Kunkel: Couture Socialist?Ben Kunkel, a founder of n+1, and author of Indecision has a brief review of Miracle in the Andes in the second issue of Men's Vogue. It's about the Montevideo Old Christians Rugby Club that crashed into the Andes and resorted to cannibalism to survive; written by Nando Parrado, one of the survivors. The subject is not political but the politics of placing the review in this forum are interesting enough. 

I would encourage any writer to place their work anywhere they can, almost. My politics are certainly on the right but I've considered pitching to the Left wing populist journal The Baffler (a brilliant irregular journal). I am not a neo-conservative but I would have no problem pitching to the Weekly Standard either. Writers have to eat. But historically socialists tend to have more scruples about their political associations.

I cannot speak exactly to Kunkel's politics, but the protagonist of his Indecision comes of age by beginning to write on behalf of the proletariat in South America, and identifying himself as a democratic socialist. Considering the political context of our era in which it seems there are no longer any serious young socialists, I think we can reasonably assume that the novel is Kunkel's own statement of social consciousness.  His beloved n+1, like the Baffler, seems nostalgic for an era when political writers on the left wrote with conviction. This is exactly why writing for men's vogue so strange.

Can anyone imagine a writer in the 1930s who turns in copy for the New International or the Partisan Review  stepping out to write for an aspirational magazine that courts men with incomes over 100K? That is - it caters to men who already make a sizeable income but wish to be making more. Half the "articles" in this second issue of Men's Vogue are devoted to custom and couture products - like a stereo system that costs 125K (made with old tube technology, but brand new), or a new yacht that would set you back 26 millions dollars. What about the couture clothing in Men's Vogue. Looking at the pictures of socialists I always imagined them in heavy tweed jackets - not vintage silks. In the intellectual prime years of democratic socialism a verbal lava flow would pursue Kunkel to the ends of the earth. He would be a "deviationist" or "enthralled by pre-Marxian petty-bourgeois socialism".  

This all reminds me of David Brooks. Couture socialism seems like a Brooksian construct- along the lines of Bourgeois bohemian, or the preppy prostitute from Along Paradise Drive. Kunkel is a minor celebrity for being being a progressive and founding a magazine in which he prints, according to Stefan Beck "glorified term papers".  He writes a book (which isn't as bad as it's more hostile reviewers make it seem) and somehow represents a lost idealism that haunts a left wing that has been enervated by internal conflict and intellectual incoherence. But Kunkel's though isn't honed by discipline. He talks the talk. But his contribution to the fat cat seducin' Men's Vogue indicates he doesn't "live like he means it"  -- n+1's maxim.

And as this blog post gloriously descends from observation into bizarre asides and free associations  I'd like to congratulate Beck on his takedown of n+1. I've seen Stefan Beck wear an impeccable seersucker, complimented by scuffed bucks in Central Park. I am glad that my side of the political spectrum feels no guilt about being stylish in clothes and prose as well.