Should young writers worry about Sarah Palin?
By Marjorie Kehe | 10.31.08
That’s the question popular book blog GalleyCat asks underneath a video in which acclaimed nature writer Barry Lopez speaks about next week’s US presidential election and its impact on young writers.
Actually, Lopez (author of the award-winning “Arctic Dreams“), speaking at the 2008 Whiting Writers Awards ceremony, says he is trying to focus on hope, although he admits to being terrified by the thought of Palin as vice president.
(Lopez is not specific about the source of his terror of Palin, although it is the case that her running mate John McCain has voted against federal funding for the arts.)
The video is part of a series GalleyCat is producing, starting yesterday, and stretching on up to election day next Tuesday, in which they ask more established writers how they believe the election results will impact young writers.
In yesterday’s video, Lopez says he’d like all of us to nurture the promise in young writers rather than to burden them with the idea that the future will be dark if they do not achieve.
In today’s video, short story writer and professor Manuel Munoz speaks about his creative writing students at the University of Arizona. As students at a state school, he worries about the impact any budget cuts could have on them.
Speaking directly to the writing community about the election is an interesting idea. Of course, it’s also an idea more likely to support the left of the political spectrum than the right (it’s already been noted by the press that Barack Obama has received more public support from big-name writers than has John McCain), but it’s still a good reminder to all of us that national security and tax cuts – crucial though they may be – are not the only lenses through which to consider the votes we cast on Tuesday.
Comments
2. Jim. | 10.31.08
Why shouldn’t writers consider having a job to support themselves, apart from writing? Life experience is an important part of being a writer.
One experience life has taught me is that life is indeed dark if you do not achieve. If that’s a burden, it’s one that every human being must learn to bear. Using government handouts to prevent aspiring writers from learning this stunts both the writers, and any insights of the literature they might produce.
3. Manuel Munoz | 10.31.08
I’m speaking about all students, graduate and undergradute, across all disciplines. I have students majoring in anthropology, in business, in English, in chemistry, etc., and all of them are suffering under the weight of budget cuts. Many of my undergrads are taking on more work hours than they should while trying to carry a full-semester class load, all in an attempt to stave off high tuition. Education is never a “government handout”–it’s an investment in the very people who will be leading us twenty and thirty years from now–and in no way will I allow my comments to be perceived as carrying on the myth of the pampered writer.
4. KevinS | 10.31.08
I think Lopez’s source of terror is Palin’s disrespect of books that do not meet her ideology - she tried to push the librarian in Wassila public library to ban a book once - it is scary to think of person like her sitting in the highest office in the country - will she start muzzling our first amendment rights as a VP? This is a genuine worry for writers.
5. MattinPA | 11.01.08
Look, I’m second to nobody in my contempt for Ms. Palin, but how much sense does it make to ask if young writers in particular should be scared of her and then not specify why? Shouldn’t young writers and the people who presume to speak for them be able to make cogent, fact-based arguments for or against things? Do we all, as right-thinking people, simply know in our bones that she’s bad and awful? Don’t we need to be a little more explicit than that?
I think artists and writers and freethinkers in general need to recognize that social conservatism is not a mass delusion from which its adherents will groggily awaken on November 5. The most effective way to preserve arts funding and fend off censorship is to be prepared with common-sense arguments when people raise perfectly legitimate questions on these topics. I think I could defend the availability of Judy Blume novels at the town library, if I were a librarian. On the other hand, I can’t think of a reason why art that is meant only to shock a particular group of people—Andres Serrano comes to mind-should be paid for with government grants. Denying such a person an NEA grant isn’t censorship in any way, and we just make ourselves look stupid if we say it is.
Sorry. But I just wanted to warn against an unthinking adherence to any orthodoxy, right or left. You like freedom of expression? Good. So do I. But simply recoiling from the Palin phenomenon with a secular version of pious horror won’t help the cause much. Let’s make cogent arguments, folks, please, with a measure of respect for people who don’t think like us about everything. Otherwise the culture wars will just reverberate forever. I don’t know about you, but I could do without that.
6. AnnieA | 11.01.08
Our Alaskan library board rushed to support the Wasilla librarian who was fired by then Mayor Sarha Palin for refusing to agree to ban books.
As bibliophiles & as Americans, we recoiled from Palin’s book banning & used money we had collected for our library to send Librarians from around Alaska to support the fired librarian & defend our intellectual freedom! They were successful in getting the town of Wasilla to demand her rehire! At the time, in the late night emergency meeting, we were perplexed as Mayor Palin hadn’t demanded specific titles to be banned, so we speculated “maybe she doesn’t know any book titles”.
7. Dave | 11.04.08
Perhaps you should speculate “maybe because she didn’t actually ask her to ban any books”
Sarah didn’t fire the librarian for refusing to ban books, when she was elected mayor, she asked EVERYONE to resign and re-apply for their jobs! Basically she had to force them to acknowledge they answered to her, now, not Stein (who had been mayor for 9 years).
Don’t be snide about her education. After getting getting a bachelor’s degree in journalism, she has gone onto being the most popular governor in our history.
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1. rogerpacker | 10.31.08
I think Barry Lopez’s “source of terror” about Sarah Palin is probably over her policy of drilling for oil and gas throughout Alaska and anywhere else in the USA as well.