'Baffler' captures panic market, sets a new pace

By Daniel Squadron

It is certainly ironic that in this age of cynicism, nary a cynical word can be found in our popular periodicals. Time is wide-eyed about Einstein's achievements as Man of the Century (whereas we all know that a little healthy cynicism would have led to the selection of Hitler or Rin Tin Tin, but neither even made the top 10), the New Yorker is still recovering from the gaga days of Tina Brown, and the newest "hot" periodical, Wired, is a veritable jizz-fest of corporate excitement (there are rumors that it has replaced the stash of Swank magazines under Bill Gates' mattress). Out of this morass of banal optimism emerges a bastion of corporate-free cultural criticism: the Baffler.

COURTESY BAFFLER MAGAZINE

A relatively obscure journal founded by two writers who met at the University of Chicago, the Baffler is a voice we can trust. While not necessarily the voice of truth, over the last 12 years the journal has been immune to enthusiasm for the status quo and has managed to maintain an independent, original, and skeptical voice. We are dominated by a world of self-congratulatory media conglomerates masquerading as information sources and cultural critics. Into this climate, the Baffler makes an entrance presenting a refreshingly incredulous look at America's consumerist paradigms.

Unfortunately, though, the Baffler's fresh and welcome attitude is somewhat wasted in the current issue (No. 13). As described in an introductory article by Baffler editor (and founder) Thomas Frank, the issue addresses "How the bunch of privileged frat boys, lawyers, and corporate officers who staffed the Nixon, Reagan, and Gingrich revolutions ever came to convince themselves, let alone an entire nation, that they spoke on behalf of the people and that they were the victims of some kind of elitist conspiracy." The theme is addressed in a series of articles that cover topics as diverse as the John Birch Society and corporate control of the Depression-era film industry. Writer Dan Kelly informs those of us whose "first reaction to the phrase `the John Birch Society' is a bewildered `Whoozat'" that it "was, is, and ever shall be the world's most stringently anticommunist organization."

While interesting, these articles seem more relevant to an AmStud seminar than to current cultural criticism. The articles are more effective at debunking historical myths than they are at forcing us to look at the present with a discerning eye. In this issue, the Baffler's microscope never shows us the texture of our society with quite the acuity that it had in the past. There is no article that pinpoints the feelings of the "sullen majority" with the laser-like precision achieved by Matt Roth's article about Amway in issue No. 10. Roth's article brilliantly explained why people are so drawn to Amway's obviously empty promises of wealth and independence. In contrast, this issue never gets beyond how Neo-Conservatism developed its rhetoric of victimization; none of the articles address why so many people are drawn in by the rhetoric.

Nonetheless, No. 13, like previous issues, affords the rare opportunity to be exposed to essays, fiction, poetry and art neither sullied nor diluted by corporate influence. And what a difference a little freedom makes. The archetypal Baffler article challenges accepted myths and demonizes corporations. Jim Arndorfer's current article about Frank Zeidler, the socialist mayor of Milwaukee from 1948 to 1960, is a perfect example of this. Due to his support of public housing and other reforms, Zeidler was forced to resign his office in 1960 after the threat of an election marred by nasty race-baiting. Arndorfer argues that race was just a proxy in this case; the real reason that Zeidler was so scorned by the political machine and the mainstream press was that he was seen as too economically liberal. While Arndorfer does not nominate Zeidler for sainthood, he suggests that his liberal economics could have prevented Milwaukee's decline.

Simply printing this argument would be enough to make the magazine unique, but the article also stands out for another reason—Jim Arndorfer is a business reporter. Arndorfer's day job is at an advertising trade magazine called Advertising Age, where he writes such enthusiastic articles as "March Roars Like a Lion for Goodbye" and "Corona Captures Hispanic Market, Sets a New Pace."

But this does not matter on the idealistic pages of the Baffler. We know that when Jim Arndorfer, or Thomas Frank (who writes for Harper's and other mainstream periodicals), or anyone else gets a byline in the Baffler, they are not shackled to the limiting and predictable standards of their capitalist employer. Instead, we can be sure that they are writing with conscience. This is the Baffler's great strength—the journal's seeming cynicism about modern business and consumer culture is not cynical at all. So-called "cynicism" in the Baffler is just a symptom of the peculiar perspective that the journal holds in today's publishing world: a unique idealism.

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