Andrew Sullivan explains why he's leaving New York Magazine and — sort of — reviving his blog.

From his final NY Magazine column (I've added boldface):

What has happened, I think, is relatively simple: A critical mass of the staff and management at New York Magazine and Vox Media no longer want to associate with me.... They seem to believe... that any writer not actively committed to critical theory in questions of race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity is actively, physically harming co-workers merely by existing in the same virtual space. Actually attacking, and even mocking, critical theory’s ideas and methods, as I have done continually in this space, is therefore out of sync with the values of Vox Media. That, to the best of my understanding, is why I’m out of here....

[I]f the mainstream media want to cut ties with even moderate anti-Trump conservatives, because they won’t bend the knee to critical theory’s version of reality, that’s their prerogative...  But this is less of a systemic problem than in the past... I was among the first to recognize this potential for individual freedom of speech, and helped pioneer individual online media, specifically blogging, 20 years ago.

Andrew Sullivan is returning to blogging???? You know, I'm a die-hard, dead-ender blogger, and I'll do this even if it's obsolescent and obscure, but I've been half predicting a big blogging revival. So I'm excited to see Sullivan write "And this is where I’m now headed." But wait, he's got a problem with blogging:

Since I closed down the Dish, my bloggy website, five years ago, after 15 years of daily blogging, I have not missed the insane work hours that all but broke my health.

It's not that hard! I've been doing daily — and I mean every single day — blogging for 16 1/2 years, and I feel completely comfortable and energized by the practice. The flow is fantastic. It feels better to blog than not to blog.

But here’s what I do truly and deeply miss: writing freely without being in a defensive crouch; airing tough, smart dissent and engaging with readers in a substantive way that avoids Twitter madness; a truly free intellectual space where anything, yes anything, can be debated without personal abuse or questioning of motives; and where readers can force me to change my mind (or not) by sheer logic or personal testimony.

Yes, the control over your own writing — the pure expression — is wonderful.

I miss a readership that truly was eclectic — left, liberal, centrist, right, reactionary — and that loved to be challenged by me and by each other. I miss just the sheer fun that used to be a part of being a hack before all these dreadfully earnest, humor-free puritans took over the press: jokes, window views, silly videos, contests, puns, rickrolls, and so on. The most popular feature we ever ran was completely apolitical — The View From Your Window contest. It was as simple and humanizing as the current web is so fraught and dehumanizing. And in this era of COVID-19 isolation and despair, the need for a humane, tolerant, yet provocative and interesting, community is more urgent than ever.

Yes.

So, yeah, after being prodded for years by Dishheads, I’m going to bring back the Dish.

I’ve long tried to figure out a way to have this kind of lively community without endangering my health and sanity. Which is why the Weekly Dish, which launches now, is where I’ve landed....

So... it will be the weekly column we're used to at NY Magazine, but self-published. That's not really what I think of as a blog, but clearly he's after some of the advantages of classic blogging, even as he's fending off what seems to have been a daily grind for him (but what works for me as a continual, gratifying flow and — believe it or not — an exalted ritual).

The initial basic formula — which, as with all things Dish, will no doubt evolve — is the following: this three-part column, with perhaps a couple of added short posts or features (I probably won’t be able to resist); a serious dissent section, where I can air real disagreement with my column, and engage with it constructively and civilly; a podcast, which I’ve long wanted to do, but never found a way to fit in; and yes, reader window views again, and the return of The View From Your Window contest....

Fantastic.

Twitter has been bad for me; it’s just impossible to respond with the same care and nuance that I was able to at the Dish. And if we want to defend what’s left of liberal democracy, it’s not enough to expose and criticize the current model. We just need to model and practice liberal democracy better....

Yeah, there's something about Twitter. I was an early adopter of Twitter, but I let it go. It is a type of blogging — "microblogging" (remember that term?!). But you're jumbled in with everyone else's flow and you end up in a perverted fight for attention that gives rise to anxiety and negativity. With a blog, you make it your place, a place you want to be.

If the mainstream media will not host a diversity of opinion, or puts the “moral clarity” of some self-appointed saints before the goal of objectivity in reporting, if it treats writers as mere avatars for their race and gender or gender identity, rather than as unique individuals whose identity is largely irrelevant, then the nonmainstream needs to pick up the slack.... Instead of merely diagnosing the problem of illiberalism, I want to try to be part of the solution....

The Weekly Dish will be free for a bit....

Uh oh. It's going to be a subscription place. I get it, but it makes it much harder to link to and discuss.

Anyway, good luck to Andrew Sullivan in his new venture, and thanks for talking about the tyranny of critical theory and the attack on individualism.