The Economist has relaunched its lifestyle magazine.
Previously called Intelligent Life, the new name is 1843, which is apparently
the year that the Economist was founded. As a subscriber, I’ve already received
three issues of the newly branded magazine, but I have only just got around to
reading the first of these, dated April/May 2016. I tend to try to keep up to
date with my reading of the Economist itself and the Guardian Weekly, then
catch up on Time when I have spare time and 1843 only when that backlog is
eliminated too, generally on long holidays or during mid-summer.
Apart from the rather silly new name, I did not notice much
difference between Intelligent Life, a name which at least gave some clues
about its content and targeted audience, and 1843. Gone were a few standard
features that I rather liked, liked Seven Wonders, and several others that I
didn’t, like the Wine List Inspector. Most of the sections remain, albeit in a
slightly revised order and sometimes altered names, like travel instead of
places. The centerpiece are still feature articles of a satisfying length, and
I was pleased to see that 1843 had six of these, because Intelligent Life had
been paring down their number to four or five, with one of those little more
than a series of photos.
So, a little confused as to the need or purpose of the
rebranding, I read the editorial pages and also scoured the web a bit. The
culprit, as usual, is marketing. I guess Intelligent Life did not make much
money, with its high editorial and printing costs and a limited readership – I
noticed that I wasn’t able to buy it on newsstands in the US, I guess to keep
down costs, but the target audience in England and English-speaking Europe must
have been rather small and unattractive to advertisers and limiting for growth
prospects.
So the starting point for the relaunch was to make the
magazine more global, and to make it more widely available in the US and
elsewhere and also online. They want to link it more to the mother magazine
too, probably to make it more widely known, which would explain (though not
excuse) the new name. That makes sense, as does the intention to make use of
the Economist staffers stationed around the world.
But finding globally interesting content for many of the
sections is tough, and I’m not sure that either Intelligent Life or its successor
has got it right yet. Examples are the reviews of current exhibitions and
plays. Even if I had got around to reading these before the events had actually
closed, the chances of me being able to take advantage of such events would be
miniscule, and surely that must apply to almost all readers. At least I’m in
the cultural metropolis of New York, where one or two of the reviewed events
tend to be staged, but is that enough to justify the section? Are there really
all that many people straddling the globe sufficiently to be able to enjoy more
than a small proportion of the events? Wouldn’t it be better to focus on films
and books? Or to go to the added expense of regional content?
This gets to the heart of my main problem with the magazine,
before and after relaunch. I am not all that sure that the target audience is
very large, and I’m even less sure that I want to be associated with them
anyway. The Wine List Inspector seemed to be focused on people ready and able
to travel across a continent to a posh restaurant with a posher and more
expensive wine list. Even if I used to be close to that category when I did a
lot of business travel, it does not describe a very attractive me, one I want
to be reminded of or associated with. The first 1843 highlighted a set of
travel destinations that were so exotic and expensive and hard to reach that
anyone wanting to read about them wouldn’t be someone I’d want to meet, in the
unlikely event that I ever made it to such a location. These people might be an
attractive group to certain advertisers, but how large is that group, and does
anyone else want to be associated with them?
Still, the features are always interesting, and I also generally
welcome the content from regular Economist writers. If they can emulate the
material they produce for the annual Christmas magazine that would be great. In
the first 1843, I did notice a slight change of style, away from elegant poetic
language towards the more punchy data-driven style I am familiar with, always
with wit, but sometimes not completely suitable for much longer articles. Many
of my favourites contributed well – Schumpeter and Bello among them. I hope
they keep doing so.
An example was “Why do we work so hard?” by Ryan Avent, an
American economics correspondent based in London, seemingly an author of the
rather nerdy Free Exchange column. He tackled a question dear to my heart and
informed by my experience, questioning why so many people work such long hours
and sacrifice so much yet seem unable to slow down.
Typical of an Economist writer, he starts with interesting
statistics showing trends in working hours, confirming indeed that a long trend
towards shorter working weeks was reversed about fifty years ago, at least for
anyone in full-time work. Then he focuses on his own experience with admirable
vulnerability, but maybe glossing over the point that, as one of the elite, at
least he has the luxury of some choice of working pattern, whereas many others
are locked into punitive hours by corporate expectations and wages that offer
nothing beyond survival.
He tells us about his own frenetic life, with family time
squeezed uncomfortably around work, and muses about alternatives. He refers to
a couple he is friends with who resigned their jobs and decamped to somewhere
rural, only to find their new life dull and return to the bustle a year later,
gaining some macabre comfort from the tale to convince himself that perhaps he
wasn’t being such a blind fool after all.
He is honestly refreshing about his motivation for working
such long hours. A lot of it is about the thrill of competition and ego. He
craves winning – whether against others or against his own limitations, and
loves the perpetual challenge to improve, as well as the recognition that comes
with success. He even likes to encourage more recognition by falling into the
habits of excessive acquisition, designed more to pique the envy of others than
anything else.
Where Avent has not perhaps examined himself as deeply is in
what he really wants and what he lacks. His description of family activities
smack of routine rather than immersion or even love.
This is all eerily familiar to me. If I had had the courage
and vulnerability to see it, he could have been describing me in my late
thirties. Then I had a stroke of luck. I started to fail, to stop winning, and
had a minor breakdown when the years of exhaustion suddenly caught up with me
as the adrenaline rush of success stopped. I was lucky enough to have a family,
an employer and just enough humility to come through this experience and out
the other side not quite broken. As a result I think I can add some insights to
the article.
Firstly, it is great to be honest about ego driven
motivations, and it is the first step towards finding alternative ways to
achieving them. Work is one way to find competition, challenge, recognition and
growth. But there are many others too. Don’t wait too long before finding some
that can work for you and laying down the groundwork for them and even starting
them while in work. Be aware that earning money is a very poor proxy for all
these motivations, indeed often gets in the way of them. Most of us are not so
shallow as to have money itself, and its visible signs, as necessary for
recognition – and if we are like that, we can wean ourselves away from it over
time. Clearly Avent’s friends who sold out did not have good alternative ways
in place to satisfy their hunger. The things that seem appealing while working,
such as peace or nature, will probably not be enough when time suddenly becomes
plentiful.
Next, the search for alternatives may seem voluntary now, or
even academic or a challenge for the distant future, but be ready anyway. As I
found out, ego driven motivations can become a curse when you stop winning
those challenges and feel disdain instead of recognition. That change can come
suddenly, and it can owe as much to chance as anything else.
Finally, pay special attention to family. Really understand
the needs of your life partner as well as your own. It can be a shock suddenly
having more time together, and not always a pleasant one, especially where
there is unfinished understanding or other external pressures to deal with. By
the way, Avent’s whole mindset strikes me as quite a masculine one – most women
seem to find balancing ego with other priorities much more difficult and seem
to suffer more guilt in their compromises, so transitions might be especially
hard for women as well.
Perhaps Avent is a microcosm of 1843 in some small ways. The
magazine might do better to think through its target readers’ alternative ways
of reaching satisfaction, or even to help them find them. Bragging rights on
yet another global exhibition or exotic but fleeting travel experience might be
what the advertisers think they want to see, but I am not so sure.
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