Zing!

by Will Wilkinson on November 20, 2004

Tim Lee micturates upon Nick Gillespie’s semi-autobiographical work of armchair demography.

What do you think about Reason’s “cultural turn.” Personally, I enjoy reading Nick’s Reason better than Virginia’s, although Virginia’s did seem more like a serious magazine for serious people with serious thoughts, and thus I guess I found her version more intellectually edifying. But what I think may be most interesting is the fact that, oh I don’t know, I guess maybe 70% of the writers are the same. So the actual substantive differences aren’t that great. It’s basically the same magazine with a few fewer pieces on privatizing x, a few more pieces on drugs, rock, and burning things in the desert, a reliably unfunny but fun-to-look-at cartoon, and lots more willfully obscure pop culture references. Overall, I like it. I think the formula’s got maybe two years left before its played.

Noah Yetter

Correct link:
http://www.binarybits.org/archives/2004/11/free_minds_and.html

(link in the article has an extra _ before the .html)

Greg Brooks

I worked at Reason (the foundation, not just the magazine) in the early '90s and gotta say: I miss Virginia's editing polish and her greater emphasis on policy and economics.

It was, at the time, a magazine of sharper writing than TNR, of more real-world ideas than National Review and of less muttering-in-our-privatized-coffee essays than what you'd find in Liberty.

Virginia once said Reason was the only think magazine who's editors openly admitted to watching prime-time TV. In some ways, Nick's evolution of the magazine is that meme carried to extreme.

Robert Prather

What do you think about Reason's "cultural turn."

Can't stand it. I had been a reader since 1989 and by 2002 I was completely burned out on the cultural turn. I had grown to appreciate policy through Virginia's turn. I no longer subscribe with Nick leading.

Tim

Sorry about the broken link. I'm switching away from typepad, and so until the DNS propogates completely the site is going to be flakey.

Anonymous

Having read the cached article, I agree with Tim. He hit the nail on the head about that article and about the magazine generally. It's half-assed cultural analysis by people who aren't terribly good writers or cultural critics. They need to hire a few more Will Wilkinsons and Julian Sanchezes.

ab

Looks like it's cached at google:

http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:dbO-ZoVRXzQJ:www.binarybits.org/bitbucket/+reason+tim+lee&hl;=en&start;=1

Will Wilkinson

Tim's site seems to be down.

Max

Link still dead from my end... I'll try to hit refresh a couple of times.

ABC

I used to read Reason, and early issues of Nick's Reason. Frankly, I don't like the cultural turn much. The best articles have been those written by Sullum and Bailey - on biotech, moral policy, etc. I really do like Nick personally. But I think his writing is too cute by half. And the choice vs. control bit is shallow.

I think there are a lot of people who subscribe to Reason, but don't read it. I'd much rather read Wieseltier in TNR or the book reviews in the Atlantic Monthly, than those in Reason, for instance.

Will Wilkinson

Thanks. Fixed.

Anonymous

Your lee link seems to be borked.

I had no problem with what Gillespie wrote, except to point out that the issue is that the actual difference in economic freedom between the states is quite minimal. Thats the real point of his article, but I don't think he ever states it explicitly. Perhaps Lee's post will point out some heretofore undiscovered flaw in Gillespies piece.