Interesting how this whole “New Journalism” thing has played out, isn’t it? The long game? Its innovation, you might recall — or not — was its humility.

Sure now it seems like a bunch of white guys (plus Joan Didion) had just found another way to make the world all about them, but that was not how it was at the time. At the time this was the white guys getting honest! Stepping out from behind the curtain to reveal their situatedness, to cop to their privilege, as they say nowadays. (I mean, they don’t. Gay Talese doesn’t. But people do.)

I always admired the lengths to which Talese, in particular, went to conceal himself. All kinds of passive voice, “he was asked” constructions, but then a guy in comments set me straight. That was just more Holy Ghost-shit. The writer playing God.

So they put down the voice from nowhere, but now the “I” is narcissistic, too? More narcissistic than thinking you’re God? What’s an honest Hegelian to do?