Well, things change when you take a new beat, as I recently did (and as we regularly do at The Economist). In this case, I switched from a rather geeky beat–Silicon Valley–to a more general beat–politics and society in the Western states. Mostly, I’m thrilled about this new, and much bigger, hunting ground. But it comes with, shall we say, rather different reader letters.
Our reader letters at The Economist can be witty but tend to be flamingly, aggressively, rantingly, lividly hostile. What varies is the level of sophistication. Some readers really know what they are talking about, and really know The Economist, and eviscerate us effectively and brutally.
Others are, well, just plain amusing.
Here is one of the dozen or so I am perusing this morning, all informing me of my wanton and despicable ignorance and depravity. This particular letter writer reminds me that one of my recent articles
once again shows the elite arrogance and display of socialist bias on the part of The Economist.
Elite arrogance. Hmmm. Socialist bias. Hmmm.
That’s a classical liberal/libertarian from a classical liberal family writing for the world’s oldest classical liberal magazine, displaying a consistently elitist and socialist bias. Gotta love our readers. Can’t wait to read the next batch.
Hannibal and Me: life lessons from history 
Vox populi.
I thought of this posting of yours today, after I posted the content of one of my own pieces on my Blogspot blog (see link below) also on to one of those social networking blogging sites (to get some readers).
http://cartablanc.blogspot.com/2009/05/clear-and-present-danger-to-america.html
My piece provoked a stream of negative (and I think also inane) comments, of which a sampling below:
“…….What a dickwad. Racism and lunacy all wrapped up in a nice little package
with the maven of hatred for a bow.This is what makes the rest of the world think Americans are dangerously crazy……..”
“…….Hmm….Bill Pigsby is either a lousy writer of satire or an ignorant
redneck prick writing trash for other ingnorant redneck pricks……”
“…….This is such a distortion. Can this guy really, possibly believe the
garbage he’s written…….?”
There was lots more like this.
I therefore sympathize with what you guys at the Economist must put up with in suffering the inane and negative responses to the Economist pieces. I’ve also reflected on what you’ve said about irony, and the lack of a sense of it in modern society.
That said, the commenters on my piece just could be right; and it’s I who need to sense better the current Zeitgeist………..