Guardian(For the Colonies) is interviewing, my hero, Tom Wolfe (By the way, P. J. O'Rourke, you couldn't carry his jock-strap, never mind his sweeping, intelligent view). Just about the time I was reading his "New Journalism" I was entering j-school and was coming of age to vote in my first presidential election. To date myself; the first and only time I've voted, it was for John Anderson. I've registered to vote in this election.
Instatoady tags the link by saying that Wolf says "...his own liberal elite doesn't have a clue". Directly contradicting this in the article (of course), Wolf says," There is something in me that particularly wants it registered that I am not one of them". When I read "Radical Chic", those tales of the vainglorious, I recognized those people from my own life. Only after I had wondered in the political wilderness for some time was I able to resolve the troubling aspects of these feelings (for people that I had so much in common with).
Wolfe, for a long time now, has been accepted by and been amongst those that he felt himself so estranged from. That's also more or less the tack of the Guardian's writer, Ed Vulliamy; the differences for Wolfe and in our country. There appears to be a kind of dance going on between Wolfe and Vulliamy in the course of the interview as each strives to tie in topical currency and a new book. As in one of Wolfe's novels, there are ironic twists that rise to the level of cosmic comedy.
I came to see much of what Wolfe wrote about the liberal elite to be true. I've also seen real sweat and blood for progressive causes. For better as for worse, the things that Wolfe and the effete each represented have come to affect us. These blogs are directly drawn from the principles of the "new"(Take that Jeff Jarvis)journalism. So is much of the opinionated, "take my word, the unidentified source said it" journalism that is soiling the craft. As for the effete, if you want a fresh perspective on Wolfe's "Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers", think of that picture of the Republican honcho's outside the Florida elections board for the "preppie protest".
TO BE CONTINUED
