Ok, I know my community on here isn’t really who needs to hear this, but I want to say it out loud anyway
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Ok, I know my community on here isn’t really who needs to hear this, but I want to say it out loud anyway
When Tolkien made his famous comment defending “escapist” literature, he framed it politically!!! He literally framed it as a prisoner of war doing what he needed to do to get out!!
If you want to claim that loving escapist literature is your excuse to *never* engage in the political aspect of literature, you are profoundly misunderstanding the power of stories and the written word
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Ok, I know my community on here isn’t really who needs to hear this, but I want to say it out loud anyway
When Tolkien made his famous comment defending “escapist” literature, he framed it politically!!! He literally framed it as a prisoner of war doing what he needed to do to get out!!
If you want to claim that loving escapist literature is your excuse to *never* engage in the political aspect of literature, you are profoundly misunderstanding the power of stories and the written word
If you think reading can be apolitical, you also profoundly misunderstand what politics is: the way we decide as a group how we live with each other. How we live with each other in the polis, i. e. the city/community
ANY aspect of life that affects or creates our lived space together IS INHERENTLY POLITICAL
Politics is messy because humans are messy. And your escapist literature isn’t going to allow you to nope your way out of being part of humanity
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If you think reading can be apolitical, you also profoundly misunderstand what politics is: the way we decide as a group how we live with each other. How we live with each other in the polis, i. e. the city/community
ANY aspect of life that affects or creates our lived space together IS INHERENTLY POLITICAL
Politics is messy because humans are messy. And your escapist literature isn’t going to allow you to nope your way out of being part of humanity
Oh hey look, John Donne was right about one thing. No man (or, you know, person!) is an island.
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If you think reading can be apolitical, you also profoundly misunderstand what politics is: the way we decide as a group how we live with each other. How we live with each other in the polis, i. e. the city/community
ANY aspect of life that affects or creates our lived space together IS INHERENTLY POLITICAL
Politics is messy because humans are messy. And your escapist literature isn’t going to allow you to nope your way out of being part of humanity
@Violinknitter I think a lot of people sincerely believe that politics is isolated because they are themselves insulated and have been deliberately taught that what they consider familiar is “normal” and any deviation from that is “politics.” (This bears out on a depressing swath of the left as well.)
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@Violinknitter I think a lot of people sincerely believe that politics is isolated because they are themselves insulated and have been deliberately taught that what they consider familiar is “normal” and any deviation from that is “politics.” (This bears out on a depressing swath of the left as well.)
@cwicseolfor You’re so right about the insulation part!!! Also why white women leftists often don’t understand how much we get in the way of progress because we literally have never even seen or dealt with the problems!!
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@cwicseolfor You’re so right about the insulation part!!! Also why white women leftists often don’t understand how much we get in the way of progress because we literally have never even seen or dealt with the problems!!
@Violinknitter Part of the exact reason that I’ve adopted as a general rule to assume whatever elevates the people with the least privilege and the least resources is going to buoy the rest of us eventually.
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