Icons
Icon of the month: The Magazine
Steve Tomkins
If you could lay every magazine you've ever bought side by side, what would they say about you? That you're anally retentive, yes. But more: we'd have a biography of your interests and outlook, your changing tastes and concerns.
A magazine is a badge of your personal identity. You can guess how well a woman who subscribes to the New Statesman, Private Eye and Sight and Sound will hit it off with a date who buys Handgunner, Hustler and Tea-Break Puzzles.
The fact that our expressions of individuality are mass produced must say something profound, though I'm not entirely sure what. Perhaps that we find personal identity in belonging to groups. You're not just buying information and/or entertainment in the corner shop, but membership. For better or worse. That's why there are mags we brandish publicly, others we just read, and some we tend to keep out of view. Yesterday, in my tireless research, I picked up Q from a supermarket shelf, and found Gay Times hidden inside it. There's a little biography right there.
Still, magazines offer no shortage of identities to compile yourself from. I counted 418 titles in the supermarket, on subjects from Wii to period decor and from celebs to dogs. When you consider business, professional and local publications, and those too rarefied for Tesco, the number is overwhelming. Half an hour and a laptop, and I've found ones devoted to meteors, fatherhood, Alaskan caving, agricultural ethics, the Scunthorpe music business, autism, turf, exporting democracy, spanking, Ancient Egypt, wedding cake, refugees, ghost hunting, the chap, Terry Gilliam and prayer. I didn't discover the subject of Edible Jersey, but sometimes the truth can only disappoint.
The first ever magazine is said to be the marvellous-sounding Edifying Monthly Discussions, published in Germany in 1663, and setting a precedent by sinking within five years. One likes to think of the founders of Third Way considering that title before opting for something more confusing. The phenomenon came to England in 1690; those who see the shallowness of contemporary culture as a symptom of decline might be relieved to hear that it took just eight years for the first gossip mag (The London Spy) to follow.
The Gentleman's Magazine gave us the word 'magazine' in its modern sense - it had meant 'storehouse'. Launched in 1731 and lasting 176 years, it brought together for the first time book reviews, international news, readers' letters, articles on everything from the discovery of oxygen to interpretations of Ezekiel, and parliamentary debates transcribed (technically illegally) in full. Perhaps, on that last point, we do have the slight edge in shallowness after all.
We don't, it's fair to say, tend to think of the magazine as high culture. When it comes to politans, the Met rather lords it over Cosmo, and unlike the Brandenberg Concertos and even 'Johnny B Goode', the NME has never to my knowledge been sent into space to impress aliens.
But perhaps we should pay them more respect. Dickens, T S Eliot and Orwell published much of their best work in magazines. The literary magazine has declined due to the cheapness of books, but other subjects are covered as expertly as ever on the newsstand. Absorb everything that the Economist, the New Scientist and National Geographic have to tell you, and you'll know a lot more than, let's face it, you do now.
Even those publications with less lofty ambitions - though we're not sinking to the level of Heat yet - have real value. They equip us for pursuits that are important to us - boating, nursing, flautism, genealogy… The mag isn't the main attraction, it's content to point to something else and help us do it better, understand it better, appreciate it better.
We could do with a magazine that equips us for living in today's world, and for building the kingdom of God in it. It would shine new light on knotty issues, grasp contemporary culture, invite debate and offer a Christlike perspective - all with wisdom, expertise, wit and style. Well, it's a goal worth working towards, at least.
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