The world upside down

[fpb]

If there is one thing that every writer on earth knows, or ought to know, it is that you write to the customer's specifications. If the customer wants you to write an adventure story with a blond blue-eyed male protagonist, that is what you do, or else you don't accept the contract.

Now, there is apparently one literary agency that has an issue with featuring gay characters in what is commonly called "young adult" fiction - meaning fiction whose intended demographic is not adult at all. And let us be clear on one thing: until one generation ago, nobody would even have imagined that such things would be considered in mainstream "teen-age" - as it was called then - publishing. And I have to say that the invention of "Young Adult" as a completely new category strikes me as nothing but an insidious play with words; because you would hesitate to deliver morally subversive material to a "teen-ager", whereas a "young adult" suggests someone who has the maturity, insight and responsibility to handle it. But the demographic intended is exactly the same: that of Diana Wynne Jones, JK Rowling and Artemis Fowl - 13-18. Why, therefore, a new expression should be invented to describe a demographic that had been known to publishers as a distinct target for centuries - well, I'll leave that to you to work out.

Let us move on. Let us start from the premise that it is entirely good, and that there is no reason whatever to have any hesitation, about placing such characters in stories meant for such readers. Let us, in fact, suggest that there is no such thing as reading that can be harmful for thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds; that, after all, is the point of calling such readers "young adults". Let us accept as a premise that the agency which rejects stories featuring homosexual characters has nothing to say for itself except stupidity and ignorance. What do you do with a prospective client whose viewpoint you disagree with? Why, you don't take your work to him. I would never sell a single page or a letter of translation to a Jew-basher or a racist or a Fascist, not if I were conscious of their views, and much less if working with them involved such views in any way.

But that is not enough for our modern freethinkers. Oh no.

Two years ago I defriended asakiyume and sartorias because they had taken part in the scapegoating of a certain religious minority - one, by the way, for which I myself don't have much time as a religion (although I have met plenty of fine people among its members). Then I regretted it and re-friended them. And now I find myself wondering what the Hell ever made me do it. Someone started a campaign to force this agency to accept material featuring homosexuals. Whether or not they want it, they must buy, take on, promote, and sell material that apparently contradicts their views. And sartorias and asakiyume don't even seem to realize how viciously illiberal, how liberticidal, how atrociously intolerant and tyrannical this demand is. It is the world upside down. It is the seller telling the buyer what the buyer should buy. It is an assault on the freedom of conscience, of thought, of expression, of trade, of sale, of purchase; and it had never occurred to me before that freedom to trade could be found to be so profoundly connected with freedom of conscience.

The worst thing is that both of them have got themselves vast, squawking, disgustingly unanimous mobs of supporters. Truly, there never is an idea so bad that it cannot rouse enthusiasm.

If you have an issue with a client, drop them. If you don't want to support a view, don't support it. But it's neither your business, nor mine, nor anyone's to tell anybody what they should buy and sell; what they should do with their business; and what they should think right to sell to teen-agers. End of story.

Comments

[capnflynn.livejournal.com]

I had wondered if this kerfuffle was what you were talking about the other day in your "diversity" post.

Did you see this: http://theswivet.blogspot.com/2011/09/guest-blogger-joanna-stampfel-volpe.html

It is very interesting how different the writers' account is from the agent's account.

[capnflynn.livejournal.com]

I wanted to add, I do believe that both the writers and the agent were speaking (writing, blogging) in good faith. The extreme variance between the accounts just makes me wonder what else is going on, or what happened between the writers' conversation with the agent and now.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I think it unfortunate that the agent seems to concede the point at the outset ("It is imperative blah blah diversity blah"); I also think it signiricant that sartorias discards everything she says and just insists that the point has to be general - that is, tha the compulsory demand for "diversity" must steamroller any other consideration, including, no doubt, the small matter of freedom of conscience and free trade. I have just been looking at some WWII Partisan songs, and thinking again of the three mighty lines of our poet Trilussa, written in the depths of Fascist tyranny:
E forse un giorno Iddio benedira'
Ogni goccia de sangue ch'e' servita
Pe' scrive la parola LIBBERTA'!
And the day will yet come when God will bless/ Every drop of blood that ever went/ Into the writing of the word FREEDOM
And my God, that word has been written not in letters, but in streams, in rivers of blood, in suffering such as we have no idea of, in struggle in a darkness that would have broken our spirit and our will. Eon't tell me what I think when I find that it is being tossed away in the name of the "self-respect" of a bunch of sexually and personally immature people who think that fiction must be about flattering them and has no right to exist otherwise.

Urk...

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Last sentence: "Don't tell me to tell you what I think when I find..."

Ah, there we go

[capnflynn.livejournal.com]

Why, do you think, has diversity become a Good and an End in itself, trumping free will and conscience and all other concerns?

And why is it okay to talk about "forcing" publishers to print what they don't want to print? Why is diversity so important that we have to force compliance with it? Aren't there better things to fight for?

I'm being a little bit rhetorical, but I also want to know. I do not understand their point of view, at all, at all.

Re: Ah, there we go

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You know what's the worst? I placed a link to this in sartorias' relevant comments thread, and not a single person - let alone she herself - has bothered to comment on it. If it had been me who had been called out as tyrannical, liberticidal and morally upside down over something I'd done, I would at least try to justify myself. What she and her friends are showing is that it literally does not matter to them whether their actions threaten freedom.

[affablestranger.livejournal.com]

I read of this whole affair a week ago on a writers forum. As I've quipped before: Many people believe everyone *must* have equality of outcome, however forced it must be. Everyone *must* be "appreciated" as well.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And for this petty self-regard we must forget about the liberties for which our ancestors died. Colour me bitter.