A good idea? Or, should politics be avoided? Can it ever be avoided, when authors are humans and presumably possessed of some political bent, lightly or tightly held?
I think politics can be de-emphasized, and unless you’re setting out to write something like Gulliver’s Travels, think it usually should. Good writers show, not tell, which means showing life in all its richness and complexity, including the non-political sphere (it exists). But shorn of anything remotely considered political your writing runs the risk of being bland. Or becoming the Weird, otherworldly variety of Clark Ashton Smith’s wildest stories.
Getting political cuts both ways. For the liberal who’d like to see something closer to socialism implemented, punching up at corporate overlords through their fiction has understandable appeal. The bad guys can be Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. But the perceived war on white men, capitalism, and the embrace of identity politics, has brought with it authorial counter-reaction from conservative authors.
Doing this type of work requires sophistication and a deft hand, or else it comes across as crass, activist screed. I don’t like reading painful, on the nose allegory. If you choose to write about the politics of the day, within a few years when the next leader is elected, you will find that your stories have aged, fast. Your clever references to political figures and hot-button issues will be rapidly outdated, obscure. Which is why I generally recommend either avoiding overt political messages, or better yet, focusing on reality—life as it actually exists, in all its forms, across the political spectrum and in the non-political sphere.
J.R.R. Tolkien was influenced by the events of his day, his Catholic upbringing, his World War I experiences (and World War II, despite his disavowal)—in addition to great swathes of non-political input including his deep knowledge of languages and medieval literature. But his stuff resists easy analysis. Is The Lord of the Rings conservative? In some respects, yes. A king is restored to his throne at the end. The Scouring of the Shire brushes up to outright critique of socialism. But the story is also about a multicultural fellowship who put aside their differences to beat a dictator. It reveres environmental preservation, critiquing the rapaciousness and industrial pollutions of Saruman. In other words, it depicts life in its richness and complexity. In so doing it presents glimpses of the truth, not a subjective political message of the day, which is one of the reasons why that work endures.
If you’re a writer, getting overtly political is one way to appeal to an audience, find your tribe, sell books. Certainly there is an appetite for all things political today. But it runs a risk. For example, in an anthology your tribe may discover other authors embrace views antithetical to its beliefs. The crudest example of this is the Flashing Swords #6 incident.
I keep going back to Howard for how to do this the right way (or at least the way I prefer my fiction). Are his Conan stories political? In a broad sense, yes. We can read Conan cutting through corrupt judges and monarchs as rebellion against the established order, a counterreaction to the injustices wrought by the Great Depression. But they are not direct critiques of Herbert Hoover (or maybe they are; if someone makes the case I’ll read that essay). They take a much broader, longer view of the course of human history, offering a dark view about the cyclical rise and fall of civilization and the imperfections in human nature, which makes them far more dangerous and memorable than mere of-the-day political commentary. It’s part of what has made Howard’s stories last. As has their non-political elements, like Howard’s incorporation of the literature of the west, and the Texas landscape.
I also think Leiber is instructive. Leiber’s critique of civilization was more subtle than Howard’s, his view of barbarians less romanticized (see “The Snow Women”). Rime Isle, the heroes’ end, was perhaps his statement on the need to break away from gods and cities, religion and politics. Perhaps old Fritz was on to something here, even though I found most of these latter stories wanting. Which maybe tells you something about our inability to ever flee reality.
I have said that my credo is literary freedom, and I stand by it. If getting overtly political in your fiction is what you want, it’s well within your rights, under the First Amendment. It should be this way.
If you want to write about a hero who rips down a wall built by a dictator, and opens the borders to a suffering neighboring community, you might be meet with cheers (from some). Others will boo your effort. How about a story about a barbarian who hacks his way through crime-plagued inner cities, solving violence with violence? Will you/should you accept that story?
Be prepared for criticism, both of the unfair/ugly variety from readers with axes to grind, but also of the thoughtful kind who see things from a different angle.
Life is lived in the middle. Political theory must meet reality. If you can live with that, have at it.
10 comments:
I agree. People seem to think that politics makes a story deeper. I think it is the opposite. Political stories are shallow.
Two observations: first, in science fiction--and I am thinking of David Weber's work in particular, which is the sci-fi equivalent of sword&sorcery--there is an overt political vibe. He writes with a true distaste for collectivism, which actually makes his work more interesting. If you haven't (and if you have any interest) check out some of his Honor Harrington stuff. My point is, in this case, it works.
Second, in the online D&D community, especially on Twitter, the entire project has become politicized, which sucks. The newer products tend to be very...safe, and the people on either/or side of certain changes and worldviews are complete and utter assholes to each other. So, to your point: leave the politics out!
These are tangental thoughts on your very interesting blog post. If you are the least bit interested, give a look at Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books, which are an overt criticism of the New Deal. It's a fascinating story!
Thanks for the comments! Hot button issue so I know folks tend to shy away from discussion.
Michaeljc4: I think what I'm getting at (and you have alluded to, with David Weber's work, which I have not read, is): Is it done well? If Weber is honestly engaging with individualism and collectivism, and perhaps presents examples when the former doesn't work/leads to problems, but ultimately is a better means of self-governance, then yeah, I'd definitely read that.
From what I understand, WOTC (who I believe still holds the rights to D&D) is reprinting the old books as-is, albeit with warning labels. Not having read said warning labels, I can't say how skillfully they are handling this, but in general that is consistent with what I've written (put a warning label on, have at it).
I am worried about literature, gaming, playing it too safe, with authors of either political spectrum not wanting to offend anyone and so creating bland art. Which is IMO the worst thing you can say about art: Bland, unmemorable. Unless you are decorating the lobby of your Holiday Inn or something.
I believe all fiction is political to a certain degree, because authors are human beings and human beings have political views. Even supposedly apolitical stuff like cozy mysteries or romance novels contain political views, if you look closely. For example, romance novels show a lot about how the author views gender relations, the role of women (and men), how they feel about sex, etc...
That said, there is a difference between "the author's political views inform the work" and explictily political works. The later can often grate, even if you happen to agree with the author's politics and even more so, if not. For example, I cannot stomach the Honor Harrington books or Larry Correia's Monster Hunter books, even though they should theoretically be right up my alley, because the author's politics are so blatant. However, I also can't stomach Kim Stanley Robinson's work for the same reason, even though his politics are a lot closer to mine than Correia's or Weber's.
The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard can be read as an analogy for the rise of fascism in Europe. However, it's also a cracking good adventure story and indeed, rereading the novel as an adult I was struck by how political particularly the first part was.
Meanwhile, the new Battlestar Galactica was so influenced by (US) political debates of the early 21st century regarding the war on terror, the legitimacy of the president, etc... that I said at the time that in ten or fifteen years, when those issues are no longer current, the thing will seem more dated than the late 1970s original (which was also pretty political, only that I completely missed that as a kid watching a cool space adventure show). And considering that hardly anybody talks about the new Battlestar Galactica very much anymore, it seems I was right.
Great comment Cora, thank you. It's the blatancy, and primacy, that is probably at the core of what bugs about deliberately political fiction (when fiction should be about telling an entertaining story, foremost). I have heard good things about Ministry for the Future but your comment gives me pause.
Thanks for a very thoughtful post. I think the problem is not so much that a work of fiction reflects the author's political views or that it has a political subtext. This can be done subtly and skillfully and, to Cora's point above, is to a degree unavoidable. I believe that most of what passes for politics these days is simply a very narrow set of concerns (which doesn't necessarily make it unimportant) that some are legitimately trying to draw attention to in the interest of social justice, and some are rather clumsily trying to shoehorn into every dimension of social life, including how we are supposed to assess a work of art. Politics, however, is much more than that (I happen to think there is no such thing as a non-political dimension) and it also involves other concerns and values. The American proletarian novels of the 1930s have been forgotten and mostly dismissed because of their supposedly pamphlet-like nature but some of the better works in that short-lived movement are truly worthy of a reappraisal and some of their overriding concerns/themes live on in other genres such as noir in literature and film, or even in those regional novels set against the backdrop of, say, rural poverty in Appalachia. While no one would say that, for example, Appalachian writer Ron Rash's novels are political or "social" novels, they do take place in the so-called real world and as such deal with some political issues like poverty, the opioid epidemic, and systemic injustice, albeit in a way in which they are subservient to or at least interact harmonically with other elements of a story like plot and characterization. Likewise, the Vlad Taltos stories are a very popular fantasy series written by an openly Marxist author but no one would honestly say they are pamphlet-like even if they do have political elements.
No, offense Gonzalo but the idea that there is no sphere outside politics is not only erroneous, but it is dangerous. There's a religious sphere, a philosophical sphere, a family sphere along with the political sphere. Sometimes they intersect and sometimes they don't.
Believing that there is only a political sphere is a step toward totalitarianism. It is then easy to believe that "right people" have the right to dictate every aspect of a persons life. I don't care which "right people" (conservatives, liberals, communists whatever) have that power. No one should.
Hi, Matthew. None taken, but I said something different (or at least tried to and may have conveyed the wrong message.) I didn't say that there is no sphere outside politics. What I said is that everything has a political implication, even if politics doesn't necessarily define it or is its dominant feature. This is not an original idea, let alone mine, and it does not justify totalitarianism nor the notion that there are right and wrong people. It stems from ideas discussed by American political scientist Robert Dahl, who defined politics as “any persistent pattern of human relationships that involves, to a significant extent, power, rule or authority." That can include the family, philosophy, religion, etc. Of course, we can disagree on this, but I just didn't want to leave the impression that I was endorsing something odious.
Going back to fiction, I like, for example, how some of REH's Conan stories clearly convey a political outlook (that civilizations are decadent or even unnatural) but he is not beating you over the head with it nor telegraphing the message or prompting the reader to agree with him. It is presented in a way that makes it coherent with the actions and behavior of Conan and as such it works on the level of entertainment but also as much more. The idea is present in the story but not intrusive.
Okay I get what you are saying, though I probably disagree Gonzalo.
Not much to add here, other than, great dialogue. Still making up my mind on politics in fiction, but I guess I would say it is possible to have zero politics or something approaching it in truly weird fiction. Something like The City of the Singing Flame, where a world is presented, and images, for the sake of putting the reader somewhere alien and other, without comment. But accordingly far less likely in stories of rural Appalachia.
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