Carl Loeb, Hero

I love this letter to the editor of The New York Times, which the paper published today:

To the Editor:

Re “An Opinion Editor and Writer at The New York Times Quits” (Business Day, July 15):

I read Bari Weiss’s resignation letter with … well, a sense of resignation. And elation. Resignation because you’re losing a fresh, skeptical voice. Elation because she called you out on your new toxic woke culture and put her money where her mouth is.

I identify as a left-leaning centrist. My education trained me to greet the world with an open mind. I believe in dialogue, not debate. And as a Times reader since college, I can see it plain as day: The Times has largely abandoned dialogue when it comes to cultural issues and ideas. You’ve handed the keys to America’s greatest paper to a strident, new orthodoxy that will not tolerate intellectual diversity. God, how sad.

I used to love reading William Safire’s column in The Times; I didn’t agree with his politics, but I celebrated his dexterity with the language.

I never thought I’d turn to The American Conservative for comfort, but at least it has the guts to publish controversial opinions that run counter to conservative orthodoxy. I used to get that from The Times. Want to know how to sell more papers? Publish a greater diversity of ideas, generate more conversation and, every once in a while, make a Jacobin mad.

Carl Loeb

Fairfax, Calif.

I LOVE YOU CARL LOEB! You come to Walker Percy Weekend next year, and you and I are going to get sloshy on bourbon at the bar at the St. Francisville Inn.

Carl Loeb’s comments make me realize that we here at TAC are succeeding at what we’re trying to do: be interesting.

I have a lot I could write about this morning, but I think I’m going to do another post about Paul Kingsnorth, because it’s a nice change-up from culture war posts. Don’t get me wrong, the culture war is hugely important. But we need other things, don’t we?

Anyway, if you appreciate the work we do here at TAC, please consider donating to us. It’s tax-deductible, and man, do we ever need it at our little shoestring operation. And we’re making a difference. Maybe you saw that Justice Alito cited The Benedict Option in his recent majority opinion on an important religious liberty case. If not for TAC, where I worked out these ideas, there would have been no Benedict Option book. If this new book I have coming out, Live Not By Lies, makes a difference, you can thank TAC, where I worked out its ideas on this blog.

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