Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan
Katha,
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StumbleUponOh, God. Yes, there's always the danger when writing of revealing yourself far too much to people you don't know. The Diarist column of TNR, which helped pioneer the genre in America, was always a festival of small embarrassments, and still can be. But, hey, we're all human. I think if we don't take ourselves too seriously, a certain amount of confessional writing can be riveting and revealing in a way other forms of writing are not, even if it can also occasionally be personally damning. I've written a lot of things that I'm sure people have scoffed at, or thought were inane, self-important, narcissistic, or whatever. But that's part of the game. I try not to be those things, but someone's going to think it anyway, so all you can do is keep writing as honestly as you can and hope you're not hopelessly bad at it, or boring. Good writers, in other words, I think, are worth reading because they are flawed human beings and don't mind showing it a little. Far better than the pomposities and abstractions that flow from the pens of the insecure and impossibly vain. (I won't mention any names). Or the tedious Broder-like pronouncements of those who take journalism to be a sacred calling. I've always liked Cyril Connolly's memorable description of Orwell: "He was a man, like Lawrence, whose personality shines out in everything he said or wrote." Amen. It's just a shame that few of us have Orwell's integrity or strange simplicity. But that's an argument for being better people, not for writing less honestly, or with more masks and pretensions.
As for Alterman, I have no idea why everything he says or writes seems like a sneer or a jibe or a sly dig. Maybe insecurity, or just malevolence. Both exist in Washington in abundance. But his self-revealing diary might simply be a modern way to confess sins. Shrinks won't let you beat your breast in shame; priests are out of fashion; so everyone's a personal columnist. Or maybe he simply bares his soul to George Stephanopoulos, and the rest is malice. Who knows?
Yes, I'm glad Indonesia is crumbling too. An evil corporatist kleptocracy. I suppose you'll simply say I'm as duplicitous about Indonesia as I accuse the Left of being about the Soviet Union. But I do think its version of undemocratic capitalist corruption is a long way from the kind of liberal democracy I believe in; and basically unrelated. It's almost as disgusting as Burma's SLORC. So let it slide.
Off to lunch,
Andrew
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