the just war, love, and writing

The US media is focusing quite a bit on Libya right now.  One of the most interesting questions that I have only heard a single pundit ask on twitter, without any subsequent answer or dialogue in any other medium was: Who are the rebels in Libya?  We are so focused on Gadhafi that I think most Americans assume the rebels are good guys--that Egypt arming them and the coalition bombing Gadhafi is a good thing.  I don't know.  Maybe they are good guys.  Maybe they are Islamic fundamentalists bent on bringing jihad to a mall near you.  Don't know.  Nobody's talking about them.  Instead, there is a lot of dialogue about "just war."  That protecting the civilians of Libya is the first opportunity for "just war" since Bosnia and what should have been Rwanda.

Since my goal in this blog is not to write about how I feel about the fine line between voluntary human shields and combatants, but to write about writing, I want to focus on the concept of "just war" and why it inspires me. 


I loved my grandpa.  We had a pretty special relationship.  By all accounts from family and friends he was an angry, bitter, violent man.  From stories, I know that he was abusive, prejudiced, and reveled in being mean.  But that's not the grandpa I saw.


My grandpa let me brain his comb-over down the wrong side of his head to play Indian chief.  He took me to the beach on cold days and walked up and down the boardwalk plying me with hot dogs while we talked about the solar system and Greek mythology.  He kidnapped me for the day to drive up to Maine so we could have lobster rolls for lunch.  He would growl at me--an imitation of his fierce persona to the rest of the world--and I growled back.  My grandpa loved me more than anything in the world and I was the exception to just about every rule of how he behaved in the world.


While this was an awesome experience as a little girl, it rather destroyed my capacity to have a realistic, loving romantic relationship for a while.  Prior to finding my husband and finally understanding what it means to be an equal member in a relationship, I expected all of my boyfriends to be like my grandpa.  Namely, I wanted them to prove their love by being the exceptions to their rules.  

Is art the most important thing to you?  Nope, I am now.
Are you a good boy who never breaks the rules?  You will for me.
A jerk who can't settle down?  It's not settling when it's me.

This was unfair to them, unfair to me, and didn't end well for anyone.


While being the exception to the rule is no fair expectation in a real-world romantic relationship, it makes a strong statement in fiction.  In fact, it is short-hand in just about every romantic comedy for "he really does love her."  Richard Gear climbing the fire escape in Pretty Woman.  While it is unfortunate that people have gotten lazy using the trope, it works for a reason, and not just in love.


My stage combat professor (who is coming up in blog posts quite a bit lately) once asked my class, "what is worth fighting for?"  Mind you, he asked this to a room full of liberal college kids.  Most people said, "Nothing!  Fighting is never justified!"  I caught quite a bit of shit when I raised my hand and said, "My family.  You try to hurt my dad or my sister and you bet I will hurt you."


I am not a violent person, but protecting my family is the exception to my rule.


This brings me back to Libya and the "just war."


I don't know whether the rebels in Libya are fighting a just war, and whether the coalition backing them are either.  I don't have enough information to make a call on that.  But I find the concept fascinating.  No one questions whether the Allies were fighting a just war in WWII.  Everyone knows that not interceding in Rwanda was unjust.  "Just wars" involve an entire country or culture choosing collectively to find an exception to the general rule that war is bad.  This is powerful.


When people decide that one person or cause is more important to them than the general paradigm of how they interact with the world, that makes for some intense stakes, some real drama.  It makes for good story-telling, whether in the headlines or fiction.

words and violence

My professor in a stage combat class told us often that no matter the type of combat scene--sweeping, emotional, comedic, whatever--the creators of the scene have a moral responsibility to depict pain.  Violence hurts.  And to suggest anything contrary to this fact is dangerous.

I think about what my professor said more often than one might expect.  I no longer choreograph or act in combative scenes.  I do not write violence.  But that question of the moral responsibility of artists has stayed with me.

There is a line one can cross between "you cannot depict violence without pain" and "you cannot depict sex outside of marriage."  I am fervently anti-censorship, and yet the question of a writer's responsibility lingers with me.

Back around the same time that I took the stage combat class, I wrote a sex advice column for a fairly large and famous men's magazine.  I wrote under a pseudonym, which was a good thing, because I received death threats in open letters in our school newspaper.  I was accused of being a part of a culture that plays into men's fantasies and causes women to be raped.  I did not take any of this lightly.

When I wrote the advice column, I had a rule with myself: while I might tailor my voice to the publication, I would never lie.  I would never write something because it was what I thought men wanted to hear.  It was always what I felt was true and all of the anecdotes shared were my own or those of close friends.  I have never questioned the morality of my participation in a men's magazine.  But there are those who might suggest that I am an enabler of "rape culture."

Today's post was inspired by Roxane Gay's "The Careless Language of Sexual Violence."  Read it.  It is important.

And now I ask you: do we, as writers, have a moral obligation in the language we use?  The circumstances we depict?  The violence we portray as painless?  I think we do and, though I can't pinpoint exactly where this sits on the censorship scale, I think that it is dangerous and childish for artists to believe that we have no responsibility for the words we use.

return of the prodigal blogger

She enters tentatively, ducking her face away and trying to hide a grimace.

It's been a while.  

Sorry.

I'd like to be able to say that I've been squirreled away writing or so engrossed in reading gorgeous literary prose that I have not come up for air.  Or to blog.  Alas.  No.

I have not blogged because I have not been writing and I have been reading crap that isn't worth blogging about.  Intentional crap.  Therapeutic crap.  I got a bit overwhelmed with my attempts to become a writer and  I forgot how much I loved words.  And stories.  And reading.  So I hid for a little while to rediscover it all.

And what brought me back?  A word.  

Snick.

While reading one of those crap stories that I am only willing to read on the subway thanks to the literary trench coat of an e-reader (won't even read it on the couch at home, where my husband might ask, "what are you reading?") I came across the word, "snick."  Used as a verb, to click.  And it had a great onomatopoetic quality.  The word was so satisfying I think I sighed.  Even amidst the schlock I found so perfectly used a word that it reminded me of my love for words.
 Hello.  
I am writing again.  
I am blogging.  
And I am currently reading a book of essays about Jane Austen that I am perfectly happy to be seen with on the subway.