The Politics of Writing. The Politics of Oooh Feeling Good

Project Blog It

We got the message

I heard it on the airwaves

The politicians

Are now "writers?"

With apologies to Paul Fishman and Re-Flex

What exactly constitutes the “politics of writing?” Sadly, long ago and far away, I wrote often about politics. But not the kind of politics currently in public conversation—US national politics about governing, domestic and foreign policy, and party differences as we head into this year’s major national election. Instead, I wrote about social, cultural, and philosophical politics: identity politics and the politics of identity, race politics and the politics of race, gender politics and the politics of gender, sexual politics and the politics of sexuality. Mind you, the elements in each of these binary pairings are not necessarily the same thing.

But what is the politics of writing? One can certainly write to be political, that is to engage in a politicized discourse about something. But such acts don't necessarily define the politics of writing. I am writing now. But what does that act mean? I am attempting to convey a set of thoughts via the written word to be read, at least by me. But it is not merely the attempt at conveying thoughts, because in that conveyance, I control the words and phrasing to convey those thoughts. Any writing is written for an audience, even if that audience is only the writer. I write in a particular way. I control my words and phrases, my very thoughts, with at least some understanding of who is to witness them. In this case, I write for an audience both known and unknown. Will that audience agree with me? Will it understand me? Do I care?

We expose ourselves via writing. But that exposure is always mediated by the conscious acts of the author and the context in which something gets written. I embrace the various levels of control at that same time that I attempt to freely open and present myself to the world. Ultimately, perhaps, the politics of writing, the politics of this writing, are the politics of self.


Please be sure to see the companion piece over at Travel With Road Trip Girl.

Next week's prompt: Bliss