On the Changes at New Yorker Magazine

Re “Glitzy Tina Brown to Edit Venerable New Yorker” (July 1): I see this possible dumbing down of yet another source of intellectual pleasure and stimulation as part of a larger, and distressing, move to smooth out the variations in human interests and intellectual inclinations until a flat--and monetarily rewarding--surface has been achieved.

There is nothing objectionable about being a novice in any given area of knowledge. But why must every last bastion of artistic, intellectual and academic satisfaction and solace be eliminated in favor of the marginally interesting? What is left for those of us already educated in music, or drama or literature?

Dan Quayle’s attack on the oddly named “cultural elite” is nothing new. I remember as a child being aware of the contempt with which Adlai Stevenson was assaulted as an “egghead” and “intellectual.” It seems that in America there is scarcely a more scathing indictment.

Why do we despise the thinkers? Why do we deprive them of the film, music and commentary that appeals to them? Surely there are enough of the soap operas, the sitcoms and the rock stations to go around.

CAROL M. DROWN

Long Beach