Writing a Classic

 Classics require to be written without fear.

When I was first published professionally, I joined an online forum which had many useful features, but on which you would get demands for censorship as soon as you strayed into controversial territory. (Being English, I had very little idea of how immune to criticism certain issues were in the US). You would also get quite horrendously politically-correct offerings which, to me, were almost unreadable in their sanctimony.

I well remember receiving a criticism on a story I wrote about The Albigensian Crusade, informing me I was being offensive to Catholics. I remember thinking, if modern Catholics are offended by their own church’s history, it’s going to be difficult to write about some subjects at all.

Now, one thing we know about fashionable morality is that today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip wrapping. It also happens that modern identity politics is so destructive of social cohesion that either it, or society, cannot last long. In the former case, no one at all will want to read today’s politically-correct writing in two decades’ time; in the latter case, there’ll be no-one to read it anyway. Already half the population or more does not want to read what well-regarded writers of today are writing because they find it insufferably puritanical or intolerant.

Classics cannot be flavour of this month. Villains need to be nasty. Insoluble problems need to be stressful situations. People need to lose as well as win. The unspeakable needs to be spoken. Otherwise, we should give up writing and take up making blancmange.

What we, as writers, must resist is the temptation to self-censor because we fear the mob. Good writing may be loved by some, hated by others, but it is never bland.