Virtually all of The New Yorker writers I spoke to said they supported the unions core economic goals, and believed the junior staff members deserve pay increases. There was some craziness there, but over all this was inevitable, and it had to happen, and this is how history functions? Many talk of him as an adored, slightly feared and somewhat distant father whose approval they always seek. The economist discusses what the U.S. gets wrong about Putin and the war in Ukraine. Politicians are always letting the public off the hookit might be the most unforgivably dishonest thing they do. Right. Try for $0.00. They have little faith that the U.S. can achieve it, but even less that their own government and security forces can. Buy on Bookshop. She told them, two people in the room said, that the guild could protect them from being fired and could even defend them against misguided editorial choices, if, for example, an editor she cited Arianna Huffington suddenly wanted everyone to write about sleep. Paperback, 434 pages. Unionized employees from Cond Nast marched from New York University to the home of Anna Wintour, Cond Nasts global chief content officer, last Tuesday. And if we have a politics that focusses on that, and tries to bring us closer to that, I think thats a healthier narrative than any of the four Ive described. Packer has made four tours on assignment in Iraq for The New Packer, George (2001). They also want to live normal lives, and they dont see that happening with an American departure. That dynamic's been entrenched for six, seven years now. And Obama was also trying to put forward an idea of America that is patriotic, that is aware of its flaws, and that says the arc of history bends toward justice, and so on. ), None of us want to do anything that could jeopardize the magazine we love. And we can get into the reasons why, but I think its both increasingly illiberal philosophicallywhich scares me, since we have so much illiberalism in our society right nowand its politically perverse and fails to understand American voters in some basic ways that it needs to if it wants to make real change. November 2, 2022. In a new book, the journalist George Packer argues that the country is divided into four warring factions. Our Man George Packer 2019-05-09 From one of America's greatest non-fiction writers, an epic saga of the rise and fall of American power, from Vietnam to Afghanistan, told through the life of one man. The ones I talk toand, for various reasons, its an extremely limited poolwant America to leave. We dont want so strong a union that mediocrity reigns and its impossible to get rid of poor performers. He also wrote about payments Amazon gets from publishers, often in the form of discounts -- information that is rarely shared. The New Yorker George Packer is an author and staff writer for The New Yorker . Well, I think Smart America is the one its closest toin a sense, its one generation overthrowing the previous one, children overthrowing parents. The Devastating New History of the January 6th Insurrection. 1. . While he was working on the article, Brad Stones book The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon was published -- a book Packer said he found to be excellent. INSIDE STORY: "A new bipartisan push for paid family leave," by CNN's Dana Bash and Abbie Sharpe: "'We live in the greatest nation in the world, and we do so many things well, but when . About a month after the meeting at Mr. Davidsons apartment, about 40 of the writers met in the community room at a West Village apartment building. And it says, Were all individuals. We all have a chance to make it. They might even be repelled by it. Packer argues that seismic economic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, leaving the social contract in pieces and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. the democrats lost the white working class. I had this idea about the way international organizations go into Bosnia or Northern Ireland or Israel and just get the warring sides to build a school together, or put on a play together. So theres affirmative action, theres diversity hiring, theres childrens health insurance. George Packer broke with the magazines tight-lipped traditions by sharing details of his own deal with Cond Nast. Soon the superstitious mariners and passengers . New Yorker writer Packer (Interesting Times: Writing from a Turbulent Decade, 2009, etc.) Once trust is built in the course of long conversations, the details that a story requires start to surface. Staff Writer, The New Yorker; Author, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America Doug Sovern, KCBS Radio Political Reporter - Moderator. Im really quite divided about this, Isaac. But this is the direction we have to go in. [2] Packer's sister, Ann Packer, also is a writer. People in Japan are calling Goto's murder their 9/11. First of all, I agree about Obama. Im identifying, to some degree, with my parents, who were in their forties and on a college campus during the student revolution, and it was not an easy time. The Talk of the Town. Do you think the fights embodied by Just America at a lot of institutions are going to manifest themselves in politics soon? In his new book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal, George Packer writes that the United States is in a state of disrepair, brought about primarily by the fact that inequality undermined the common faith that Americans need to create a successful multi-everything democracy. The book opens with an essay on the state of the U.S. during the pandemic, and then offers sketches of four different visions of the country: Free America, of Reaganism; Smart America, of Silicon Valley and other professional lites; Real America, of Trumpist reaction; and Just America, of a new generation of leftists. Its even hard to understand how you get your message to them. That were two countries, and one of them is going to have to defeat, and in some ways destroy, the other? The editor, William Shawn, responded with pained, elegant letters, warning that collective bargaining would undermine the friendly, gentle, free, informal, democratic atmosphere that made The New Yorker special. I recently spoke by phone with Packer, who is a staff writer at The Atlantic and was previously a staff writer at The New Yorker. This seems like the only way that face-to-face interactions between Americans from wildly different backgrounds could happen. They loom larger in times like now, when inequality is soaring and trust in institutions governments, corporations, schools, the press is falling. Packer, George (February 11-18, 2013). Then it took on a new, more global life in the years between the fall of the Soviet Union and the attacks of September 11th, as a book by your compatriot Josef Joffe, berpower, arguesa reaction against the sole superpower. Obama was more candid. 467 pp. Were informal with waiters. Theyve agreed on a $55,000 starting salary and are hashing out issues like caps on potential health care cost increases, people familiar with the talks said even as the Guild threatens a strike. George Packer, a staff writer at The New Yorker, is the author, most recently, of "The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America.". Justin is under the weather, his column will return Wednesday. For example, do we get rid of standardized testing because there are disparate outcomes between groups? Packer's sharp portraits of these new tribes are the heart of this book, and his critique of them reveal his central concerns. And that generation has embraced a different narrative, which sees us less as striving individuals with an imperfect but ever-improving society and more as a fixed hierarchy of groups, some of which are oppressive and some of which are oppressed. [5] He served in the Peace Corps in Togo.[2][4]. Why ISIS Murdered Kenji Goto. They sat in a big circle and, like the millennials only a few of them are, shared details of their own compensation arrangements. The Democrats did all they could in the early Obama years to find some common ground, even with large majorities in Congress. The companys lawyers werent happy either, with the name at least, compelling the project to be called the Small Publisher Negotiation Program., Packer also included a suggestion from super-agent Andrew Wylie that publishers stop selling their books to Amazon altogether. I wonder how much its in the control of, say, one side of the political spectrum to bring the other side back. If Just America can reform policing, and make our criminal-justice system less barbaric, and close the wealth gap, and close the achievement gap, then Id say all the angst that comes from reading Twitter and the exchange of vitriol that goes on all the time in our culture and in our media will seem trivial. Compared to Iraq or the recession in rural North Carolina, I thought it would be relatively straightforward, Packer said. But it made focusing on the companys chief executive redundant. I think a lot of liberal readers who read the book will feel that maybe they want some combination of Just America and Smart America. Robert Siegel discusses President Bush's speech outlining a strategy in the war in Iraq with Reuel Marc Gerecht, contributing editor for the Weekly Standard, Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, former Middle Eastern specialist for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1985 to 1994 and author of The Islamic Paradox: Shiite Clerics, Sunni Fundamentalists, and the Coming of Arab . From the episode: Andrew Keen: One of the chapters [in your book] is called "Make America Again," rather . Its more like a bunch of instincts and prejudices. Its the professional class. Jane Mayer came from Washington, and Lawrence Wright flew in from Austin, Texas. Or maybe a little less, because the motives of Trump voters are very hard to break down. Mr. Remnick declined to be interviewed, but said in an email that his two goals were that we achieve our highest editorial ambitions and that we work together with fairness, adding, Ill be glad to see us sign a foundational contract that memorializes our commitment to both., Many of the writers I spoke to said they saw Mr. Remnick as caught between an uncompromising union and an ailing parent company. 2023 Cond Nast. The gathering was, many noted, probably the first time that so many of the magazines scattered staff members had ever been in one room, and someone invited the Magnum photographer Peter van Agtmael to document it. What am I writing about here?, What he came up with, he explained, is Amazons relation to the world of culture -- especially books.. The writers discussed whether they should follow their colleagues into the NewsGuild, and whether the magazine treated writers fairly. His book records the Administrations struggle to shape its own narrative. Johnson, one of the publishing industrys rare Amazon critics, pushed back against Amazons predatory practices. Its also a gateway into the real money books, movies, speaking gigs or other opportunities in the broadening economic landscape for brand-name writers. Regarding his abilities, the . I have a bunch of ideas at the end of the book. [1] His parents taught at Stanford University: his mother, Nancy Packer (ne Huddleston), was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in the Creative Writing Program and later professor of English, and his father, Herbert L. Packer, was a distinguished professor of law, and the author of numerous books and articles. You write, Because people still live their lives in an actual place, and the nation is the largest place with which they can identify. Anyone can read what you share. It's a full-scale scholarly biography of Richard Holbrooke, one of the most influential U.S. diplomats of the late 20th Century.[9]. And this is also the Democratic Party going along with the Reagan consensus. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Amazon is good for online shoppers, but is it good for books? All rights reserved. But no writers turned up at a protest outside Cond Nast headquarters on May Day, and none appeared to be present at a march outside the home of Cond Nasts global chief content officer, Anna Wintour, on June 8. the Her passions are breaking up monopolies, regulating corporationsclass struggle, really. 3. Where does Bernie Sanders fit in? According to New Yorker writer George Packer, there used to be a kind of deal among Americans a deal in which everyone had a place. I dont much want to live in the republic of any of them, Packer writes. This post has been corrected. When he came back from book leave in mid-2013, Packer's New Yorker editors suggested the idea to him. Narrator: George Packer; Length: 19 hours 46 minutes; Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc. All the pieces are in place for the abuse of power, and it could happen quickly. The New Yorker staff writer George Packer answers readers questions about his article One thing thats been said is that people on the left claim to speak for women, or people of color, and then, when it comes to the ballot box, Joe Biden overwhelmingly beats all the other Democrats with Black voters. Id call that Real America. Ben Rhodes was the Presidents speechwriter, foreign-policy adviser, and confidant. I ended up travelling through Europe and the Middle East for about a month, with two weeks in Baghdad. And I know that thats a tricky and maybe dangerous thing for some Americans, but the first thing Id say is, if you suppress that in yourself, or if you refuse to acknowledge it in others, you will insure that the worst versions of it, like Trumpism, will have the field, because most people still feel that. Essays and reporting. Some salaries start as low as $42,000 a year, and remain under $60,000 after 20 years on the job. But some also shun its blunt and adversarial language. Rosa sat so Martin could walk so Obama could run, so we could all fly. It was a really optimistic picture of incremental but inevitable progress. Well be lucky if we do. There is no country in the region that wants to absorb Iraqis in a long-term resettlement. Am I really prepared to say its over? And those are mostly Black farmers who have been dispossessed through decades by the Department of Agriculture and by state and local governments. George Packer broke with the magazine's tight-lipped traditions by sharing details of his own deal with Cond Nast. "Long engagements". There has been no progress in terms of higher education opening up to Americans of lower classes. Have we simply sent our least able people to that region? Working as the kind of writer that Brooks has sometimes been, but going far beyond that, he takes you into the lives of real Americans, at least one or two of whom will resemble any likely reader of the book, as they discover, sickeningly, that they're ensnared and blocked by forces beyond their . George Packer, writer at the New Yorker and author of the new book "The Unwinding: An Inner History Of The New America." He also recently wrote the New York Times op-ed " Celebrating Inequality . By Glynnis MacNicol Feb 1st, 2010, 10:40 am. How did Betrayed come together? It doesnt happen in jobs. Persuasion doesnt work. I very much enjoyed this piece, because it seems to fit . Exactly. The editor, who is 62, has also said he doesnt plan to follow the example of William Shawn, who ran the magazine until he was nearly 80 and the institution had become a kind of museum of itself. I think nationalism is destructive. They have roots in history, but they are shaped by new ways of thinking and living. It has set off reflections on their status and revealed the rare bond and unusual deference many of them feel toward Mr. Remnick. Packer was a columnist for Mother Jones and was a staff writer for The New Yorker from 2003 to 2018. Smart America is the meritocracy. He summarized what he saw as the consensus view in another WhatsApp message to colleagues. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. Its a phrase Palin used during the 2008 campaign. Because of the difficulties of working in Iraq and the concerns Iraqis have about their safety, this story presented logistical challenges. If you bloc most Americans into identity groups, George Packer says, if you create monoliths, you will end up not speaking to their actual, as people say, lived experience., Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal. Remember the slogan when Obama first ran? His latest book, Last Best Hope: America in Crisis and Renewal was released in June 2021. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. One lingering quibble is that your sense of liberal righteousness strikes me as the milk-and-water variety that Theodore Roosevelt warned against. American history is one way to get in touch with it. That doesnt mean it ignores racism, discrimination, disfranchisement, and the history of all of these. Last Best Hope was inspired, Packer says, by "political pamphlets from other periods of crisis.". Do you know if many Vietnamese felt the same way as these Iraqi translators and others whom we employed and then abandoned? It has an aggressive quality. When he came back from book leave in mid-2013, Packers New Yorker editors suggested the idea to him. Because I wanted to write about the whole arc of the war in their lives, I spent many hoursin a couple of cases, two full daystalking with them. But the desire to be equal, I think, is still there as a driving passion. Theres been nothing like it since the 1930s. It wasnt highlighted in the bill. And as the labor movement seeks to level the playing field, will the stars go along? The union includes 120 people and there are about the same number of staff and contributing writers. Im afraid it will take years for America to recover its international prestige; at the very least, it will take a change of Administration. George Packer at the 2013 Texas Book Festival, Last edited on 16 February 2023, at 15:10, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, "Geoffrey Canada on Giving Voice to the Have-nots", "Our Man by George Packer review Richard Holbrooke and American power", "2013 National Book Awards Go to McBride, Packer, Szybist, Kadohata", "James McBride, George Packer win National Book Awards", "Announcing the National Book Critics Awards Finalists for Publishing Year 2013", "2017 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grantee: George Packer", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Packer&oldid=1139717922, 2017 Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to complete, This page was last edited on 16 February 2023, at 15:10. The chances of a poor American kid getting into one of the top Ivy League schools today are the same as they were in 1954. In one recent Zoom call, writers even complained to Mr. Remnick of their fears of being bullied on Twitter if they diverge from union talking points. But there was a rejection of perhaps some of the things he stood for, and perhaps of the multicultural, multiracial America that he embodied, by forty-six per cent of the country. Any idea who will be able to summon the strength to overcome the inertia of the system and allow a return to the values that have been perverted in the name of liberty? Say what you want, but Biden is . Nobody was interested in a union rep coming between them and Mr. Remnick on editorial decisions. He told his colleagues that after years of reporting from Iraq, he had requested and received health insurance before the birth of his first child. He was a supporter of the Iraq war. 120 people and there are disparate outcomes between groups diversity hiring, theres childrens health insurance.. And those are mostly Black farmers who have been dispossessed through decades by Department! Find some common ground, even with large majorities in Congress want so strong a union coming. 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