Why We Write

A reader posted a poignant comment in response to my depressing litany of horrors arising from our genesis as ruthlessly competitive spermatozoa: torture, drone attacks, police violence, government abuse, etc.  All related to our irrefutable DNA heritage of selfish unconcern for others. He wrote:

It is difficult not to lose hope. 

I try to remind myself of the long moral arc of the universe, and how there are a few bad apples, and that we are many and they are few…but it is difficult, and requires concentration on my part to watch my attitude and remember to also allow myself input that is positive.

I answered,

Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I agree completely with the need to create a positive space for ourselves. I do, too.  My most critical pieces serve the function for me of naming or calling out the problem. It is fears too deep to confront that are the greatest danger to my soul.

And the fact is, the world is still a pretty wonderful place.  Maybe unique in the universe. And both I and the people I criticize are pretty happy with ourselves.

That’s the short answer to why I write and you suffer with me through the bad news that investigative journalism uncovers.  My friends, and probably all of my readers live Key West paradise lives that are about 98% wonderful. Many people here are going for the 100% and just don’t want to think troubling thoughts. Or, sadly, they have enough problems in their own lives—health, money, love—that they simply don’t have emotional room to care about other people’s or our nation’s problems.

More power to them. Nobody forces them to read us, or any other difficult material. Some of my best friends don’t give a hoot about torture or George Neugent. So why do some of us care as much as we do about the tough stuff?

What I wrote above is just the start. I just cannot live in an imaginary world where everything is just fine.  Ninety-eight percent, okay.  But not 100%. And if I can’t face the evil 2%, that gives it too much power, that, makes me afraid of it . . . and my carefully nurtured self-image is that I ain’t afraid of nuttin’.(Not strictly true, but mostly.) So I face the heart of darkness, rather than have it lurk in my subconscious.

Next is something I don’t know how I got: a desire to help people out where I have no self-interest whatsoever. From tortured Islamic terrorists to beleaguered local nonprofit animal shelters, I want to fight for them to right a wrong that threatens me not at all. This differs greatly from people who fight for their won rights. In my own neighborhood, it is stupefying the amount of energy and neighborhood meetings devoted to keeping the fence up on Angela Street for the new Peary Court development.

While I respect people who fight for their own causes more than people who don’t even bother to do that—like the non-voting poor–it is far below what I do and the Blue Paper’s readers care about: the problems of others. And while it is a fine victory to get the stuff you want for yourself, like a fence, it is far greater to see justice prevail, the innocent suffer less, and our country worthy of respect.

The clincher for why I care is that we, meaning investigative  journalism and its readership, still does win some of these battles. Yes, we lose many, and it is very possible that Eimer’s killers will get off Scott-free AND the family will lose the civil case, because, as I have written, the kind of majorities that that fill grand and civil juries are NOT the readership of The Blue Paper. The jury selection process selects against people having strong feelings about anything, especially the issue at hand.

And here is where I disagree with my poster’s assertion that “. . .they are a few bad apples, and that we are many and they are few.” I believe that people who care about justice for others are the few, and popular opinion is the many, and they simply do not care as we do. I say it is not the proverbial “few bad apples spoil the bunch.” I believe and act upon the opposite: that a relatively few goodapples can freshen the bunch, and I and my readership are trying to be those good apples.

And hurray hurrah, the glad fact is that we, the minority that gives a shit, have indeed won many victories against the forces of injustice and indifference. Two famous sayings have inspired me: “All that it takes for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing” and “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can changetheworld. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

In the world at large, so many wondrous goods, the basis of what we call “civilization” itself, have been attained by people exactly like us. Loving thy neighbor. The end of debtors’ prisons, public torture, slavery, and child labor. Think of the minority who gave us our Bill of Rights, and Women’s Suffrage, and most recently even in our current ah, dark night of the soul, marriage equality—you can write a book of etc.’s.

Anyone who wants a chronicle of what the Blue Paper or I personally have accomplished over the years by caring about justice can get a long list of what happens when we good people say something, and we small groups try to change our worlds. And you, my readers, by using the Fourth Estate as our constitutional founders imagined you would, by reading what the First Amendment protects and you care about, have given us the power to do. Even if it is, with many failures, just holding the line against the worst that could happen without us.

The poster concludes our brief exchange with:

I have read the blue paper consistently for some time and I am sickened by the KWPD, Grand Jury, Catherine Vogel and Chief Donnie.   Thank you for doing the work you do.

While saying he has to try so hard to remain positive, he stays with us through our painful battles against injustice. This is why we write. Because you read, and care, and support us. He is not thanking me, but the Blue Paper.  I am not The Blue Paper. I am a contributor.

And you are its Readers. We would be nothing without people who care as we do.

Thank you.

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