About a year ago, I saw a printed advertisement for The Point magazine (probably in The Hedgehog Review, but I donāt remember), and I subscribed. Not too long after that, Mana Afsariās excellent piece there started being passed around and linked to, and I excitedly took this as confirmation that this was a great subscription to add to the quiver.
Since then I have done nothing but question the value of that subscription. Possibly every article that I have read in The Point has been distinctly onto something, yet, it seems to me, without really knowing what to do with it. (Afsariās piece was, to my reading, not quite an exception to this.) Admittedly putting myself at risk of exaggeration: If there was a group of people who were quite gifted at recognizing the true and the beautiful, but who didnāt actually believe that the true or the beautiful really exists, well, thatās more or less who and what Iāve felt like Iāve been reading there over the past year. Itās excellent exposure, but solid ground it has not.
Thatās almost certainly more harsh than theyād appreciate, but as far as I can tell, it isnāt necessarily antithetical to their goals, which adhere āto no specific political or social agendaā but instead would have their readers āparticipate in a dialogue between diverse intellectual traditions, personalities and points of view.ā That makes it a (potentially) great medium through which to pass, but by itself might also make one more sympathetic with the why-liberalism-failed feelings of Patrick Deneen.
All that being said, this week Iām finally sitting down with their summer issue, and Iām certainly hooked, even ready to be proven wrong. (Although it was one of the articles in this summer issue that sparked the above description.) The entire issue is dedicated to the question What is violence for?
How to contextualize these snapshots of ārealā events within an everyday experience characterized increasingly by a sense of disembodiment, disorder and drift? Was violence, too, destined to collapse into the endless slop of ācontentā? Or, if properly attended to, could it still hold the potential to resensitize us to the reality of the shared world we inhabit as finite, moral selves?
The note from the editors is certainly worth reading.
Iāll add that one of the nice things about The Point is that itās very easy to purchase a single issue if you like. (Hereās a link to purchase the Summer Issue.) Another nice thing: It is absolutely my favorite one to hold in my hands and read. The font is excellent; the margins are great; the paper is book-like, not magazine-like ā in fact, itās more like reading a book than any other magazine Iāve ever held.
Iām not sure if this manages to be a recommendation at all because Iām still not sure I recommend the magazine in general. But I donāt think youād go wrong in picking up this issue.
