BOOKISH: The Death of Writing

There is no neutrality anymore. You’re either for or against. To stand apart is seen as stupid, unsupportable.

Maybe it is.

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But some of us can’t help it. I went to a backyard get-together recently with some very high-minded people. Within thirty seconds they demanded to know where I stood on the Republicans. And I’m not using “they” as a generic. Three people blocked my access to the beverage cooler.

“We were just talking,” a woman said. “MAGA should be abolished, don’t you think”?”

“You mean supporters voted out of office?”

“No! The movement needs to be eliminated. Supporters rooted out. Exposed, and humiliated.”

“I see.”

“They should know they’re being watched,” the man next to her added, darkly. “You’re right,” another said. “They’re Nazis. There should be consequences for that.”

A few years ago, this would have been Orwellian. Now it’s ordinary cocktail banter. “So where do you stand?” they asked.

I was hoping to weather the storm. Partisans tend to punch themselves out, and move on to milder topics. Vacations. Electric cars. They aren’t really interested in your opinion anyway. They want agreement. Conformity, once derided by old guard liberals, is now a virtue.

Where do I stand? Well, after all that, it sure wasn’t with the Republicans. “I’m neutral,” I said.

Wrong answer. “There’s no such thing!” my female friend shouted.

Actually there is, and on this one I am willing to take a stand. A writer, any writer, is first and foremost a journalist. Their work is original, dispassionate, unbiased. You don’t lose these virtues when you become a poet or fiction writer. Especially in fiction, your characters might, even should, veer dramatically one way or another. That’s what people do. But the novelist remains neutral. They record history, after all. I don’t know anyone who thinks history should be recorded by a political party.

Or do I? Authors today wear their politics like clown suits. They have a pocketful of connected arguments, brightly colored bandanas pulled out while staring at you. They don’t have to look. It’s been supplied by their political party, and that’s good enough for them. I have other clown analogies, the enormous, one size fits all shoes, the plastic gardenia that squirts an insult in your face. But I think you get the gist.

This is an era when whole novels are written that are little more than political screeds. Stephen King used his forgettable Billy Summers as a Trump insult-fest. Works by Richard Russo and Garrison Keillor are nasty jibes at Trump and his supporters. This isn’t fiction. It’s the death of fiction.

Why? Because it’s propaganda. Propaganda relies on irrational thinking. And irrational thinking is, um, irrational.

I got away from those three at the backyard party. Of course another three found me, and we went through the whole routine again. It’s not like I have no opinions. But I’m a professional, and prefer to keep my politics to myself. I certainly don’t want politics to influence my writing. That wouldn’t be professional.

At the very least, politics does not instill confidence in any professional. Let me give you an example. If my dentist asks me who I’m for in the coming election, I’m outta there.