I said the other day that I thought Meghan Cox Gurdon’s article in the Wall Street Journal was unnecessarily inflammatory.
What I want to ask now, is “So what?”
When authors get bad reviews—even scathing, unfair, ugly, stupid reviews—they only make themselves look insecure and needy if they react with whining and complaints. Most authors know this. So why don’t they seem to get that when they react to any kind of criticism with anger, outrage, or whining, they don’t make a good impression on readers?
Authors, of any genre, ought to present themselves as thoughtful people. Anyone who joins a discussion ought to do it thoughtfully. I don’t mean thoughtful in the “putting the needs and feelings of others ahead of your own” sense, though that is certainly a great thing. I mean thoughtful in an “I will think about this argument that has been presented and answer in a way that shows I have thought about it and in a way that will cause others to give thought to my answer.”
But many people responding to Gurdon were not thoughtful. Some accused her of calling authors depraved. They only proved that they didn’t read her article carefully. She never called authors depraved. She said the books might do damage to children who seek out depravity, and she said the books had depravity in them. This is not a comment on the authors who write the books. Murder, sexual abuse, and self-mutilation are depraved practices. We all agree about that, I think. The disagreement is in how much of these depraved practices we should show in our novels. Many authors and YA lovers say we should have as much as we like, and Gurdon says we should have less, but nowhere did she say authors who write about depravity are depraved.
I read and write books that are full of depravity. The Bible has more depravity in it than any book I’ve ever read, for starters. And in novels conflict is necessary, and conflict almost always is caused by someone’sin. If there is no evil, what does the good guy fight? Sometimes graphic descriptions of depravity are wrong, but writing about depravity isn’t wrong. Glorifying it is wrong. I don’t think Gurdon made a case that proved that the books she mentioned glorified depravity. Still, to decry depravity in books is not the same thing as calling the authors of said books depraved.
Gurdon was accused of that by some. Others called her stupid, said she’s a book hater, or she’s trying to censor authors. These are all unfounded accusations. Calling the article and/or the author stupid without building a case to back up our accusations is not persuasive or helpful.
Twitter may be great a lot of the time but sometimes it flares up into an angry mob, calling, “Crucify!” That mentality doesn’t help any of us think through the issues. I don’t understand why some YA authors are rejoicing over this ass kicking they did on twitter. It feels to me like a rejoicing in the dumbing down of meaningful communication.
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tags: #yasaves, authors behaving badly, meghan cox gurdon, twitter, ya authors
Sounds pretty similar to most cultural conversations these days, though, doesn’t it? (I’m not excusing this at all, just saying….) I hate when I see this kind of tongue-lashing going on in churches, too. I feel like lashing back with, “Do you realize you sound like the regular Joe Shmoe on the street?” But lashing only leads to more, and more. It’s so much better to step back and try to figure out why the original person made the criticism in the first place.
Loren Warnemuende´s last [type] ..Patience- please!
Great thoughts, Sally. I think you’ve hit on the crux of the problem. When someone voices an opinion, the best response is to listen and to evaluate that opinion, then give a reasoned response. Instead we get these hair-trigger emotional reactions that accomplish nothing except to polarize people.
Rebecca LuElla Miller´s last [type] ..Can’t We All Just Get Along
Loren, I’ve been guilty of handing out the tongue-lashings often enough. I’m trying to learn to be less offensive. I also have a hard time with some of the fighting I see in churches. Unity of love for the brethren is vital to a healthy, joyful life. And we seem to ignore that much of the time.
Becky, we read all the time about how we should let something sit before we hit the “send” button. Because their hair-trigger responses will get us in trouble every time. I sometimes wish there was a time delay on email so I could nab some of them back.
Excellent distinction about is truly evil. A very important point!
Vicky Alvear Shecter´s last [type] ..Friday Funnies-Ancient Style!
[...] Last time, I complained about people spitting out 140-character responses to criticism. There were, however, longer responses to Gurdon’s piece in the Wall Street Journal. [...]