Life as Art -- The Writer's Journey
Professional Goals for Writers in Service to the Common Good
Feb 26, 2009
When web designer, and Indianapolis Science Fiction author-in-residence, Ann Lewis, wrote about the importance of the communications media as "the principal means of guidance and inspiration for many people in their personal, familial, and social behavior," she referenced the ever present threat of the "dictatorship of relativism" for journalists. (Catholic Writers Guild: The Rebirth of Catholic Arts and Letters - August 12, 2008)
Ms. Lewis rightly noted that the modern media of Facebook, RSS feeds, blogs, Blackberries and a myriad of other communication devices occupy much of our "mental landscape". Ann notices that these giznos can shape our world view in ways that "can be subtle and unnoticed, especially for the unwary and the young".
Her words are directed to the ever widening cadre of journalists of every ilk be they writers, cinematographers, authors, videographers, graphic artists, podcasters, or bloggers to reflect on the good that they can do to influence a "rightly ordered.... society" and avoid contributing to a disordered use of the media stating:
Simply put, the media is meant to serve the common good, "the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their fulfillment more fully and more easily," with particular attention to the dignity of the human person, his social well-being and development, and the peace, stability and security of a just social order.
Life as Art
Using one’s talent to make a contribution to the common good, like living life, is an art not a science. Writing as a Catholic author, Lewis reminds us that John Paul II crafted a call to "a vocation to beauty" in his "Letters to Artists". As an actor and playwright in his younger years, John Paul II knew the subject matter well, It is more than a cliche to say that a thing of beauty is a joy forever. It is a statement of how beauty aligns with truth. Ms. Lewis reminds us that "these concepts are interrelated. It would be fair to say that all writers serve the common good through prizing the good, the true and the beautiful".
The Professional Goal of Authors and Journalists
To align Writing and Journalism as a profession with a call to the common good that recognizes what is true, requires a writer to assent to the notion that truth can be known. Once such a precept is accepted, then pursuit of the truth can be said to be a professional goal. This principle is difficult to realize in a modern world where the common denominator for the pursuit of truth stops at the door of one’s own "truth".
Were science to conduct itself in such a slip shod fashion, no scientific experiment would ever be done. Objective knowledge would already be conceded as impossible to know. Scientists seem to have outwitted these broadly defined post-modern journalists on this one. Scientists are secure in the notion that they may have an idea about what is true but they are willing to test it out. They are willing to concede that they may actually be wrong. The arts cannot be excepted from this objectivity about what one "knows" merely because it is popular to go along to get along. What one creates can only be beautiful if it is true.
Just to Write is not Enough
Having the power to influence so many and so vast of an audience as modern media provides brings with it serious responsibility. Moral responsibility, as Lewis points out, in all aspects of journalistic work. Some obvious areas exist that journalists all recognize as morally good or bad: pornography, defamation, and plagiarism are a few.
Where lines are not as bright or easy to draw when writing about things that are distasteful, harsh, shocking or downright evil, the call to the author and the journalist is to conduct oneself morally in the conveying of the evil so that others may know and recognize it for what it is. It is paramount to reject a false view of reality. It is paramount to present the truth in "solidarity with justice" while maintaining the dignity of the subject and the subject matter and revealing what is authentically human.
One lasting thought should permeate what the role of the post-modern journalist is about. The 21st century writer is to respect the technology at his fingertips while putting it into service for mankind. Do not harm the spirit of all that is alive by debasing it’s art, least of all the written word.
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