In the course of reading an essay out of the Headlines of History:  The 1600’s [1], a thoughtful piece by Sir George Clark taken from his 1929 history on the Seventeenth Century, I was struck by the pivotal importance of political concerns on art going back centuries.  Being a writers whose “political” concerns have always been very close to the surface in my own writings, much of it of a highly critical nature, it was refreshing to see a historian tackle the intersection between political legitimacy and authority and the artistic freedom of expression and desire of thoughtful writers to speak about the important and vital issues of their time, whether they have official approval to do so or not.

The low status of many writers during the 17th century (like playwrights, who were considered in early 17th century England to be scarcely above vagabonds and prostitutes) combined with the obvious advantages to courts to sponsor creative folks so as to bolster their own glory and reputation led such figures as Shakespeare and Moliere and Racine and Calderon to be granted subsidies by theater-interested monarchs, and a corresponding rise on social status.  Likewise, the rise of pamphlets (the blogs of the 17th century), with often critical attitudes towards official narratives and those in authority, led there to be a tension between the critical attitude of many writers and the desire of rulers to shape intelligent discourse in societies where growing literacy and growing self-confidence among writers made such control increasingly difficult in tumultuous times.

Then again, writing has always been a very political act.  Even going back to the very earliest writings, we find the annals of pagan empires like Sumer, Egypt, and China recording the official histories of their times.  We have Assyrian kings bragging of their conquests and the number of captives they took from sacked rebellious cities during their reigns and claiming that draws or defeats were glorious victories, the same sort of historical fraud we see in neo-Confederate histories of the Civil War.  The difference between a cuneiform writing system such as is found in the Mayan, Easter Island, Mesopotamian, Chinese, and Egyptian societies and the more egalitarian syllabaries of Japan and the Cherokee and the still more egalitarian alphabet systems of the Hebrews and Western Europeans marks a difference between writing that is supposed to be limited to a well-educated court elite and writing that is accessible for production and comprehension to the masses.  These are not unimportant considerations–for we still can read and understand the words of the Hebrews from thousands of years ago, but the literature of the Mayans and Easter Islanders, with a less straightforward writing system, have largely been lost because when their societies crumbled the ways of the elite were forgotten.

From this historical context we can see that even the writing system of a people is based on very political concerns.  It is not without accident that the earliest known alphabetic systems were to be found among the Israelites, Phoenecians and Arameans, peoples without a strong centralizing tendency for much of their histories and who were also relatively egalitarian in their political structure.  It is equally unsurprising that these developments were copied in similarly egalitarian times by the Greeks, Etruscans, Romans and Arabs, and then by other societies later on.

We may say, roughly, that the lower the barrier to entry of writing to an audience, the more egalitarian that intellectual culture is.  For example, the decline of mainstream media and the rise of either clearly partisan media as well as the proliferation of independent-minded blogs is a sign that official sources of information are losing their legitimacy in the eyes of people.  Therefore, it is to the advantage of those who wish to shape opinion by appearing to be unofficial and independent even when this is not the case, if they wish to appeal to the insurgent aspects of contemporary intellectual culture.

What we cannot do, if we are intellectually honest and aware, is to falsely assume that this is an entirely new phenomenon.  The revolutionary expansion of literacy during biblical times made it possible even during the times of the Judges for ordinary young men in provincial towns to provide the names of prominent citizens for punishment for sedition (Judges 8:13-14).  Likewise, this same tendency during medieval Japanese times allowed Japanese ladies of the court, uncultured in the pompous Chinese of the day, to invent a native Japanese literature, and invent the novel as a form of literature.  This too was a political act which ended up giving Japan a sense of cultural pride in its own achievements and a sense of cultural independence from China.  Likewise, the exact same tendency is found in Western European religious leaders like John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, and William Tyndale in seeking to free England and Germany from the tyranny of the Latin elite culture of the time and make the truths of God accessible to the common man.  As William Tyndale said to a bishop of his time, “I defie the Pope and all his lawes. If God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy who drives the plough to know more of the scriptures than you do [2].”  All of these men and women were engaged in the same political acts of tearing down the walls of elite culture and bringing truth and knowledge to the common people of their time.

One cannot escape making political statements of this nature.  If you write publicly, you are placing your thoughts, feelings, ideas, and perspectives before the common man and woman, wishing to be seen and heard and wishing to inform as wide as audience as possible.  If you write privately, as an inside joke between similarly cultured and elite friends, you are making a statement that you consider yourself above the unwashed and unlettered masses.  Either way, you make a political statement.  Seeing as it is therefore impossible to avoid making political statements in one’s intellectual discourse, let us therefore resolve to make sure that we are practicing the right kind of politics.  For we will be judged by every word that comes out of our mouth, or keyboard, either to be justified or condemned (Matthew 12:36-37).  Let us therefore reflect carefully on these matters, for we are not the first, nor shall we be the last, to wrestle with these issues.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/book-review-headlines-in-history-the-1600s/

[2] http://christian-quotes.ochristian.com/William-Tyndale-Quotes/page-2.shtml