Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Who's next? The New Republic? Mother Jones?

Wow - what's happening over at the Atlantic? I read When Neighborhoods Gentrify, Why Aren't Their Public Schools Improving? by Ester Bloom which is a fairly bog-standard article that misses some critical elements in its argument. It lacks self-awareness in terms of its argument which boils down to "you need white kids to improve school performance" which doesn't sit well at all.

But it's not the article that is so surprising but the comments. A) It is reasonably civil, B) it is data rich with lots of links to external sources, and C) it is in essence a very conservative conversation, calling out the journalist for her implied racism. This is not dissimilar to a phenomenon I pointed out in the last year where especially the Washington Post but even the New York Times comment sections appear to be becoming increasingly conservative (in the sense of classical liberal instead of the postmodernism that passes for Liberal these days). It appears to me that there is a rising pushback to the postmodernist streak (and its attendant brethren, deconstructionism, critical theory, critical race theory, critical legal theory, postcolonial theory, and third wave feminism) so embeued in much of journalism today.

Don't know that that is true but it is interesting to see this trend extending even to The Atlantic. Who's next? The New Republic? Mother Jones?


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