2.09.2007
From the Archives
[Posted 3:38 PM by Ellie Thermansen]
The better part of a Friday afternoon spent perusing files full of old letters “To the Editors” at The New Criterion has yielded some real gems. Please enjoy this fine example of the art of making a mature intellectual argument as you head off into the weekend:
June 1983
Dear Sir:
I perused your “trivial, vulgar, and politically repulsive” letter with a nausea only occasionally tempered by bouts of flatulence which I directed at your gaggle of “established writers.” I can see how you would have attracted these many new writers — under a swarm of flies one often discovers a pile of shit.
In your creation of a spurious opposition between “classics” and “propaganda,” you demonstrate your adherence to that same tired old ethnocentric pseudologic which I’m so often compelled to critique in the writing of my Basic Composition freshmen. If your magazine represents “disinterestedly” “what is right and what is wrong,” then monkeys will fly out Pat Robertson’s butt. (Not that they haven’t already).
In short, the only thing I’d consider paying you $30 for is the privelege of snipping off your editor’s [redacted].
This being said, goodbye and God bless.
Dr. Samuel Johnson
Northwestern University
Ethnocentric pseudologic? Thanks for the heads up, Dr. Johnson.