “Upon further reflection … it wasn’t that you
\nwere being political or not political. … The straw that broke the camel’s back was your comment
\nabout recalling GW Bush [from office]. I thought it was a pretty unfair thing to say …”<\/P>
\n
\ncorrespondence. He pointed out, among other things, that he’s “a highly educated and
\ncultured person” and “a little tired of hearing all the people in [his] educational class sneer
\nat everything. Conservatives condescend, and leftists sneer.” <\/P>
\n
\nJournal” than “reading the sneering everywhere else.” He considered himself “a centrist and a
\nutilitarian” with “a severe dislike for ideology of all kinds.” He also pointed me toward “an art
\nshow that’s not only political, but explicitly so.” Regettably, the show — a group exhibit called
\n“Politics as Usual” at the Aaron Packer Gallery in Chicago — has closed. But
\nmuch worth seeing.
Finally, with all due respect, I feel compelled to say that no
\ncard-carrying centrist utilitarian would admit to knowing of, much less
\nreading,
\nThe City
\nJournal<\/FONT><\/A><\/STRONG><\/EM>. OK, I read The New Criterion myself sometimes.
\nBut I’d bet he is really a dyed-in-the-wool conservative with centrist utilitarian sympathies,
\npossibly even a registered Republican, who despite being “a highly educated and cultured person,”
\nas he so modestly put it, somehow managed to vote for Gee Dubya Shrub and is
\nmiraculously not yet disillusioned by Shrub’s distorted Christian ideology of spare the rich and
\nsoak the poor.<\/P>
\n
\nnot be identified. Accordingly, I’ve deleted his name. For the record, I mistook his given name for
\nhis surname. He has my apology.<\/P>
\n
\nbeing made a straw man.) He says he’s as familiar with The Nation, The Times Literary
\nSupplement, Dissent, Mother Jones, and the New Republic as he is with The New Criterion and
\nThe City Journal. He reports that his only magazine subscriptions are for arts magazines: Art in
\nAmerica, ArtForum, ArtNews, Modern Painters, and Art & Auction, plus Architectural Digest,
\nand Opera News (via his long-standing membership at the Met Opera). And he reads the Wall
\nStreet Journal and The New York Times, every day.<\/P>
\n
\nprimary, for Paul Tsongas, in 1992. As to his political tastes, he says he has bought and read more
\nbooks by Christopher Hitchens (two) than by Ann Coulter (none). He says he has never
\npurchased any other books by political or semi-political authors and prefers to read fiction.<\/P>
\n
\nBasquiat, and Jackson Pollock. In music, he enjoys the occasional Messiaen piece. His favorite
\nauthors are Samuel Beckett, Thomas Bernhard, and Robert Coover. He has also written
\nAmazon.com reviews for books by Coover, Anne Carson, Ian McEwan, Andr
\nAnd he wonders whether a Republican would have even read any of the books he reviewed, much
\nless given them positive notices.<\/P>
\n
\nDubya Shrub, though, and I’m not about to ask. Even someone who believes he’s been made a
\nstraw man (though I don’t believe so) has a right to privacy.<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"