Even though I and a lot of other people spend so much time pointing out the leftist bias of the media, it isn’t just the press that tries to influence our thinking. Something I have been noticing is that politics has been entering the field of fiction for quite some time. The following is a letter I wrote to a well known author who sells millions of books. I have left the name out not because of any privacy issue, but because this same letter could have been written to any number of successful authors.
Xxxxx:
First, I want to say I started reading your books five or six years ago, and as an avid reader of many different genre’s of literature, I find them entertaining and enjoyable. While I haven’t gone back and read all of your earlier works (I probably will do that sometime in the future) I do enjoy your stories enough that I buy them when they come out in hardback, rather than waiting for the less expensive, but much later, paperback editions.
As I said, I haven’t read all of your books, so what I’m about to point out may not be a recent trend, but going with the ones that I have read, what’s coming through to me is a leftist bias that seems to be increasing with every latest book.
Before I go on, I have no problem with you writing whatever you want to. If you want to write and publish a new socialist/communist manifesto, and try to convince the world collectivism really is the new Eden, by all means, go for it. Who knows, these days you might even be able to sell a project like that. What you write and what you believe is certainly your business, and as it happens (at least for now), in the United States of America it is also your God given, Constitutional right. After all, I would be very surprised if you were to read some of my writings and not understand that I’m very conservative in my beliefs. As a matter of fact, if how much I believe in conservatism didn’t come across in my writing, I would be disappointed.
Another point I would like to make is since we are talking about fiction, it may very well be the bias I’m picking up in your books is merely part of the story. While that’s certainly possible, I pay a lot of attention to how different writers lay out their stories, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s nearly impossible for an author to write a book without leaving some of their own ideas and thinking on the pages. Granted, some are more obvious about this than others, but I believe that everybody, including you, does it.
What I’m writing to you about today isn’t how you write your books, clearly you are a very successful writer and know your craft. Indeed, as a person who doesn’t write fiction, I have no advice nor knowledge that would be useful to you. Instead, I want to point out some inconsistencies, or at least ask some questions regarding some of the beliefs you are expressing.
Before I go on, because I made a point of mentioning your freedom to believe and write what you want, I want to clear the air a little. While you may, or may not, feel that my input is unwarranted, the fact is, you appear to be expressing your political agenda in a public forum, that I had to pay for. In other words, you are inserting this material in your books, which I and others are charged to read. Basically, you’re asking me for money to hear your beliefs, and additionally, this all takes place on my time, not yours. Unlike the advertisements at movie theaters, which I also am “charged” for viewing, with your books I don’t have the simple solution of merely arriving fifteen minutes late to miss the ads. With a book, to get the whole story, I have to read it from beginning to end, thus unwilling or not, any bias or rant that doesn’t actually contribute to the story, is still going to have to be read. Because of this, I don’t feel that a letter from me to you, expressing some kind of dissatisfaction, or argument, with this process is out of line.
What is coming across to me so clearly is that you have some kind of belief where people who have money acquired it and keep it at the expense of those who do not. In other words, as far as I can determine, you think something along the lines of: “the poor are poor, because the rich are rich”. Granted, that point of view is being shoved down our throats by the left and the media on pretty much a 24/7 seven basis, so it’s not surprising that there are a lot of people who believe it. What I do find surprising, and disappointing, is that someone like yourself, who has risen to the top of their field by talent and work, also seems to believe it. Are you not one of the successful people? Have your books not earned you a lot of money? Do you feel you came into that money only through good luck? Don’t you feel like you earned the money you have made? When I buy your books, nobody is standing there holding a gun on me forcing me to purchase them, so you must be doing something right. Do you yourself not feel that your ability to get me and millions of other people to purchase your intellectual output is due to your skill, hard work, and talent?
On the same subject, don’t you realize it’s insulting when you assume people have no ability of their own to improve their station? Would you become irate if your publisher told you the only reason they print and sell your books is because somebody decided to “allow” you to write?
As I said, you are certainly entitled to your own beliefs, and to express those beliefs. What I’m trying to point out to you is that the beliefs you seem to be championing are contradictory to the success you seem to have achieved. I’m not telling you to stop including your political ideals in your book, I’m pointing out that I think you are caught in a real dichotomy and should re-examine your thinking. While you may not take it this way, I guess I’m paying you the (somewhat backhanded) compliment of thinking you are a smart enough person to realize that the poor aren’t poor because you are doing well financially.
I will leave you with one more question. If you, or anybody else were to publish a new collectivism manifesto, such as I mentioned above, and it sold a lot of copies, when the royalties from that work made the author wealthy, would they then be a capitalist?
