{"id":350,"date":"2011-06-15T01:42:24","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T01:42:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=350"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:04:51","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:04:51","slug":"how-to-really-write-for-first-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/how-to-really-write-for-first-things\/","title":{"rendered":"How to REALLY Write for First Things"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Depend<\/p>\n

For the past two years, I\u2019ve had a passionate love-hate relationship with First Things.<\/i> When the Best Spiritual Writing: 2010<\/i> anthology came out,<\/strong><\/a> I counted no fewer than three First Things<\/i> imports \u2014 one by Amanda Shaw,<\/strong> another by <\/a>Joseph Bottum,<\/strong><\/a> and a third by the man himself, FT founder Fr. Richard John Neuhaus.<\/strong><\/a> Possibly there were more. <\/p>\n

The essays were splendid, but they are not exceptional. First Things<\/i> is one of very few publications that\u2019s unapologetically highbrow. The typical contributor boasts a freight train of postnominals. Very rarely does anyone refer to pop culture except to say how much he despises it. The screen is bare of graphics; the poetry rhymes. One writer bowled me over by using the word smackdown<\/i> in the title of an article. I\u2019m sure they made him drop $20 in the Billingsgate Jar.<\/p>\n

Forty years ago, it would have gone over even better than it has, offering a middle ground for Catholic conservatives who found Buckley\u2019s National Review<\/i> too compromised, and L. Brent Bozell, Jr.\u2019s Triumph<\/i> too disconcertingly pure. But I, having come of age long after Alan Bloom declared the American mind closed, can take only so much. After about half an hour, the contrast between the values being plugged and the ones I actually live by grows too sharp to bear. Something\u2019s got to give. One day, that thing could be me \u2014 many an FT article has driven me to the brink of throwing away all my shorts, t-shirts and sneakers, growing a mustache like Thomas Dewey\u2019s, and starting a Meerschaum pipe collection. But since I\u2019ve already had more conversion experiences than I can handle, I generally navigate away from FT to You Tube and crank up House of Pain until equilibrium returns. <\/p>\n

(Let me add that if no FT writer has dubbed YouTube \u201ca triumphal arch on a culture of instant gratification,\u201d then the lot of them are being overpaid.)<\/p>\n

It now appears I\u2019m not the only one with mixed feelings. Today on Seedbed, some young muggins casts a spitball toward the FT editorial desk:<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MEMORANDUM
\nTO: PROF. BIGNOISE
\nFROM: FT STAFF
\nCC: MR. AMBITIOUS GRADSTUDENT
\nDear Prof. Bignoise,<\/p>\n

We have received a number of submissions from Mr. Gradstudent that, while well written and thoughtful, do not fit the parameters of the FT mission. (\u201cRediscovering Catholic Social Teaching,\u201d \u201cTen Things More Important Than Opposing Gay Marriage,\u201d \u201cSecularism Is Not A Scary Tentacled Sea-Monster Under Your Bed,\u201d \u201cWhy Iraq Is Not a Just War,\u201d etc., etc. I need not go on.) In the future, please ensure that Mr. Gradstudent follows the template EXACTLY. I enclose it again below for reference.<\/p>\n

1. I HAVE OBSERVED A THING THAT I DO NOT LIKE, AND WILL DESCRIBE <\/p>\n

IT WITH SNEERING DERISION.<\/p>\n

2. I WILL EXPRESS \u201cCONSTERNATION\u201d OR \u201cCONCERN\u201d.<\/p>\n

3. I WILL PLUCK OUT A FEW WORDS OR OTHER DETAILS FROM (1),<\/p>\n

4. AND THEN APPLY ONE OR MORE OF THE FOLLOWING:<\/p>\n

4.1 SOMETHING ABOUT NATURAL LAW<\/p>\n

4.2 SOMETHING FROM CITY OF GOD <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He gets it wrong, I\u2019m sorry to say. Following those guidelines would work equally well for a writer pitching to Crisis,<\/i> or for that matter, America Magazine.<\/i> What makes FT, FT is not its promotion of an orthodox religious worldview, but its serene certainty that the marriage between faith and society was consummated at some point in the past, and the union violated and forgotten since. <\/p>\n

What modern innovation does an FT writer abhor the most? Wrong \u2014 the guillotine. Not because it destroyed a perfectly good social order, but because \u2014 according to Samuel Johnson \u2014 it\u2019s the hangman\u2019s noose that concentrates the mind, and kids these days can\u2019t sit still without Ritalin. <\/p>\n

Here are some titles of FT articles. Try to guess which are real, and which I made up just now:<\/p>\n

In Praise of the Pillory<\/p>\n

In Defense of the Dowry<\/p>\n

The Thrill of the Quill<\/p>\n

Is Rote Memorization due a Ralliement?<\/em><\/p>\n

Why I Make the Cashier at Safeway Call Me \u201cMemsahib\u201d<\/p>\n

The Stork: A Straussian Noble Lie<\/p>\n

Okay, I admit it \u2014 I made them all up. Sheer impertinence. But they should give the reader a fair idea of what makes FT unique. A nod to the European side of America\u2019s cultural heritage can only help the aspiring writer\u2019s case; in fact, FT\u2019s about the only right-of-center publication where one won\u2019t get him labeled a screaming fairy. If you know any Stoic philosophers, quote \u2018em, the rule goes. Be sure to drop the names Joseph de Maistre and Edmund Burke \u2014 drop \u2018em like they\u2019re hot<\/p>\n

Last winter, I deposited the following essay in FT\u2019s combox:<\/p>\n

Huzzah for the Perruque!<\/p>\n

My wiife and I enjoy rituals. Repetition of simple tasks, we\u2019ve found, makes life as thrilling as a minuet. Each morning at seven-thirty, we begin breakfast by cracking the shells of our soft-boiled eggs. Every evening at eight, we polish the toby jugs. And, of course, every hour, at exactly three minutes and forty-five seconds past the hour, we count the tiles on the bathroom floors. But none of these compares in importance to the moment \u2014 at eight-fifteen every morning \u2014 reserved for the donning of the wig.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t Himself forgetting something?\u201d my wife will begin by asking archly as I push myself away from the table.<\/p>\n

\u201cImpossible!\u201d I\u2019ll cry, feigning indignation. Then, with a took of tender reproach, she\u2019ll glide into the bedroom and return carrying an oval velvet-covered box. \u201cI should not want you to go abroad bareheaded, like a common jackanapes,\u201d she\u2019ll scold gently, and with that, she\u2019ll produce the wig \u2014 auburn ringlets with the lightest dusting of powder \u2014 and set it snugly on my head.<\/p>\n

My wig has made me something of a celebrity at the office, where I\u2019m know as the Roi-Soleil. (Some of the more waggish interns, I\u2019m told, have shortened it to RoSo. They\u2019re a regular League of Augsburg, let me tell you..) This suggests they know one of society\u2019s dirtiest secrets, appreciate one of its least convenient truths: that the wig makes the man.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Silly, I know. The full version\u2019s even sillier. But all the hot buttons are there: dignity, hierarchy, family, ritual, veneration of the past. Anyone who can play it straight has a decent shot of seeing his name on FT\u2019s masthead.<\/p>\n

Me? I\u2019m playing it like England in the 30 Years\u2019 War, and staying out of it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the past two years, I\u2019ve had a passionate love-hate relationship with First Things. When the Best Spiritual Writing: 2010 anthology came out, I counted no fewer than three First Things imports \u2014 one by Amanda Shaw, another by Joseph Bottum, and a third by the man himself, FT founder Fr. Richard John Neuhaus. Possibly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[88,141],"class_list":["post-350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-first-things-magazine","tag-literature"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to REALLY Write for First Things<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"For the past two years, I\u2019ve had a passionate love-hate relationship with First Things. 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