My corner of the internet went a few rounds about art and politics earlier this week, because a Gizmodo article dug up this quote of Andy Weir’s from an interview with Futurism in, yikes, 2018, in case you thought the internet had a short memory:

“I dislike social commentary. Like… I really hate it. When I’m reading a book, I just want to be entertained, not preached at by the author. Plus, it ruins the wonder of the story if I know the author has a political or social axe to grind. I no longer speculate about all possible outcomes of the story because I know for a fact that the universe of that book will conspire to ensure that the author’s political agenda is validated. I hate that,” Weir said. “I put no politics or social commentary into my stories at all. Anyone who thinks they see something like that is reading it in on their own. I have no point to make, and I’m not trying to affect the reader’s opinion on anything. My sole job is to entertain, and I stick to that.”

“For instance, as a lifelong Star Trek fan, it’s always bothered me that there is a presumed ‘responsibility’ within Star Trek shows to talk about social issues,” the writer added. “I just want to watch Romulans and the Federation shoot at each other.”

Now, this statement, which is for the most part pretty silly, prompted a wall of discussion on Tuesday. The Gizmodo article wasn’t entirely an act of thread-necromancy, to be fair: it was prompted by a recent podcast interview in which Weir talked some shit about a few of the recent Star Trek shows. Still: 2018! Pre-COVID! Pre-a LOT OF STUFF. How many world systems have we been through since ‘18? How many decades have happened?

As many folks pointed out at length, this is an odd angle to take when discussing Star Trek in particular. And the Romulans! “Balance of Terror,” the first episode in which the Romulans appear, hinges on the shocking reveal that the mysterious space-enemy Romulans look just like our buddy Spock; one major plot arc features the Enterprise crew dealing with that, or failing to. This on a show crewed by WW2 veterans, produced in a state which had recently and shamefully torn citizens from their homes and stuck them in camps for the crime of looking like the enemy. George Takei is right there on the bridge of the Enterprise!

But this is all known.

We’ve also been around the block a few times about how art ends up being political whatever you intend, because people are political and art is about people. Who takes the spotlight and how? What sort of action carries the day? How are conflicts between people resolved? How does the art feel about those resolutions? What feels good and what feels bad? Slavoj Zizek is a weirdo but there is a quote from the Netflix special The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology that has always stuck with me. It goes something like: “it is exactly when we are trying to escape (from ideology) that we are most in ideology!” I don’t know all that much about ‘ideology’ in the Lacanian sense that Zizek’s using, but here’s what I take from that sentence: when you’re writing the most escapist fantasy possible, the place you’re escaping to says a great deal about what you want, what you need, what you dream of, what you think is good and bad. What it says does not have to be simple or consistent or coherent or nice! That is pretty rare, with dreams! Particularly memorable ones! But something is being said.

I’ve never met Andy Weir though I did read his webcomic way way back before everything; I have no idea whether he would still endorse this sentiment from 2018—when he was promoting a (seemingly apolitical) book about a smuggler on a corporate-dominated lunar colony dealing with a conspiracy around control of communications infrastructure—in 2026, when he’s promoting a (seemingly apolitical?) movie about (in its B plot) an international coalition of scientists wielding dictatorial power in a desperate attempt to engineer Earth out of a crisis, while (in the A plot) our hero must work with someone vastly different from himself to solve a big science problem and save both their worlds. “People who find a shared language (through SCIENCE!) can come together to solve vast and apparently intractable problems, and should” is a political statement, but you probably know that.

But I do worry, in all the wash of people saying, as I just have, that “All art is political!”, that folks out there might hear, “All art must be polemic and didactic!” And there is so much bad polemic and there is so much facile didacticism out there—save in the art that you like, of course, gentle reader—that I want to push back, decorously, on this front.

When I say that all art is political, I mean: just try to write something genuine about real people (whether or not they’re riding dragons!) and see whether questions that are inarguably political don’t arise. Who's rich, who’s poor, who has power, who doesn’t, what’s a good father like, or a good mother, is the world fair, and if so is it fair for everyone or just for some? Is change possible? Is it good? What sort of change? Where does it come from? Characters don’t need to conceive of themselves as political agents for a field of political values and relations to exist within a project. And the universe really doesn’t have to “conspire to ensure the author’s political agenda is validated” or whatever.

But you do not have to go into a book with a thesis. It’s okay to start off not knowing what you’re doing, or where you’re going, or why—to have a story you want to tell and characters and situations you want to explore and a voice you want to follow, and find yourself speechless when asked why you want to tell it, what it’s all about. It just hits a chord in you: that’s great! Trying to express the inexpressible might be a goofy business card line but it is part of the job. Keats says it right out, “to be in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.” It’s okay to go in and wrestle with angels.

In fact, I’d encourage it! Not great for the hips, famously, but then, neither is sitting at a desk all day.

It’s dangerous to say ‘should’ about any of this, but on the flip side you probably shouldn’t go into a book with an easy thesis, or go in planning to take it easy on your thesis. The former will not sustain you through the work of composition and will offer the reader little but pap; and the latter will be defeated by any decent work on the project. The Dispossessed has opinions. So does Master and Margarita, and so does Brothers Karamazov, and so does 1984. These are all books with ideas and books that grapple with ideas. Dostoyevsky has a vision of what he thinks is right and true in the world, and Brothers K kneads it and breaks it and pummels it and builds it up again. That’s how you develop the gluten! Some of the most stunning segments of that book stand in tension with the vision D.- seems to be aiming toward. (Or seem to at first glance, anyway!) The books improve for taking the hard moral work of fiction seriously.

Now, I would also encourage you, once you have a draft, to step back and try to examine what you’ve done—regardless of what you think your book’s message is, or whether you think it has one. The more you’re on the upside of kyriarchy in terms of basic demographics, the more possible it is that you’ve created a world where, say, every opinion a woman has is wrong. Or where aristocrats are the only ones who do anything worthwhile. But since we swim in water of kyriarchy, it’s also quite possible to have accomplished that no matter your background or orientation or intent. Not a comfortable thing to realize! But the great thing about revision is, we get to notice these things before pub and ask ourselves, oh, is that what I meant? Is that what I’m trying to say?”

That’s what the job is, really. A big part of it, anyway. Just staring at a piece of paper and asking yourself, “now what am I trying to say here?”, again and again until you’re done.

The other part is asking yourself just how many squids you really could fit on an aircraft carrier. But maybe that’s just me.

Regardless: happy reading, friends. Take care of yourselves. Work for the liberation of all sentient beings.