The Worst Magazine In America
The Atlantic poses as a magazine of ideas, but its writers get away with terrible arguments. Its ascendance is a sign of the dire state of American intellectual life.
Regular Current Affairs readers know that I have a tendency to make grumbling remarks about a magazine called The Atlantic. In fact, in our print edition we recently awarded The Atlantic a prize for “Worst Magazine In America.” This prompted an irate letter from one of our subscribers, who said that they enjoyed The Atlantic very much, and they could not understand our virulent distaste. The reader asked, fairly, if we could explain exactly why we think The Atlantic is such a “bad” magazine. Is it simply because we don’t share its political leanings? Are we mad at The Atlantic for not being socialist? If so, why does it get singled out for special criticism, given that most publications aren’t socialist (including Field & Stream, Good Housekeeping, etc.)? The reader offered an example of an Atlantic article that they thought was quite good: George Packer’s “The Four Americas. ” Did we disagree with it, they wondered? If so, why?
I agree with the reader’s point: I shouldn’t just sit around snarkily making cracks about The Atlantic without justifying the position. I wouldn’t like it if people did that about Current Affairs. If they went around saying “Ugh, Current Affairs, that magazine sucks,” I’d want to ask them to justify their verdict: What sucks about it? Can you enumerate precisely the ways in which it sucks, with examples and evidence? If not, surely you should shut up about Current Affairs (or in my case, The Atlantic).
