This article seeks to rethink the nature and significance of the fortnightly magazine Private Eye during its first two decades. Existing accounts have interpreted it almost exclusively through the lens of the “satire boom” (1961–63), and suggest that, in the final analysis, the magazine neither desired nor advanced any substantial critique of the political status quo. Besides neglecting its investigative facets, among other elements, these readings make the mistake of seeking to frame the significance of the magazine in conventional ideological terms. This article puts these neglected elements back into the picture and argues that the magazine is best understood as enacting a militant form of the kind of cynicism—at once outrageous and morally outraged—analyzed by Peter Sloterdijk and Michel Foucault, and other scholars in their wake. This provides a much more satisfying account of the many facets of Private Eye as these evolved during the 1960s and 1970s, including its affinities with various currents in postwar journalism and countercultural expression. Above all, it allows us to recast the politics of Private Eye as a form of moral protest that was expressed in the assumption of an intrinsically antagonistic relation toward “politics” and authority per se.

中文翻译：

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激进的愤世嫉俗：重新思考战后英国的私家侦探，约。 1960–80

本文旨在重新思考半月刊的性质和意义私家侦探在其最初的二十年里。现有的报道几乎完全通过“讽刺热潮”（1961-63）的视角来解释它，并表明，归根结底，该杂志既不希望也不推进对政治现状的任何实质性批评。除了忽视其调查方面等因素外，这些解读还错误地试图用传统的意识形态术语来界定该杂志的意义。本文将这些被忽视的元素重新带回到图片中，并认为该杂志最好被理解为表现出一种激进的犬儒主义形式——既令人愤慨又在道德上令人愤慨——彼得·斯劳特戴克和米歇尔·福柯以及追随他们的其他学者对此进行了分析。 。这对许多方面提供了更令人满意的解释私家侦探随着这些在 20 世纪 60 年代和 1970 年代的发展，包括它与战后新闻和反文化表达的各种潮流的密切关系。最重要的是，它使我们能够重塑政治私家侦探作为一种道德抗议的形式，其表达方式是假设与“政治”和权威本身存在本质上的对立关系。