The New Function of the Little Magazine

There are precious few “ambiguous monument[s]” still standing. Many periodicals like Lionel Trilling’s beloved Partisan Review are now extinct. The wages of the little magazines left standing are continually mocked online. Their purpose, however, is to serve those who “value their ability to live some part of their lives with serious ideas,” as Trilling put in his 1946 essay “The Function of the Little Magazine.” The ecosystem of criticism that existed then, exemplified by Edmund Wilson and codified by Norman Podhoretz in Making It, was robust.1 Now, critics like Becca Rothfeld mourn the death of The Washington Post books section. Established writers like Ron Charles are taking to Substack where nearly every month a new takedown piece arises and a new school of thought is birthed. AI is eroding people’s ability to read, interpret, and think. The work of critical thought has never felt more endangered. There are, of course, mighty magazines still acting as a fulcrum for inquiry. From N+1’s “The High Style of the Hater” to The Drift’s re-evaluation of Simone Weil to The Point’s diagnosis of liberal fantasia these small but nimble institutions build a counter culture that reinforce, break, and shift what criticism can do in the modern era—an ability AI lacks.