Pornography : English :: Communism : French

Classic Gopnik:

Pornography was to British writers of the fifties what the Communist Party was to French writers of the time: they didn’t entirely approve of it, but felt that being attached to it would keep them from being seen as mere intellectuals.

From a different article in the same issue of the New Yorker, I also enjoyed this line:

When it comes to architecture and design, most of this new Beijing looks like some provincial official's dream of modernization.

That's because the new Beijing in fact is some provincial official's dream of modernization. See for example, this, or this, or this.