writers' groups and politics

[In order of preference]

1) Find another writers' group
2) Change your politics
3) Grin and bear it

I get sour about politics too. Whether your a liberal or conservative, it's better to let your morals (or lack thereof) shine through in your work, and rather subtley... I'd say get a new group.

the sad thing is that everyone thinks an artist or writer is automatically leftist. People come up to me and just start bitching about George Bush, like I'm one of them. It's my pet peeve

Quite a few of the members in my writing group are not of the same political mind as I but we've agreed to disagree and respect that each person has a right to their own beliefs. Occasionally, the topic of politics may come up - but for the most part we try to keep that and religion out of our 'writing discussions'. (None of us has the same religious backgrounds at all).

Perhaps a friendly reminder that you are all gathered to discuss writing (and not politics) might help. If not, then like the others suggested earlier, perhaps it is time to find another group.

Good luck with your problem - hopefully it is resolved soon - and welcome to AW.

Ask them (politely) to leave politics at the door without implying that you agree or disagree. If they refuse, find another group.

With things so bitter these days, many people find it hard not to bring up poltics, religion, etc. But there's no need to use a critique circle as a soapbox. They need to cut it out.

If you get along particularly well with one or two others in the group, it might be worthwhile to approach them first, privately, with the idea that too much time supposedly set aside for writing-related talk is diverted to general discussion that people can have anywhere. Try to enlist these individuals' help with keeping the group on course. Let the emphasis be on the off-topic nature of the conversations, not on your disagreement with their political content.

A crit group is a reciprocal arrangement based on mutual self interest, not a love in. You don't even have to like your colleagues, as long as they give good (as in useful) crits, and as long as you do the same in return. Nobody's doing anybody a favour.

If their politics interfere with how they crit your work, just say.

If you want to do it politely, try along the lines, "my target audience is broadly socially conservative, so it's not very useful to critique this from a more liberal perspective."

If you find yourself critting work with an abhorrent (to you) political message, that's fine - it's a technical exercise. You can always start your remarks: "Of course, I'm not the target audience for this, so I can comment on whether it makes an appropriate political point. Plot and style however....."

(In my group, I'm the token Baen-reading semi-libertarian who writes blood-drenched Sword and Sorcery of the kind Frank Frazetta used to illustrate. I'm surrounded by old and new left, PC feminists, possible anarchists, tree huggers and peaceniks. One of my best critters freely admits he hates my protagonist because "all he ever does is kill things, or shag them". In return, I slag him off for gaming his plots to support his naive optimism.)

I have to tell you, I never hear talk of politics unless I'm here at AW. I am surprised by how involved Americans are in their politics. I am in a writers group that meets once a month...about 200 people. I have never once heard talk of politics in it. I hear it every day here at AW. I'm sure it's normal for Americans to discuss it, since you do it a lot on boards of this type. I don't know what to suggest. Just grin and bear it like somebody else said...or start talking about writing...I find that writers love to talk about writing with other writers. Just try to change the topic of conversation. I know I would. I'm so politically blind I have to think before I can tell you who our Prime Minister is.

Smile. Listen. Absorb. Use it as fodder for later writings. Be happy you've learned something about people's characters you can use another time. Remember there's 6 billion people in the world; all different. The ones you meet are all opportunities for your writing to grow.

Oh. And if someone steps too far over the line, punch him in the face.

I would agree with others have posted, however, I would reiterate the advice to first talk it over with them before you decide to leave. If they don't know this is a huge issue for you, they can't change their behavior. If they're using the crit group as an outlet for their need to express their politics-related gripes, then they won't change and you'll know what you need to do.

I once read a dog training book in which the author, Myrna Milani, said that when there's a problem between you and your dog, you have four choices. I find this is true of human-human, human-job, etc relationships too:

1. Do nothing
2. Change the behavior causing the problem
3. Change the way you feel about the behavior
4. End the relationship

Euan H. said:

1) Find another writers' group
2) Change your politics
3) Grin and bear it

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I agree with all of the above. I respect the fact that you don't care to hear what they have to say, but I don't think it's right for you to call them "whiners," just because you don't agree.

They are allowed to express whatever political views they want in their work. That's what writing is for, to express yourself. If you don't want to read it, all you can really do is leave, because you can't ask them to stop writing it.

Before and after the group and during breaks, they can discuss what they want, as well. It's how people get to know each other. I know you are there to discuss the craft of writing, but if you even know that they express liberal political views in their work, then you must be also doing what you came there to do.

If I were in a writing group on the political right, or a writing group who talked about bands like Linkin Park all the time, I would be rather annoyed. But I would leave before I would tell them to keep themselves to themselves.

I've only belonged to one writing group, but it had a wide diversity of political and religious opinion. I am right wing, if you want to call it that, though only a bit to the right of Reagan. So were three other members of the group. But the majority were democrats, and two or three were as far to the left as you can get.

As a whole, we found grin and bear it didn't work at all. What did work was letting every know how everyone else felt and believed.

When democrats learn there are republicans in the room, and when republicans learn there are democrats in the room, politics tne dto get left at home. Or that's how it worked with us.

If, however, you're the lone wolf in a group, I'm not sure how to handle it. I'd just state my case and let the wood chips fly where they might.

mesh138 said:

the sad thing is that everyone thinks an artist or writer is automatically leftist. People come up to me and just start bitching about George Bush, like I'm one of them. It's my pet peeve

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If you think that's bad, try being a professional environmental biologist. That's what I do for my day-job. Nearly everyone I associate with professionally is a left-leaning socialistic type, and thinks I must be a left-winger like them. It gets awkward, and since I'm in the vast minority among these people, I tend to just "grin and bear it."

As for my writing group; I have a wonderful writing group. We have 6 members and I think we're all pretty much conservative politically, even though one of the members is from Canada.

We conservative writers are out there. Have faith.

perhaps if you let go of the "left wingers have taken the arts and universities hostage" attitude you might find yourself open enough to consider ideas that are different from your own. stating they are "vicious and vile" because they don't support the bush government shows you aren't willing to accept their ideals and are solid in your own, which is fine. but don't expect others to stop talking about current affairs because you disagree.

Assumptions

People sometimes assume that one view entails others from the same camp.

A fellow critter - in his cups - said more or less, "Oh, you can't be a right-wing nut because your novel has positive gay characters."

Because my anti-collectivism is often regarded as a right wing stance, he'd vaguely assumed that I should also hold other "right wing" views, including the socially conservative ones.

Thing is, Left and Right is a simplification of something more complex. The best attempt I know of to express this is at http://www.politicalcompass.org/

Suggest you take the test on that site, and get them to do the same. At worst, if you're lucky, you'll get the Left Wing Authoritarians fighting with the Left Wing Anti-Authoritarians.

Otherwise console yourself that though many writers are left leaning, the biggest audiances are probably closer to your position.

henriette said:

perhaps if you let go of the "left wingers have taken the arts and universities hostage" attitude you might find yourself open enough to consider ideas that are different from your own. stating they are "vicious and vile" because they don't support the bush government shows you aren't willing to accept their ideals and are solid in your own, which is fine. but don't expect others to stop talking about current affairs because you disagree.

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It's difficult to let go of the truth. Nearly all colleges and universities are controled, tightly controlled, by left-leaning professors. I don't know about vicious and vile, but they can get incredibly nasty when anything approaching a right wing idea is even mentioned.

I don;t mind others talking about current affairs, but they must allow me the same freedom, and I've found this is very seldom allowed.

Writing groups should be about writing, not politics. If they want to talk about current affairs, they can do it on their own times.

jbmm said:

Like it or not, the left leaners have taken the arts and our universities hostage. Seems, if you don't think like they do, you can't possibly have a love for words, or art of any kind.

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Reading back, I'm unsure if it was what the group was discussing or what the group was WRITING that bothered you. If it's the former, try to steer the conversation back to writing or point out that, with the utmost respect of people's views, you'd rather discuss in line with the original intent of the group.

I want to reiterate what henriette said here, in case you missed it: someone simply discussing politics does not make them a 'whiner,' nor does it imply that the educated have been 'hijacked.'

I know I would be just as insulted if someone makes an assumption that just because I'm Christian means I'm a conservative. People do it all ofthe time, and it's just as naive an assertion as stating that educated people are all left-wing.

I hope that wasn't too off-topic. I just wanted to make sure no one thought I was advocating someone to censor political expression in their writing.

Jamesaritchie said:

It's difficult to let go of the truth. Nearly all colleges and universities are controled, tightly controlled, by left-leaning professors.

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Saying that "arts and our universities have been taken hostage" is very different from stating that most people in universties are liberal. I would agree with the latter, but I can assure you, we did not go out and say, "Hey! Let's all get jobs as college profs and become artists, so conservatives won't want to write anything!" I do agree that most universities, especially in the arts, are left leaning, but that's the way it is. Using the word "hostage" implies it was done intentionally, and perhaps even a bit maliciously.

Jamesaritchie said:

I don;t mind others talking about current affairs, but they must allow me the same freedom, and I've found this is very seldom allowed.

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True. But I've been the minority in the group many, many times, and I find that this is often the case. Whether you're talking about politics, or even art. It's a sad truth.

Jamesaritchie said:

Writing groups should be about writing, not politics. If they want to talk about current affairs, they can do it on their own times.

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The original post was regarding politics before and after, during breaks, and in writing. People are going to talk about other things at these times. If you are not comfortable with it, you can say so. But as far as writing goes, people are going to write what they want.

Jamesaritchie said:

It's difficult to let go of the truth. Nearly all colleges and universities are controled, tightly controlled, by left-leaning professors. I don't know about vicious and vile, but they can get incredibly nasty when anything approaching a right wing idea is even mentioned.

I don't mind others talking about current affairs, but they must allow me the same freedom, and I've found this is very seldom allowed.

Writing groups should be about writing, not politics. If they want to talk about current affairs, they can do it on their own times.

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Truth? Whose truth? Those on each of the extremes of our two-party system tend to view moderates as "belonging in the other camp."

First of all, university professors don't control crap, except for their classrooms and their research/creative activities. Most professors outside of political science departments (and a few other areas) are conscientious enough to avoid percolating their personal politics throughout their classrooms.

I've been associated with the "other side of the university desk" since 1973, and I've seen the same spectrum of political views I've observed in a large rooms of strangers. This relates to politics in general. Many of my colleagues take stances on individual issues instead of going party-line on all issues. What mobilizes most professors are issues that concern state funding of universities and federal research funding--issues that directly impact our livelihoods. How would your politics line up if you were subjected to six straight years of no raises, in addition to hiring freezes preventing the replacement of retirement positions, in a time when the stock market was booming and the mean income of most other occupations was increasing at a significant, regular rate? How would you like it if the states considered their university systems a SOURCE of money when the state economy goes bad, and the response of the legislature is, "tough s**t, increase the sizes of your classes and feel lucky to have a job?" It would tend to bend your political involvement on that issue, I bet. A person can be politically conservative, except on issues that directly impact his/her livelihood, and yet catch one of those "left wing" labels because of their stance on those isolated issues. I should know...

I think if anyone here polled a university faculty about their political views in a way that avoided the black-or-white labels of the political parties, I bet that person would be really surprised at the outcome. Maybe not in the sixties, seventies, or even the eighties. But now, yes.

I'm confused. What is it that's really bothering you? Would you feel the same if they were writing about or discussing views that were similar or the same as yours? Is it being the "lone wolf" that's bothering you? No real cure for that except to find another group. I'd say agree to disagree about politics, but I'm not sure from the tone of your posts that this would be possible. On the other hand, if the problem is that they're discussing politics during writing time, then tell them you see this as a problem and work out a way to try to keep the discussion on track during this time. They can talk about politics and other stuff before or after you meet, or possibly during a break (and I'm sure there'd be at least one person who didn't want to talk politics, and you could discuss something else with them, or do something on your own during this time).

Jamesaritchie said:

Nearly all colleges and universities are controled, tightly controlled, by left-leaning professors. I don't know about vicious and vile, but they can get incredibly nasty when anything approaching a right wing idea is even mentioned.

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Do you have any evidence to back this up? At all?

I work at a university (not in the US though), and my experience has been similar to Neurofizz's. The spectrum of political opinion in the collge where I work goes from a hardline Marxist (he teaches political science) to several small-government conservatives (mainly in the business dept.).

I don;t mind others talking about current affairs, but they must allow me the same freedom, and I've found this is very seldom allowed.

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Really? So how do these university professors (you know, the vicious and evil left-wingers who control nearly every college and university) stop you speaking? Do they come round your house and throw books at you until you stop?