Everyday Canvas

Authors and Politics

"If one good thing has happened in America this year, it's that artists and the public have warmed up to art as a mode of resisting immoral authority." Barbara Kingsolver
Do you agree or disagree with Ms. Kingsolver? Do you believe writers have been the force behind resistance throughout history?

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I like Barbara Kingsolver just fine as I have read many of her books, but I think any art has no business to resist anything unless all the facts are available to the artists. The same goes for calling any authority immoral, especially when the authority, or rather politics, has always been a dirty business, as all players may be immoral.

As to writers being a force, this question brings to mind the writers of the French revolution, specifically Rabelais, a Franciscan monk and author who may have started the ball rolling with his Gargantua and Pantagruel series. Rabelais's books were banned partly because they were ahead of their time and they were satirical.

French Revolution also brings to mind the authors like Montesquieu, Robespierre, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Disgusted with the French Monarchy, they rooted for a constitutional monarchy, which led to French Revolution, and then, Napoleon. Those authors I admire a lot. Their writing, however, has been the result of the earlier philosophical stance that the consciences of the masses together with the use of the state powers could suppress immorality and crime.

This means even the strongest writing has to have a solid viewpoint based on facts. Yes, I believe, the authors have a lot to say about the goings on in any country, but I think what they say and write has to have a solid basis. If writers are encouraged and instigated to resist any authority by disgruntled political figures, they should be very careful who or what they resist because politics is an ugly business and any politician who instigates people to “resist” may not be doing the right thing for his country.

As a writer, I would be very careful not to get caught in the net of the words of someone who may be doing what he is doing out of revenge or some future political gain.

It is always easy to scream, “Off with their heads.” Even if those heads deserve it, we must also take into account what replaces them.

As a last word, I wrote this entry because of the prompt. Usually, I refrain from touching anything political because I refuse to be made a puppet in the hands of one political group or another unless I have all the facts for sure and what I write won't hurt anyone.