The Grocer and the Chief’s presence in a 1955 issue of Harper’s magazine is an interesting example of how traditional journalism can supplement social science (in this case, surveys) in capturing idiosyncratic realities and the larger trends they potentially represent. The narrative style is deeply immersive, focusing on the physical details of Lerner’s journey and interviews (complete with illustration), and grounds its narration firmly in the lived experiences of the individuals the journalist interacts with, even as the article is framed in such a way as to illuminate a broader historical transformation. The conflict between tradition and modernity is complicated by the relationship each subject has to the fluid history in which they are living, and certain conventions of bitter intergenerational conflict are not followed because the human beings being interviewed are fleshed out in ways that go beyond broad-stroke archetypes. That complexity doesn’t dilute the implications for the larger cultural context so much as clarify and enhance it; the modernization of the Turkish state is a not a discretely defined process that will provoke a universal reaction, but a set of evolving circumstances based on dynamic systems of politics that has a unique and nuanced set of effects on both those individuals who represent traditional power structures and those whose professions are harbingers of an emergent cultural status quo. That this piece of long-form journalism, itself responding to a data-driven study, is able to illuminate the intersections of the quantitatively different but fundamentally co-dependent time scales of human life and political history is a testament to the effectiveness of multidisciplinary works that blend academic and popular media to try to better understand the world.<\/p>\n
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The Grocer and the Chief’s presence in a 1955 issue of Harper’s magazine is an interesting example of how traditional journalism can supplement social science (in this case, surveys) in capturing idiosyncratic realities and the larger trends they potentially represent. … Continue reading