Lecturing politics in fiction Sun, 10 Dec 2023 Fiction, Opinion ============================= I tend to enjoy many different types of fiction written by a variety of authors. One of the most interesting aspects of any fictional work is, in my opinion, the way it reflects the character of the author. If there is something the author deeply cares about, the it will undoubtedly show up somewhere in the story they are crafting. Likewise, if a character appears whose ideals are strongly contrary to those of the writer, the end-result is often that these characters feel shallow and dim. Good authors can feel the same passion for a given subject as the author does. An exceptional writer will also be able to arouse these feelings for subjects which the author is not personally invested in. All of that is to say: Fiction can make one care about things which one would otherwise be entirely unconcerned with. In doing so, I think fiction can have an impact on the word at large that is powerful and unique. Fiction does not affect our beliefs in the same manner as a lecture, or an argument. Instead, it stirs our emotions to make us care about new things, or bring to our attention new perspectives which we previously had no emotional investment in. It is for this reason that I include many references to fictional works in my professional academic writing. It is for this reason also that I cannot politics in many works for fiction, let me explain. In many works of fiction I consume, be they books, video games, movies or other side, there is this trend to present political opinions are a sort of lecture. Whenever a particular political viewpoint is brought up, the reader is assured of how commonsensical or normal it is. I tend to find that liberal authors are particularly persistent about this. Often lecturing the audience that homosexuality, abortion, egalitarianism, socialism, non-binary genders, sexual promiscuity, female power, black power, and other such concerns are to be supported as the entirely commonsensical and morally correct options. By telling the audience these points instead of showing them, the work becomes both less impactful and less realistic. I will first cover the realm point, as this is -- by far -- the less important of the two. To demonstrate the point about realism, let me use an example: There is a series of books which has been slowly releasing over the past few years called: ``Tales of a new world'' by P.C. Cast. One of the things which stood out to me in this book is the treatment of homosexuality. In the first part of the series, a big point is made by one of the characters about how normal homosexual relationships are in their society, about how ``love is love'', and how the choice of one's partner is only up to the two people involved. These statements only really make sense in a society where homosexuality is not yet full normalized. After all, if you consider something truly normal, then one would not really think to mention it. For instance: I do not consider it exceptional enough to mention that I use toilet paper, as this is normal in my corner of the world. If I used a bidet, I would mention this as exceptional, though perhaps not if I lived in some Asian countries, where paper is the exception, and bidet's the norm. Imagine a work of fiction where a character suddenly goes off on a two-page tangent about how normal it is for them to be heterosexual. You would find it strange that such an explicit mention would me made right? In fiction you can even make use of this strangeness. In the aforementioned book, there is a scene where two people of different societies discuss relationships. We are told that their respective societies accept homosexuality as nothing different from heterosexuality, though homosexuality is given exceptional treatment in the dialog. However, one can make use of the feeling of surprise we feel when something we presume to be normal is not considered such by someone else: ``With us it is customary for the male to present the female with a gift to start a relationship.'' ``Oh, but what if two females enter into a relationship? Is there any gift giving then? And what of two males?'' --- ``I tend to use toilet paper'' ``Of course! Is there any other option?'' ``Well, in my country it is customary to use bidets'' By using the notion of being surprised at a statement, shows that, for the relevant character, it is entirely normal that two same-sex people might enter into a relationship, or that one would use toilet paper. I bring up the example of homosexuality mostly because I grew up in an environment where homosexuality was considered very normal, and therefore did not warrant special coverage. Growing up, my mother would sometimes enquire whether I had a boyfriend or girlfriend yet. At school, we would talk about marriage; not gay-marriage and traditional-marriage, just marriage. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Now, let me cover the second problem: that lecturing your audience works against your intentions and detracts from the power of fiction. I mentioned how fiction can make us *care* in a way that other forms of media can not. When a story pauses to affirm an stance, make an argument, or otherwise lecture the reader, it takes away from this power, and to me it always feels like such considerations are shoehorned into the narrative. I lost count of the sheer number of fictional works I have read which take time to affirm that the choice to terminate a pregnancy is the inalienable right of the pregnant woman in question. But simply affirming this will do nothing to convince anyone opposed to your view, and those readers who already agree will most likely just skip over this line. For me: I get annoyed every time it rears its head in a story exactly because fiction has the power to actually promote such beliefs! Imagine if someone wrote a story which contained a young woman who was struggling with an unwanted pregnancy (if I wanted to convince as many pro-lifers as possible, I would make this a sub-plot of a side-character). Use whatever narrative you like here: she was young and did not oversee the consequences of her actions, she was coerced into having sexual relations, she was assured my a contraceptive agent which ended up failing, you name it. If you show her personal struggle coming to terms with her situation, allow the audience together with the character to realize the fact that she is not ready to raise a child, and show how this all impacts the girl's physical and mental well-being, you might actually get typically pro-life people to *care* about the situation this girl finds herself in. You might show, with another supporting character the impact it can have on one's well-being to have another person supporting them. This person does not need to agree with the girl's decisions or feelings, but must simply refrain from judging or shaming her. Such as story can bring to the eyes of the audience the real struggles involved in complicated moral issues. Struggles which -- due to being highly emotional in nature -- are often not brought up in arguments, debates, or generalized statements. Bringing to light the sheer complexity of the issue will, at the very least, make some people think a little deeper and harder about their stance. The recipe above can also easily be adapted for a pro-life argument, which will have much more impact than forcing a statement such as ``abortion is murder'' into a work of fiction. ----------------------------------------------------------------- I started writing this post because I was reading the final part of Cast's ``Tales of a New World''. In this final book, I found the lectured politics to be even more invasive than before. This book preaches especially heavily about the superiority of women as leaders. About how men caused the downfall of a society long ago, how women are better because they are caring, calm, and capable of bearing life, etcetera. Not only can I not detect any actual passion behind the words of the various characters who affirm these beliefs, I can in no way bring myself to care. If the author instead showed a thriving society where women ruled, one which thrives exactly because men are not allowed to rule, then one might begin to entertain the idea. In Cast's book, one it TOLD that various societies thrive because of their female leadership, but Cast never SHOWS us this, thereby breeding no investment in entertaining this idea. Instead, I think lecturing like this just affirms the believes of radical feminists, and just angers conservatives and egalitarians, thus allowing more discord to breed between them. Before I finish, I want to make one quick point of clarification: I realized why reading over what I have written so-far that this post sounds a lot like: ``liberal politics are ruining fiction and I am upset about it''. In truth, I am upset, but not because of the flavour of politics presented. I am upset exactly because I care about many of the topics I am lectured about in the books I read. It is because I care about these topics that I am so dissatisfied with the lecture-approach. Fiction has a real and unique way of influencing the world at large, but this is not the way to do it. Instead, liberal authors are cementing people in their beliefs, thus quite literally breeding conservative sentiment.