Daily Archives: May 15, 2009

May 15 Is Writers Worth Day

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statue-money-copyMy friend Lori Widmer is a seasoned writer and blogger, and a tireless advocate of better pay for pixel-stained wretches everywhere.  Five days a week she offers brief, cogent (and well-written!) advice to writers and would-be writers on her blog, Words on the Page.  She has an active commenting community of fellow writers who chime in on a daily basis with encouragement, ideas and horror stories.

Lori has declared that today is “Writers Worth Day,” a day for all of us in the writing “industry” to take a stand against the cheesy job boards and websites that offer, for example, payment of $5 for a well-researched, original blog post of 300 words or more.  “Our careers depend on your turning down bad deals because each time you accept a lousy offer, you validate the existence of people who don’t value writing skills,” she declares, and I say, hear hear!

I quibble a bit with her references to a writing “industry.” I think writing actually is broader and more fundamental than an industry.  Writing is a close cousin to knowledge, and while people speak of “knowledge workers,” I don’t think there’s really a “knowledge industry” — despite 618,000 Google hits for the term.  It seems like an “industry” should be more narrowly defined, and have at least some barriers to entry.

But I certainly agree with her that capable writers should be taken seriously — especially by themselves.  We do add value.  Speaking of which…

“The Practice of Civility is Important to Democracy”

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gerson3Mad props to Michael Gerson, who in today’s Washington Post brilliantly articulates the concept I was struggling to develop in my recent post, “Don’t Blame Me for Rush Limbaugh, I Won’t Blame You for Michael Moore.”  (Disclosure: Gerson did not actually consult with me, and may not have realized he was writing this on my behalf.)

The practice of civility is important to democracy. In his book, Civility: Manners, Morals and the Etiquette of Democracy, Stephen L. Carter defines civility as “the sum of the many sacrifices we are called to make for the sake of living together. . . . We should make sacrifices for others not simply because doing so makes social life easier (although it does), but as a signal of respect for our fellow citizens, marking them as full equals, both before the law and before God.”

Respect makes cooperation for the common good possible. Civility acts like grease in the democratic machine; disdain is sand thrown into the gears. But civility is also a direct reflection of our belief in human equality. Even people we vehemently disagree with on the largest issues possess a democratic value equal to our own. Carter argues that this recognition does not preclude “passionate disagreement,” but it does require “civil listening” — and I’d guess it forbids hoping for the death of political opponents.

Read the whole thing.

There’s an old platitude, “I may not agree with what you say, but I would defend to the death your right to say it.”  That rings slightly false — although I would verbally defend your right to disagree with me, if there’s a realistic prospect of death, you’re probably on your own. But surely all of us would be better off if more people treated opposing ideas with some level of respect.