Dwight Macdonald
LAUGH AND LIE DOWN
M
ORE persistently than any other American magazine the
New
Yorker
has exploited a distinctive attitude towards modern life.
The typical
New Yorker
writer has given up the struggle to make
sense out of a world which daily grows more complicated. His stock
of data is strictly limited to the inconsequential. His
W eltansc hauung
-a term which would greatly irritate him-is the crudest sort of
philistine "common sense." But unlike most exponents of "common
sense," the
New
r
orker
type is spectacularly incompetent in the prac-
tical affairs of everyday life. He is abashed by machines, easily
dominated by extraverts, incapable of making out an income tax
return, in constant difficultieswith the gas company, his landlord, and
The State. Out of these limitations the
New Yorker
extracts its peculiar
kind of humor: the humor of the inadequate.
It hardly needs to be pointed out that the
New Yorker's
con-
tributors are by no means as feckless as, for literary purposes, they
choose to appear. Their ignorance is no more to be taken seriously
than the ironic humility with which Socrates treats his opponents.
Quite deliberately, they prune their talents into a certain shape, and
if this means extensive intellectual amputations, so much the worse
for the intellect. The magazine has its tone, to which its contributors
keep with faithful ear. It is the tone of a cocktail party at which the
guests are intelligent but well-bred. No subjects are taboo, so long as
they are "amusing." Bur, as any experienced hostess knows, too earn-
est handling rubs off the bloom. Moderation in all things, including
humor. The
New Yorker
has been known to reject contributions be-
cause they were too funny. Its editors would have considered Mark
Twain too crude and Heine too high-brow for their purposes. Be-
tween reality and its readers the
New Yorker
interposes a decent veil,
which would be rent by any immoderate inspiration on its writers'
part.
I
If there is an octopus-like humor trust, twmmg its tentacles
around the nation's best wit, the
New
l'
orker
is it. There are no com-
petitors.
Life
is no longer humorous,
Judge
has no prestige, and the
rest are at or below the
College Humor
level. Current publishers' lists
