''Compact'' is an American
online magazine
An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to an online only magazine was the comput ...
that began operating in March 2022.
The magazine was co-founded by Edwin Aponte, a populist and founder of the online magazine ''The Bellows''; Matthew Schmitz, previously an editor of the ecumenical religious journal ''
First Things''; and conservative Catholic opinion journalist
Sohrab Ahmari.
When ''Compact'' was launched, its listed contributors and contributing editors were described by ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' as ideologically diverse, including
religiously conservative Catholics,
populists, and dissident
Marxist feminists.
The magazine's editorial line in March 2022 was critical of
liberalism
Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, the right to private property, and equality before the law. ...
from both the left and the right.
History
Planning for the launch of the magazine began in 2020 between Ahmari and Schmitz, who later incorporated Aponte on the condition that half of the site's content cover "material concerns". ''Compact'' launched without a
paywall
A paywall is a method of restricting access to content (media), content, with a purchase or a subscription business model, paid subscription, especially news. Beginning in the mid-2010s, newspapers started implementing paywalls on their website ...
for its first few weeks,
and is now run on a reader-funded model, requiring a paid subscription to access all of the articles on the site. Co-founder Edwin Aponte exited the magazine in late 2022 over political differences after the ''
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
''Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization'', 597 U.S. 215 (2022), is a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court in which the court held ...
'' U.S. Supreme Court decision was leaked to the public.
Positions
According to Danny Postel, writing in ''
New Lines Magazine'', its approach is a "'synthesis' of
communitarian conservatism and
social democracy
Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...
"."
According to Matt McManus, writing in ''
Jacobin
The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential political cl ...
'', it is "an ideologically
syncretic
Syncretism () is the practice of combining different beliefs and various schools of thought. Syncretism involves the merging or assimilation of several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, thus ...
outlet in the spirit of
Christopher Lasch
Robert Christopher Lasch (June 1, 1932 – February 14, 1994) was an American historian and social critic who was a history professor at the University of Rochester. He sought to use history to demonstrate what he saw as the pervasiveness with ...
". McManus further wrote that "Compact's ambition is to argue for a strong social democratic state that also resists libertine ideologies and upholds local, national, familial, and religious communities."
Stephanie Slade, writing in ''
Reason
Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...
'', describes it as the new home of
post-liberalism, whose editors espouse "intense religious conservatism
itha whiff of socialism". Slade wrote: "By bringing a 'labor populism' with deep roots in the socialist tradition and a '
political Catholicism
The Catholic Church and politics concerns the interplay of Catholicism with religious, and later secular, politics.
The Catholic Church's views and teachings have evolved over its history and have at times been significant political influences ...
' that questions the very separation of church and state under a single roof, Compact has built an intellectual meeting place not just for post-liberal conservatives but for anti-liberals of every stripe."
Contributors
In 2022 the magazine included columnists, such as
Christopher Caldwell,
Lee Smith,
Malcom Kyeyune, and
Nina Power, and contributing editors including
Adrian Vermeule,
Glenn Greenwald
Glenn Edward Greenwald (born March 6, 1967) is an American journalist, author, and former lawyer.
In 1996, Greenwald founded a law firm concentrating on First Amendment to the United States Constitution, First Amendment litigation. He began blo ...
,
Liel Leibovitz
Liel Leibovitz (; born 1976) is an Israeli journalist, author, media critic, and video game scholar. Leibovitz was born in Tel Aviv, immigrated to the United States in 1999, and earned a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2007. In 2014, he was Visi ...
,
Michael Tracey,
Patrick Deneen,
Paul Embery, and
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek ( ; ; born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian Marxist philosopher, cultural theorist and public intellectual.
He is the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London, Global Distin ...
.
[not in ref cited ]
References
Further reading
*
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Compact
Online magazines published in the United States
English-language magazines
Magazines established in 2022