You're Not Alone

Politics & Literature Debate

We had to stage a debate this morning - All literature should have a political basis. Interesting. I had to be on the opposing team and trying to prove that there shouldn't be politics in all literature - however, most of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels have some kind of feudal system and any trashy novel has some form of sexual politics, so more difficult than we thought. Define politics - Define literature. Politics: are they just morals and values channeled into governing society? It would make the written word an even more terrifying tool - akin to fascism and communism under Hitler or Stalin.

Thankfully, we were prepared with enough ammo - how it would stunt education, devalue scientific discoveries and cause divisions where there would not have been any.  If you enforced politics into literature in past, present and future text - at the very most there would be concerns of brainwashing/paranoia; at the very least, some people would lose interest and not read at all. Could you imagine the drive to find more and more 'neutral' books and just how boring that would be? A horrible Orwellian world of sanctioned books etc.

Edit ::: I forgot to mention that I used the children's story 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' as part of the argument. Try stuffing politics into the life cycle of a butterfly, you will come unstuck.