Culture

Smoke in the Cold I watched a man smoke outside on the sidewalk this morning. He had a wool coat and a face like a riverbed—lined, quiet, used to waiting. The smoke curled up and disappeared, the way stories do when no one writes them down. We live in a time that hates smoke. We hate the smell, the stain, the suggestion of death. We speak in warnings: Dangerous. Addictive. A sign of poor choices. But there was a time when to smoke was not to sin. It was to mark the end of a meal, or a long silence. It was something to do with your hands while thinking. It was a fire you held close. ...

The Comfortable Critics: Adorno, Chomsky, and the Illusion of Intellectual Rebellion There are men who shape history, and there are men who comment on it from a safe distance. The former take risks. They build, lead, and sacrifice. The latter, the intellectual critics, stay in their studies and write about the evils of power while enjoying its protection. Theodor Adorno and Noam Chomsky belong to this second class. Their names carry weight in the world of critique. Adorno, the dour philosopher of the Frankfurt School, saw modern culture as a machine that pacifies the masses. He despised jazz, Hollywood, and anything that gave common people pleasure. Chomsky, the sharp-tongued linguist turned political critic, built a career deconstructing the illusions of corporate media. He sees power structures as a grand manipulation, keeping the public docile. ...