To reiterate, The New Criterion sure likes fascism!
 

A chilling read, Quincy. I have been picking up details of Bolsonaro's intentions via news media for some time and this confirms my understanding of the situation.

Have the editorial board of the journal ever actually defined the "new criterion" of which they speak? Is there a manifesto anywhere? Is this a reflection of their collective beliefs and policies or are they "merely" giving a platform to an extremist?

Perhaps the way to answer my own question is to read more of its content. Not a pleasant prospect. Meanwhile, I am not so afraid of the axe at the centre of the bundle as I am of the rods gathered around it, giving it strength.

Hi Quincy,

An article by Brazil's new foreign minister! Jeez. Yep, it does seem that this particular journal is a big fan of Bolsonaro and his vile stew of far-right politics, misogyny, homophobia and God. That much appears inarguable.

Thanks for posting this. I'm not an expert on lit journals and their political stances, though I talk a lot. Too much. But there are no shades of grey here, are there? If anyone has supported the NC in the past, so be it. The past is the past. If one chooses to continue to do so, in the light of this...well I think you make a pretty good case for that being a very questionable decision that ought to weigh pretty heavily on the conscience.

Cheers

Well, the old "Criterion" is simply the journal started by TS Eliot, thus the "New Criterion" means only that they're following in that journal's footsteps. It does not imply that they hold themselves to any particular standards, and certainly not moral standards.

The editor, Roger Kimball, has come out in favor of Bolsonaro (and Trump). I still got the magazine for a while after Trump was elected; while it seemed that Kimball refused to allow his authors to criticize Trump, some of them cagily hinted at it, while still making sure that the reader new that the true sinners were on the left. So this article seems to reflect Kimball's genuinely held belief. Regarding the other editors, it may only reflect what they'll tolerate.

I submitted to TNC once: a tribute piece for Geoffrey Hill after he died. Thank fucking god they didn't take it.

"God through the Nation".....

Holy F*&$ing Yikes. Surely the editor would let past contributors respond to the pining after a historically monstrous deity lurking in this pig's note. Forget the debate about publish here or not, which always depended on the intent of the submission and the clarity of the submission's voice. Let's see the responses of the defenders of this magazine as a place for dialogue. If this piece doesn't write its own denunciation from anyone, especially the Christians, who trail after the magazines breadcrumbs that would be an interesting silence to me. If the editor refuses the dialogue then you know it isn't an arts magazine at all but an ideological monologue that is using art for cover.

Andrew M.’s suggestion is a good one—there are plenty of writers (though none on the political side) who have published in The New Criterion whom I know full well aren’t fond of the fascism and white nationalism. The question of whether direct challenges/denunciations of the line Kimball has taken from poets who don’t share his politics would get published in the magazine would be an interesting litmus test.

Well then, maybe the answer isn't fewer submissions to TNC, but more: a whole deluge of angry letters from poets and writers denouncing the magazine's politics. But then hold on, wouldn't that constitute 'debating with fascists'? I thought that was bad.

Yours

Genuinely Confused

England.

Never mind.

Mark—

For many people, the question is whether the alt-right stuff (of which there are other examples) represents a personal eccentricity on its editor’s part or is intrinsically linked to the magazine’s mission, with the arts playing (wittingly or not) a supporting, even buttressing role to the magazine’s core, politically defined mission, rather like the role of the marble statue image in a YouTube rant about “social justice warriors.” My own view has leaned toward the latter, and increasingly so, but this is not a universal opinion, including among people I like and respect.

Editing in: Per Jayne—The New Criterion is a significant journal on the American right that gives a hifalutin intellectual gloss on such things as global warming denialism and the Bolsonaro government’s imminent spoliation of the Amazon rainforest, you know, the world’s biggest carbon sink and a major bulwark against the global warming that we have a dozen years to massively dial back. Not to mention that were I in Brazil, my life might well be in danger because of my political views. So as someone who’d rather not see his son’s generation faced with mass extinction, no, I think griping about metered and rhymed poetry being harnessed to an intellectual project devoted to the continuation and deepening of trends inimical to justice and even human life is pretty important and intrinsically linked to what must be the most important fight of our and perhaps all time.

There are two ways we can go to survive as a species in the medium term. The first route (the one I favor) involves a massive rerouting of the economy into more sustainable and egalitarian forms, which will inevitably mean a frontal assault on the economic and financial powers-that-be, or the spoliation will continue, and the human race will turn against itself, reducing its numbers through famine, war, ecological catastrophe, and genocide. Which is indeed starting to happen. This is not hyperbole. This is not a joke. We have a dozen years. Nothing is of greater moment.

Thank you for clearing that matter up, Aaron. The so-called New Criterion is an ironic name, it would seem, for a journal with no moral standard. Further, The Criterion hardly deserves to reference the Criterion that Eliot started; because the former had some, whereas the latter has no moral criterion. They are just commandeering that famous name in a transparent bid for prestige.

P.S. The article is a shame on many levels indeed, one of which being that it does all ever published by the journal before a disservice. Had I been published by them in the past, without the knowledge that they should later stoop so low, it would seem unfair to me.