In his book Humanism and Democratic Criticism Edward Said writes about a writer’s congress convened in New York by The Nation magazine. The congress organizers left open the question of who was a writer and why he or she was qualified to attend. As Said tells it, literally hundreds of people turned up at the event, crowding up the room to ‘…almost to the ceiling.’ Soon a debate ensued about the definition of a writer in order to help select members to a writers union and to determine who could vote in the congress. I let Said’s word tell us what followed:
Not much occured in the way of reduced and manageable numbers: the hearteningly large mass of people simply remained immense and unwieldly since it was quite clear that everyone who came as a writer…stayed on as a writer…
I remember clearly that at one point someone sensibly suggested that we should adopt what is said to be the Soviet position on defining a writer, that is, a writer is someone who says that he or she is a writer. And I think that is where matters seem to have rested…
And so there we have it – a writer is someone who says that he or she is a writer. In a world with near ubiquitous access to a computer, the Internet, language and grammar, practically everyone is a writer and can string together a series of sentences to justify that claim. But Edward Said offers this anecdote to build his argument that in fact, not everyone is a writer / intellectual (in his original piece, he conflates those two). and though never offers a clear set of criteria, there follows a paragraph that I believe captures his argument for the need for a differentiation. He argues that:
To answer the question of why, in this and other similar contexts [on discussing why people, despite massive repression, continue to fight] individuals and groups prefer writing and speaking to silence, is equivalent to specifying what the intellectual and writer confront in the public sphere. What I mean is that the existence of individuals or groups seeking social justice and economic equality, who understand that freedom must include the right to a whole range of choices affording cultural, political, intellectual, and economic development…will lead one to a desire for articulation as opposed to silence. This is the functional idiom of the writer / intellectual vocation. The intellectual therefore stands in a position to make possible and further the formulation of these expectations and wishes.
What is striking about this argument is its focus on the individual’s sense of responsibility. The fact that Said places at center stage a set of human aspirations and ideals – equality, freedom, and justice, to differentiate those who have the tools and technology to write, and those who are writers. And I would argue, that it is such a set of human aspirations and ideals that raises one from being merely a photographer, to being a photojournalist. Details »
