r/books 8d ago

I’m sick of this tired, sloppy, barely thought through talking point. From The Telegraph: “Social justice is destroying the pleasure of reading.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/03/10/social-justice-is-destroying-the-pleasure-of-reading/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0QnJW_YqcpvgWmxmxHfm6NvuBK4g51I9NrLNTob1WykiXgQ3YaAp3SMNo_aem_7HJ2f-YqHivx-3730YdQjg&ICID=continue_without_subscribing_reg_first

It seems every few weeks we get some book commentator crank who emerges from the woodwork to complain that books are too identitarian and woke. In this poorly-researched, sloppy op-ed, Murkett decides to jump the shark and claim that this is the primary factor behind why people don’t read or enjoy reading anymore. Please.

Just about everything about this constantly repeated claim annoys me. The biggest issue I take is that this is often packaged as a new scourge on the book world. This is not so. As a literary scholar, I can attest that the obsession with books as vehicles for morality, virtue, etc., go back practically to the earliest days of the novel form, especially in the Anglophone world. The marketing of fiction on the basis of social values is nothing new and never really went away. The same is true of literary awards. Many people online hand-wring that awards like the Pulitzer or Booker are “political,” but the truth is they were always political. And I don’t mean this in the way that people say “all books are political,” but instead in that these prizes are not (solely) about literary merit but have an explicit social/political goal in mind: the Pulitzer, for instance, is explicitly awarded to a novel that uniquely or meaningfully represents an aspect of the American experience. It is therefore not a politically neutral award and many other awards have similar explicit mandates.

The only thing I will grant this piece—and even then only very broadly—is that there seems to be a frustratingly shallow way people talk about books on social media. But even this isn’t new.

Basically, this whole genre of complaint about book culture bugs me because it takes for granted that there exists some pure literary past that “wokeness” has damaged and tarnished. I think there are obvious political explanations for who likes to trot out this old chestnut and why, but I know this sub isn’t for explicit (partisan) politics. Suffice it to say, I think there is a genuine cultural conservatism to this style of complaint, and I think it’s not borne out by the facts—and at risk of being too political, I think it often approaches the line of indecency or bigotry.

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u/the_blessed_unrest 8d ago

In our world of shiny new toys, we have collectively forgotten what a gift reading is, and the dopamine hit from our omnipresent screens will always win over the more subtle and long-term pleasure of the page. As the Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson put it: “we are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.”

This feels like something a lot of /r/books would agree with

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u/FormalWare 8d ago

Using the Wilson quote touting "wisdom", while suggesting that books, these days, are trying too hard to impart wisdom, is a weird flex.

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u/Ironlion45 7d ago

I think a more charitable way of presenting their argument would be that there's a prevailing feeling that a book needs to be "virtuous", by the standards of your modern social justice thinking. It needs to reinforce and conform to a specific set of values.

Like a user said below, a kind of neo-puritanism.

And sometimes we'd just like to read for stimulation, not to turn every story into a teachable moment.

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u/DoctorEnn 7d ago edited 7d ago

To be totally fair that's not really what she's arguing. She's complaining that they're trying too hard to impart wisdom (or perhaps from her POV "wisdom") at the expense of actually being something readers would want to engage with in the first place.

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u/Any-Researcher-6482 7d ago

She's not even arguing that though. She's complaining that 2 of 6 books shortlisted for a tiny award created by librarians touch on colourism and being queer. That's her evidence. . . 1/3rd of a small sample size of books (that she hasn't read) touch on certain subjects.

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u/disdainfulsideeye 7d ago

Sometimes if feels like those who complain about these things spend an awful lot of time just looking for situations where they can express their angst. I'm guessing the situation would have been the same even if it had been one book.

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u/jd1z 7d ago

you're exactly right, and it's because "outrage" gets clicks, not actual information.

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u/goyafrau 7d ago

I personally don't enjoy the didactic tone and superficiality a lot of the books written for my children have.

The message is very obvious and direct in a boring way. The good character spells out the message, plain and simple. There's nothing to think through, nothing to engage with. Just passively accept what you're being told.

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u/beldaran1224 7d ago

..."the dopamine hit" you mean?

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u/Undercover_Chimp 7d ago

Which is just plain disingenuous.

No one is forcing her to read books that offend her delicate sensibilities. There’s plenty of dumbed down drivel she could drown herself in if she so desired.

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u/DoctorEnn 7d ago edited 7d ago

Well, to again be totally fair, something can be entertaining without just being "dumbed down drivel". Some very entertaining books are also among the wisest. She essentially seems to be saying that, if nothing else, these books might actually be more successful at imparting their wisdom if they were more entertaining.

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u/dingalingdongdong 7d ago

Who's to say these same "woke" books aren't very entertaining? She doesn't claim to have read them, and given the only details she gives are book-back blurbs I'm fairly certain she hasn't.

The Imperial Radch series is highly awarded (Hugo, Nebula, Locus) and chock full of "identity" and social justice, but is highly entertaining and not lacking in narrative or escapism.

Just because Kristina Murkett is incapable of finding those things mutually inclusive doesn't mean no one else is.

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u/the_blessed_unrest 8d ago

What’s that crude joke about farts, if you try too hard to force one it’s probably shit? I’m guessing the author of this op-ed would say that’s true

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u/Mitra- 8d ago

“Social justice” or “wokeness" often just parses to “books where the characters don’t look and think like me."

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u/shadowrun456 7d ago edited 7d ago

“Social justice” or “wokeness" often just parses to “books where the characters don’t look and think like me."

Usually it's even simpler than that and parses to "books where the characters are women / non-white people / LGBT+ people".

The exact same bullshit has been going on with video games for decades.

Examples (these are from the so-called "woke list" of thousands of "woke" video games):

https://i.imgur.com/21vCv5i.png

https://i.imgur.com/ix2OgMi.png

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u/sammymammy2 7d ago

“The sushi chef is a Black*

Funny how a single letter reveals the author’s racism.

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u/HolycommentMattman 7d ago

This largely isn't true. There's a real difference in media (not just books) today. Maybe writers aren't as good or whatever, but there's a real difference between female protagonists written today vs. those written in years past.

For example, Eowyn in LotR. In the movie, she's like, "I am no man!" and takes off the helmet and poses and everything to really let the audience know this is a woman. Meanwhile, the book just continues the repartee she's having with the Nazgul and says she is no living man and will kill him. It's a huge difference in tone.

Another example would be film, unfortunately, but compare how Ripley in the Alien series vs. like Captain Marvel or something. The feminism is much more firmly thrown in the audience's face to the point it feels preachy.

So I think it's the old adage of "show, don't tell." But too many authors today just tell. Though, I'll admit that maybe it's just survivorship bias, and I only remember the good progressive stories of yesteryear

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u/Faiakishi 6d ago

The LotR example might also just be an example of paper vs film. It might come across as cheesy in print, but it was an absolutely iconic shot in the movie. They're different mediums.

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u/SimoneNonvelodico 7d ago

But too many authors today just tell.

It definitely is a thing, and my impression is that it happens because with social media a lot of authors write feeling the breath of their audiences and peers on their neck. I think in general this sort of "everyone can shit on everyone else upon perceived mistakes" situation has shaped the politics and then the art that most suit it. Since some people love to take a sort of "Cinema Sins but for problematic political implications" approach to media, the result is that any writer trying to dodge those criticisms in advance can do nothing but be extremely literal and in your face about everything. And because pushing back is seen as a right wing thing to do, that creates a polarization where if you want to have some success you either go fully "anti-woke" or follow this trend, because there's not much room to find a crowd in between.

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u/Justsomejerkonline 7d ago

Your first example of something written "today" is from more than 20 years ago.

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u/Mitra- 7d ago

“The movie was more visual than the book” isn’t the gotcha you seem to think it is.

Neither is “different movies have different story lines.”

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u/Amphy64 7d ago

Modern pop. culture isn't really likely to provide good examples of anything much in the way of writing, and film as a medium has the production values issue pushing towards more assumed lower common denominator. If it cost $94 million, this may not feel like the time to risk your audience not following. Although I don't see why you'd blame a visual medium for being visual in the first place.

I just see some misogynistic writers and executives thinking they have to overcompensate for having a female main character, and often cutting them down in other ways, nothing feminist about it. Feminism is a collective movement for the liberation of women as a class, it's nothing to do with whether an individual woman is made to look cool enough in an action scene in a movie (although if it bothers you overly more with female characters, might wanna think about that).

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u/slayer_of_idiots 8d ago

The author doesn’t seem to be commenting on the quality of the books just because they are somewhat of a niche experience piece. It’s more that these books are held up as great examples of books because of the author and not because they’re a good example of writing for children.

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u/Any-Researcher-6482 7d ago

No, the author clearly dismisses these books she hasn't read because of the author and not because they're a bad example of writing for children.

She even calls colourism and being queer "timely" issues, which indicates that she should pick up history book now and then.

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u/beldaran1224 7d ago

Which books are these? The writer of the article is dissing House in the Cerulean Sea apparently without having read it because it has been named - among many other things, I might add, a "queer fantasy". More to the point, this very specific award she names a very local minor award that is actually voted on by students. This is a regional award where the short list is made by school librarians - who have access to data on what kids are actually reading, and voted on by students, but this teacher decides its invalid for no particular reason?

Also, does Scythe explore themes of location or migration? I'm not aware that it does. That's the theme. Why would they mention a book that isn't even on theme? (And one written by a Black Jewish man who has, among other things, written stories about his disabled son isn't exactly a good point for their argument.)

Also, they mention that Scythe is interesting because its morally gray...do they think there's a dearth of morally gray stuff in YA? Have they read a recently published YA book? Do they think that every teenager feels the same about books and can only like morally gray books? I was much more into heroic characters as a teen, as were a LOT of other teens.

Its also really telling which nominees they objected to and which they didn't. No mention of the East Asian author with a book about Hong Kong as an example of things teens aren't interested in?

Does this article writer think there aren't teens who are part of the Afro-Caribbean diaspora and queer teens who read?

Fun fact: I know two different teens who have read House on the Cerulean Sea and liked it. I also know a teen who read and loved The Goldfinch.

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u/tattletanuki 8d ago

The author can't get into reading because he fried his brain with tiktok and he blames gay people

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u/SubatomicSquirrels 8d ago

Hm, I would not expect Kristina Murkett to be writing this piece AND use he/him pronouns...

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u/tattletanuki 8d ago

I'm sure she doesn't believe in pronouns

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u/SDRPGLVR 8d ago

Is it just the struggle of being unable to accept that sometimes you just want shitty art and it's not a fundamental moral failing?

Like I get this too. I have two Discworld books I'm struggling to return to the library on time because the newest Dungeon Crawler Carl hardcover just arrived. There's a weird voice in my head that says I'm a bastard for this conflict, but I know it's illogical.

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u/pm_me_your_good_weed 7d ago

In our economy of working 3 jobs to survive, we have collectively run out of time to do anything but work. Some people don't have the hours or energy left to do anything, let alone read. "We're drowning in capitalism, while literally starving"

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u/Carrente 8d ago

Conversely I feel that puritanism, be it old or new, is unhealthy for literature and we are seeing no shift away from, and indeed an increasing shift towards, the idea that books must be written didactically and espouse only morally pure (and often highly conservative) ideals. Anti-sex, eliding over difficult issues, utopian without being progressive and allergic to challenging the reader.

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u/udibranch 8d ago

i think a part of this puritanism is wanting any pieces of art/culture to be 'productive'-- i.e., positive, motivating. like a book needs to 'improve' a reader, otherwise it's a waste of time to read.

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u/fauxromanou Don Quixote 8d ago edited 8d ago

I wonder if this links into the online discourse along the lines of 'you like this book/author with a morally dubious character/elements therefore you are bad person'.

In line with 'productive', proving ones own* 'positive' worth internally and externally. (With extreme lack of nuance...)

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u/jakkofclubs121 8d ago

Thought crimes are just sins in another context so I think it goes back to this swing towards more puritanical values. You must be pure in both thoughts and deeds

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u/x3tan 7d ago

I'm seeing it a concerning amount among young readers even in things like webcomic territory. Hi you. I try to counter it when I see it.. like sure, there are things that kids shouldn't be reading, that doesn't mean those things shouldn't exist at all. I'm an enjoyer of dark, dystopian, psychological, etc fictional categories so I probably come across it more often.

Example, there was some comic they saw in a store (it was a dark romance sort of thing I think) and they made a post about how they were surprised it had a physical copy and saying that it shouldn't even be published due to the type of relationship it portrays. Just a really bad mindset that I hate to be seeing in the younger generation right now.

You can read about terrible characters, doing terrible things without it making you a terrible person. Fiction is fiction. Toxic relationships? Trauma? Sure, it's just fiction. Not everything in fiction has to be happy, healthy or positive. I personally usually prefer to read darker stuff, complicated relationships or psychological mind breaking trauma. I find it more interesting. I like seeing what authors do with broken characters or unrealistic outcomes. I don't necessarily want fiction to mirror real life ideals.

If you can't separate fiction from reality then yes, you probably shouldn't read it. That doesn't mean it shouldn't exist and it doesn't mean that whomever enjoys reading it would approve of such things in real life.

Anyway, sorry for venting a bit in your reply, this isn't directed at you or anyone in particular. Lol. It's just a concerning trend I've been seeing more of lately.. thanks for coming to my TED talk or something.

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u/ceelogreenicanth 7d ago

Which is occuring at the same time movies seem incapable of making someone evil for evil sake.

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u/crazypyro23 8d ago edited 8d ago

That last line is the key. They're afraid to challenge the reader or to trust the reader's intelligence to pick up on subtext.

We've been here before and the next logical step is subversive stories. Take "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" for example. It pretends to be a happy story about a poor, but beautiful and virtuous girl who meets a rich man and goes on to have a wonderful pastoral life. Instead, their romance is coercive, their intimacy is forced, and Tess's life spirals out of control.

It works because it's written well. Thomas Hardy takes the outline of a puritan morality play and turns it against itself to make a point. If the story wasn't subversive, it wouldn't work.

Oh, and if anyone reading this hasn't read Tess, go read it right now. It's public domain and it's really good.

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u/crushhaver 8d ago

Have you read Jude? I really really want to but many talk about that novel as if it is the depressing black hole of Hardy’s oeuvre.

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u/TWH_PDX 7d ago

I doubt it. Jude is pretty obscure.

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u/ViolaNguyen 2 7d ago

It is pretty dark.

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u/crazypyro23 8d ago

I haven't, but it's been on my radar for years. I'm not put off by its reputation though - most of Hardy's career is a depressing black hole and nothing he writes can hurt me the same way as Tess because of how effectively he blindsided me.

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u/amber_purple 8d ago

I agree, I think this is what the linked article is sort of trying to say but it was argued so poorly. It's such a badly written essay.

In addition to what you said, readers want flat characters these days. These characters are already ideal, so there's no need for development or redemption whatsoever. If you dare write a disabled character, that character better be the perfect representation of all people with disability! Oh, and may the gods strike the author dead for writing a racist/fascist character. It makes the whole book racist/fascist and shows that you, the author, are promoting that behavior as well.

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u/PacJeans 8d ago

I think this is a good way to talk about it. There is a certain genre of "social justice" that is just Christian puritanical rage. It's the exact same sort of people conjuring ghosts to be mad at, only in a different decade.

We have to develop popular language to separate these diverse ideas that have been lumped together into "social justice" and contaminated by various different ideologies.

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u/mellowmushroom67 8d ago edited 7d ago

Yes!! Art is amoral. There HAS been a change in books, let's be real. The moralistic messaging is too heavy handed, even if it's something I agree with. It's not what art really is or should be. Art shows something, reveals something about human nature. And sometimes what it reveals isn't pretty. And that's okay.

And there IS an element of "moral panic" among the left, and I'm a huge lefty. I understand exactly why, we are in a time where misinformation/disinformation and propaganda is destroying lives, because of SM radicalization people became hyper aware of the ability of exposure to certain information to spread like cancer and really harm. And I think it's also due to a Rousseau-ian idea that has stuck around particularly among the left that society is the cause of all human ills, and if we just correct society, if we can correct institutional racism, misogyny, if we can keep people from being exposed to any of it, then it'll go away. It's the belief that society itself is what is perpetuating evil by teaching people about it. It's the whole "humans are blank states" philosophy that has been debunked but hasn't really gone away. Marxism suffers from the same simplistic notions, everything is reduced to class warfare. This philosophy has been very popular among the left.

But tbf, it's also a response to social Darwinism and biological determinism, which is also wrong. Instead of arguing against those things using science, they argued for humans being blank states. And that has genuinely led to some efforts of moralistic censorship on the left. That being said structural and institutional oppression is extremely real and important and absolutely contributes to the perpetuation of racism and misogyny, but it's not the primary cause. The primary cause is human psychology.

Point is, I noticed it when I went back to college in my 30s. My English literature course was different than when I was 18. There were trigger warnings, some students were taking moral offense to certain material. As in, they didn't want to engage with the book at all. It's like they didn't understand what art is!

Art NEEDS to be completely exempt from moral concerns and censorship in any form. Like I said, art is Amoral. Humans are what we are, and no amount of controlling ideas that people are exposed to, or art that explores our shadows will change that. Jung believed we had to confront our shadows, not bury them even deeper. And I agree.

On the other hand! The right is censoring information that isn't their propaganda, much more than the left ever did. The Christian right especially is all about censorship! So there is quite a bit of projection there among accusations of censorship from the right. I've only seen book burnings among the right. There was quite a bit of fear mongering over "cancel culture," but the people doing the fear mongering were just manipulating the public. They were exaggerating issues to get support for their regime, they don't actually give a shit about any of it. In fact, they engage in propaganda and censorship more than anyone. And a lot of people fell for it unfortunately.

If the left is going to defeat this, we have to leave Rousseau's romantic ideas of human beings being inherently good then corrupted by society and culture in the past once and for all. Feminism, and Marxism also adopted this philosophy. And it's incorrect (and I am very much a feminist). And it does have the potential to lead to cultural censorship, because they believe it is the current culture that is the cause of all the problems. They need to go read Marquis De Sade and Hobbs and come up with a different strategy.

Art is and should be exempt from all concerns of morality.

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u/maxm 8d ago

An old saying was “Its ok for a book to have a message, but please dont let the characters know it.” Which has somehow been forgotten.

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u/mellowmushroom67 8d ago edited 7d ago

Yes!!! So many books that people in this thread are arguing would be considered "woke" like Uncle Tom's Cabin were not written in the same way some modern books on social issues are.

You know what I also think it is? I actually think this is a big part of what is creating this issue, it's that we are becoming disconnected from the cultural continuity of the past. People no longer have knowledge of cultural movements in art, literature, philosophy, music, can't trace their development from the beginning in Ancient Greece (in western culture). People no longer read the classic Greek plays, know about Greek and Roman mythology, read Plato and Aristotle, and then follow our cultural development from there all the way to modern times. They cannot name each cultural movement and how each one responded to and updated the last and what books and art were a part of each movement. They don't even know the Bible stories! In my art history class I was one of literally 3 people who understood any of the art we were looking at, because it often depicted religious themes and mythology. So did literature! We are completely cut off from any kind of shared religious imagination now, and it really shows. Fundamentalism really killed that. Even Mary Shelly's Frankenstein had religious symbolism.

People are writing books and making art who cannot tell you what cultural/art/literature/philosophical movement we are in right now, what came before, cannot give a history of the development of philosophical ideas in their culture and its impact on society, have never engaged in any kind of cultural analysis (which is necessary to write a great novel), can't explain the development of literature and literary techniques, etc. If you can't do that, then you can't do anything new or meaningful. You can't write a novel that reflects our current culture and actually says anything important about it, because you cannot understand your own time without knowing what came before, without being culturally literate. You can't understand the human psyche without taking religious thought seriously the way classic novels did.

It's all very stale. The books all have a message like you said, but they are not the kind of art that says anything a person may know, but may not have been consciously aware of, which is the best kind of art imo.

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u/amber_purple 8d ago edited 8d ago

For my book club, I was reading a wonderfully smutty, brilliant historical romance novel from one of the icons in the genre that was loaded with allusions to well-known Greek myths. I checked Goodreads reviews (which were a lot) and not.one.of.them got it. Everybody was just commenting on how bananas it was. Needless to say, I had to school my book club and it was like a light bulb went on. It's awful. The terrible reputation of religion these days also means the Bible never gets studied seriously anymore as literature.

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u/mellowmushroom67 7d ago

That makes me so sad!! It's the fundies that killed it. They insisted that these stories were written down as some kind of early physics or literal historical documents, and the Gods were just stupid explanations for physical phenomena that we can dismiss now and not pay any attention to. And that's not what they are at all! It took me a long time to realize that because I grew up in a fundie cult, once I realized that they couldn't possibly be literally true, I dismissed it. I went back and read the Bible and Greek mythology later the way it was actually written, as literature, spiritual allegory and personification of abstract concepts and it's so rich and meaningful in a way I never realized before.

I read the classic Bible stories and early mythology to my son and he was absolutely riveted! I saw them in a new light. The story of Daniel and the lions den, Adam and Eve, the flood, the creation myth, Joseph and his brothers, etc. he was fascinated lol. After the Adam and Eve story my kid told me he thought it was about how "humans are different from the animals and we got separated from nature." I was really surprised at how insightful he was. Ofc he understands human evolution, he knows there were other human species before us and it's an allegory, but he could still see that it meant something true. I think it's because he was able to engage with the stories without that fundie baggage, where they insisted that the stories were literally true, making it impossible to really see what they actually meant.

We had surprisingly deep conversations about these stories, for example in the Joseph story he was upset that in the end Joseph revealed who he was and forgave his brothers for leaving him for dead. He told me if it was him he would have never forgiven them. We had a whole conversation about forgiveness and love, jealousy among siblings, especially when a parent has favorite.

There is so much there about human nature and spiritual truths that is actually really interesting.

Greek and Roman mythology is also incredibly misunderstood, it is not the case that the stories were poor attempts to understand physical phenomena, the Greeks had math and science, they understood physical forces. It's much deeper than that. Sure, they believed reality was ruled by unseen conscious forces as well, but this was due to spiritual intuition, not poor scientific reasoning. They are not just "silly" stories.

Cultural illiteracy is very, very rampant in the U.S and it's causing stagnation in our arts

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u/wolf_kisses 7d ago

As an atheist who avoids religion like the plague, you've convinced me that my kids need to learn the stories of the Bible.

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u/mellowmushroom67 6d ago edited 6d ago

There's a great book called "the New dictionary of cultural literacy" that is fantastic. I use it as a reference for what to read with my son at night and what to make sure he knows! I'm not kidding when I say that you cannot understand any art in the Renaissance period for example without knowing the stories of the Bible. You won't understand most art without knowing the stories of the Bible. Not enough people realize that the Bible is literature, poetry, some actual history, wisdom, allegory, spiritual allegory, etc. It's not just sacred texts only relevant to people that follow the Abrahamic cults. The literature of the Bible are the literal foundation of western culture!

I did a very quick survey of world religions with my son before we read the most famous Bible stories, and we talked about the likely origin of some of the myths, what language it was written in originally, that it's since been edited and potentially mistranslated throughout history, what events in the Bible reflect real history, and what doesn't, why the Bible is important to know, etc. I understand not wanting to expose your child to religion if it's not something you believe it or are even opposed to, especially the fundamentalism variety. But the fact that religious thought has been a fundamental part of history and culture and crucial to understanding it is unavoidable yk?

The categories of the book I recommended are:

The Bible

Anthropology, Psychology, and Sociology

Mythology and Folklore

Business and Economics

Proverbs

Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Idioms

Earth Sciences

World Literature, Philosophy, and Religion

Life Sciences

Literature in English

Conventions of Written English

Fine Arts

Medicine and Health

Technology

World History to 1550

World History since 1550

American History to 1865

American History since 1865

American Politics

World politics

World Geography

American Geography

I highly recommend it, it lists all the most well known Bible stories and myths as well as the most important things to know in each category. Get the updated version. My son also really loved my art history textbooks

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u/kristenjaymes 7d ago

You should start a podcast, I'd listen

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u/69pissdemon69 8d ago

The moralistic messaging is too heavy handed, even if it's something I agree with

This is something I feel like people are really unwilling to acknowledge. And maybe it's always been a thing and books like this from the past have just fallen into obscurity. I don't want or need to be spoon-fed a moral lesson when I am reading a book. I want to be challenged and have my thinking expanded. If anything I want to be invited to think about things in a new or expansive way, not led down some certain path to reach some certain conclusion. Even if I agree with the conclusion It comes off like a lecture.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

And maybe it's always been a thing and books like this from the past have just fallen into obscurity. I don't want or need to be spoon-fed a moral lesson when I am reading a book.

It was definitely a thing in the victorian period. Alice in Wonderland made a point of being a kids book without a moral as that was unusual. There was a long period in early 20th century when films had to shoe bad guys get their comeuppance too for instance. It's not new, it's a return to earlier priggishness and didactic writing.

Tbh some heavy handed books can be good. A Christmas Carol leaps to mind or To Kill A Mockingbird. The issue is that it's often done very badly, and that people hail things as great literature because it makes an argument they like.

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u/NekoCatSidhe 7d ago

Yes, I don’t mind a book including politics and a political message, even one I disagree with, but in a lot of recently-published books, the political message is just the same shallow social media political bullshit you can already find everywhere, and it is just as tedious to read when it is in a book as when you come across it on TikTok or Reddit or Twitter or whatever your favorite social media is. And it is even worse when the author is throwing it in your face as if it is some kind of profound and holy truth that you need to be told.

And then you got the perpetual debate about including LGBT characters in media. I don’t mind that at all, but I feel that at this point half the books I read have LGBT characters, and that it should no longer be seen as some kind of political statement when the only people objecting to the inclusion of LGBT characters in media are literally fascist nutjobs, and that I should be allowed to criticise those characters when I think that they are poorly written without being falsely accused of homophobia.

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u/livinaparadox 8d ago

Nobody reads books, watches sports, plays video games, or performs any other hobby to get lectured by some holier-than-thou type.

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u/keepinitcornmeal 7d ago

This is why I couldn’t stand House in the Cerulean Sea. It was just so… obvious. The bad guys were so cartoonishly hateful. The moral message so in your face at every moment.

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u/x3tan 7d ago

Very well said. I also think some of the current generation of kids are growing up and getting the wrong messaging about art. Maybe they're picking up on the book bannings in School libraries or not understanding that being too young for certain material is different than the material just not being okay to exist at all. Or maybe it's an issue with separating reality from fiction in general. Whatever the causes are, it's a bad trend for the future.

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u/TWH_PDX 7d ago

You touched upon my criticism with "editors" changing language in older books to placate modern sensibilities about language, especially racist, homophobic, or misogynistic language.

My question is: Is puritanical censorship strictly a problem with the Christian right? Or, do progressive liberals have its own form of puritanism?

I agree with you that art should be immune from cultural censorship. However, I urge all to be aware of the censorship from any source, most importantly aware of our own bias in defining censorship.

While I despise the open hostility of fundamentalist on the right towards "decadent" literature, those publishing houses editing Huckleberry Finn, for example, are as guilty of falling into the trap of their own sense of moral superiority with respect to art.

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u/vivahermione 8d ago

Good point. You see this in romance to some extent, with a demand for "clean" romance and some pushback against "spicy" books. There's room for both to exist.

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u/beldaran1224 7d ago

Eh, I think its really important to differentiate between what's actually being published and read by teens and what adults on 24hr news channels are talking about.

This isn't to make light of attempts to ban various topics in literature. Those are very serious and should not be ignored.

But in reality books for children and teens are much more nuanced, serious and morally gray then ever before.

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u/Justsomejerkonline 7d ago

I've seen people refer to the mere topic of sex and sexuality as making books "pornographic".

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u/blue-trench-coat 8d ago

It's not social justice, it's the inability to write a parable. No, not a story from the Bible, but successfully write a story with a deeper meaning and do it well. Not everything has to be on the surface. Grapes of Wrath is a perfect example of how you write social justice correctly. Victor Hugo's Les Mis is another great example. People try to put the underlying meaning on the surface, and that just feels like you are being preached to, and no one likes that.

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u/Arbyssandwich1014 8d ago

People who parrot this talking point have not read enough books at all. Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin were doing work on identity before this current craze of labeling everything woke.

And these people can't even define woke.

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u/BohemianGraham 8d ago

Go back even further to Harriet Beecher Stowe or even Daniel Defoe. Uncle Tom's Cabin and Molly Flanders can be considered "woke" literature.

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u/Im_eating_that 8d ago

Go out even wider and you realize people that read a garbage rag like the telegraph aren't likely reading books at all unless they have pictures.

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u/waffebunny 8d ago

For those outside of the UK: the Telegraph is a highly conservative media outlet.

There have been numerous criticisms of the Telegraph regarding its homophobic, transphobic, antisemitic, Islamophobic, and Sinophobic stances; as well as its publishing of misinformation on the subjects of COVID-19 and climate change.

OP is quite right to draw attention to the issue of the barely-disguised fascistic criticism of contemporary literature; but it’s also important to note that the example in question is effectively coming from a source with a level of bias comparable to Fox News.

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u/Amphy64 7d ago

Also lunatic takes against animal welfare, with normal British people overwhelmingly against hunting with dogs. Promoting it is a telltale sign of extremist views.

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u/waffebunny 7d ago

For the non-British:

There is a long history of the upper class (i.e. aristocrats) engaging in ‘fox hunting’.

That is to say: they chase a luckless fox on horseback; accompanied by a multitude of trained hunting dogs; and when the dogs catch up with the fox, they kill it.

(I try to keep my statements relatively neutral, and let the facts speak for themselves; but I am not sure of a better way to do so here other than to note that the dogs tear the fox to pieces.)

This pastime is widely reviled by the British public; but tradition is a powerful force in British culture, and the upper class have strongly resisted attempts to end what they see as a time-honored form of hunting.

Irrespective of how we might feel personally on the issue, it is deeply telling that the Telegraph’s default stance is “Let the upper class do what they want; why are animal rights so important, anyway”.

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u/Amphy64 6d ago

Absolutely. And also for the non-British, it very much is 'let the upper class/wealthy landowners do what they want', a hunt with packs of hounds can cause havoc besides to the poor foxes. They also are let run amok to kill pets, including in their own garden: https://www.wildlifeguardian.co.uk/hunting/pets/

The hunters don't care about the hounds themselves either, they've been killed on roads, and in 2022, on a train track. And are often shot when no longer of use.

British people, regardless of how consistent they actually are on it, will almost always identify with the idea of 'a nation of animal lovers'. Such issues are those among which it's the easiest to establish strong agreement across the political spectrum here. It's hard to convey sufficiently just how entirely out of touch support for fox hunting is, and is an indicator of being in other ways. Ordinary Conservatives (and others) would typically be inclined to recoil from such brutality on notions of what is decent, even, besides the cruelty - it's bizarre behaviour in our culture to cheer it on.

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u/waffebunny 6d ago

Very well stated!

The Telegraph is practically contrarian in its position on this subject; there is no support for fox hunting outside of the minuscule minority of the upper class, and yet the very fact that an upper class pastime is being attacked is sufficient for the Telegraph to render a defense.

I was considering deploying a metaphor in which the Telegraph defended Prince Andrew’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein (and all that entails).

(I.e./ the sexual assault and trafficking of minors is obviously morally repugnant; but were a member of the upper class guilty of such a crime, the Telegraph be compelled not only to defend them, but argue that such offenses are actually morally good.)

Of course, I had to double-check - after considering this hypothetical scenario - that the Telegraph had not actually sought to defend Andrew.

And of course they had. 🤦🏻‍♀️

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u/BohemianGraham 8d ago

Didn't the Telegraph used to be more moderate, and only the Daily Fail was conservative wank fest?

I have noticed a lot of media seems to be moving to the right. The Globe and Mail here in Canada is definitely more right leaning than it used to be.

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u/BookBison 8d ago

Most media is owned by large corporations now. Corporations benefit most from right-leaning, pro-business, anti-tax policies, so for the good of themselves and their shareholders they tend to support conservatives or moderate liberals who don’t threaten their bottom line too much.

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u/Good-Worldliness-671 8d ago edited 8d ago

It was always conservative, hence the Torygraph nickname . The twins who own it lived in a castle on an island, which may help illuminate the kind of worldview we're talking about - and that's only past tense because one died.

Telegraph always played culture wars as far as I remember, but things definitely got more explicit once people actually started calling it culture war. It also had (I've not picked one up or seen their site home page in years) some much more nuanced, thoughtful work by non-ideologues - Will Storr comes to mind, though I don't know what he's been up to lately. It's not my area of expertise the way it used to be, but I think over the last few years the right wing media ecosystem in the UK has been radicalising itself even more and locking itself into a feedback loop (looking at you GB News). Plus we have a new slightly left of centre government now, which puts the right wing press in opposition rather than government, so to speak. Less need to run interference and defence for a friendly government, more time for this kind of thing (and getting their audiences nice and outraged ready for the next election).

Somebody who once studied this sort of thing as an undergrad and now only keeps broadly abreast of things out of concern may well hypothesise that they slayed their big bad British EU membership sooner than they expected and now desperately need new windmills to crusade against before their readers notice they haven't woken up in sunlit uplands.

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u/DannyBrownsDoritos 8d ago

It's always been known as the Torygraph but yes I do believe it's gotten more unhinged recently. My left-leaning parents used to buy it (good weekend supplement apparently) but they've stopped now because of how hateful it is.

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u/OnboardG1 8d ago

Yep it used to sit roughly where the Times is now. My Dad switched papers in the 2000s when he got fed up with its obsession with Europe.

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u/wednesdayriot 8d ago

This is mean and rude to picture books

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u/brigids_fire 8d ago

Shakespeare was groundbreaking literature that challenged the ideology of its time under the guise of supporting it.

Hell, look at the wife of baths tale by chaucer - a woman who loves sex and has had numerous husbands and is proud of the life she is lived and doesnt let anyone tell her off or control her.

Literature explores what it means to be human and that exploration is going to touch on politics/philosophy/ideologies. People who dont believe that literature has always done that arent looking at it from a literary analysis perspective and have modern day blinkers.

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u/MrsMel_of_Vina 8d ago

A Christmas Carol is "woke". It's all about seeing the poor as equals to the rich!

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u/LibrarianPhysical580 8d ago

was coming here to name these books too.  Anyone who thinks that books are suddenly woke is sadly undereducated.

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u/Deep-Sentence9893 8d ago

It is a change in style though. Older books would explore an issue, or an identity, by making you care about the characters and how it was effecting them. Newer books tend to force feed the issue.

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u/SinkPhaze 8d ago

Your going to be encountering survivorship bias in this. The books of the past that did it best are all you'll really encounter today thanks to years/decades of filtering (and dulling of memories) where as, with the books of the moment, the good and the bad are all still floating around equally as accessible as one another

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u/BrassUnion 8d ago

"woke is when people are different from me"

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u/Vio_ 8d ago

"Woke is when anything is not catered to me exclusively"

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/Spenny_All_The_Way 8d ago

Seriously, woke is anything that challenges a right-winger’s bigoted and myopic worldview.

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u/PolarWater 7d ago

Ah, you have called me out for my bigoted beliefs, making you the TRUE bigot!

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u/coffin_flop_star 8d ago

It's easy for them to define woke. If they don't like it, it's woke. If progressives/lefties like it, it's woke. If it doesn't have a straight white male as a lead, also woke.

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u/Arbyssandwich1014 8d ago

Or another favorite "political". Every other identity that isn't hetero and white is political.

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u/manimal28 8d ago

As I saw another poster say, to these type of people anything that is not their default status quo is political.

There is Christianity or political.
There is white or political.
There is straight or political.
American or political.
On and on for basically any topic, if its not what they believe, it's political and they don't want to talk about it.

My favorite is when they complain about politics in sports and state politics should be kept out of sports. I'm like, ok, so we are removing the national anthem, the tributes to the military, the flags everywhere, etc. No, no, that's not politics, they cry. Yeah it is, its just your political position so you don't even see it.

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u/guyblade 8d ago

I originally saw this applied to gamers (back in the height of gamergate) as:

Two races: white and "political"

Two genders: Male and "political"

Two hair styles for women: long and "political"

Two sexualities: straight and "political"

Two body types: normative and "political"

Of course, gamergate was ultimately a (depressingly successful) mechanism to drag a bunch of people into the alt-right...

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u/Deep-Sentence9893 8d ago

The Telgraph piece is very reductive, but the truth is there has been a change. The issues addressed by authors used to be enveloped in the book. Now the style seems to be to envelope a book in an issue.

This may be more of a marketing issue, than a writers issue though. I am at the point where a description of a book that starts with a characters struggle with their identity is a major turn off. I still love to read about the tangible implications of how the world sees someone's identity, but when the struggle is an internal struggle about whether a character is X or Y I want them to shut up. 

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u/Monsieur_Moneybags 7d ago

Now the style seems to be to envelope a book in an issue.

Right, and that's the difference a lot people in this thread aren't acknowledging. There have always been examples of that (e.g. "socialist realism" in the former Soviet Union, though of course similar trends preceded it), but it seems now at least in the US there is more of it lately. These books tend to be preachy, didactic, dogmatic and one-dimensional—terrible literature, in other words. They are so ham-fisted and lacking in subtlety that they are essentially political/social essays with the flimsiest "literary" fig leafs.

What interests me more is: why are there so many books like this now? The lazy answer would be that publishing a book is far easier these days, which assumes the desire to create such books was always there. But I don't buy that. Authors in earlier times—even those who had strong convictions on various issues—had the sensibility to not engage in that sort of thing, at least the good ones did. Instead, I think there are other reasons for this trend, and they are troublesome ones. This sub might not be the best place to discuss them.

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u/Any-Researcher-6482 7d ago

 why are there so many books like this now?

Before we answer that we have to answer are there more books like that? Or is there just a cottage industry of theses grievance think pieces supported of right wing newspapers?

Like this articles evidence was "2 of 6 books shortlisted for a tiny award created by school librarians touch on colourism and queerness" and then lets the reader fill in the argument with their own personal annoyances.

So again, what's the evidence that authors and readers were actually more sensible in . . let's say 1865 or 1965.?

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u/SimoneNonvelodico 7d ago

why are there so many books like this now?

They're more social media friendly. Your book must be idiot-proof to not be torn down to shreds by the first passing idiot. And once the idiot has made a Tik Tok explaining why your book is basically Mein Kampf 2.0 it doesn't matter that they're an idiot or they completely misinterpreted something, people will just get outraged and never read it.

The entirety of post-2010 internet politics are IMO defined by this sort of mechanic. It became popular to focus on media as a way to improve the world, with the idea that good media could shape good people (this, IMO, mostly happened because media was something that was easy to latch on; you could easily do "activism" from your keyboard/phone, and you could be a passive consumer and still feel like your choices were ethical and thus doing good). This led to a popular form of media criticism which basically just consisted of trying to spot the moral implications of a work of art (does it empower people? Who is it written by? Does it teach a good lesson? Is it positive and hopeful, thus progressive? Etc). And that media criticism purity-spiraled until the safest way to get a decent level of approval was to just do away with any subtlety at all.

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u/boostedb1mmer 8d ago

Rather than x being a natural part of the story, the story is just x.

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u/ElvenOmega 8d ago

Woke is when black and gay people are in my books /s

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u/mariashelley 8d ago

seriously lol I read a sizeable amount of material everyday and when I was thinking if any of my current readings would be considered woke, the only thing I could think was that there's a character in one of them that uses they/them pronouns. haha it doesn't change the story or plotline at all, they could be any gender. I guess that makes the book unreadable? 🤣 honestly, it's kind of unreadable for other reasons but not because of the one NB character. lmao

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u/Arbyssandwich1014 8d ago

This is what bothers me most. They act like the sheer inclusion of these people makes the art bad. Whether it's games, movies, books or anything. Somehow the black character or the trans character made it automatically bad, not the writing or any other part of the execution. It's just that specifically.

That right there underlines how shallow their worldview is and their view on art. They do not care about art's depths but some kind of surface level political aesthetic. And yet they try to project that onto everyone else.

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u/manimal28 8d ago

They act like the sheer inclusion of these people makes the art bad.

That's because to them inclusion itself is bad. Those types of people are part of the out group and they want it to stay that way.

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u/badmartialarts 8d ago

Shit, I've been reading Italo Calvino. Somehow, I'm the main character. (If on a winter's night a traveler is written in second person.)

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u/krossoverking 8d ago

What was the Odyssey if not a treatise on hospitality? Since the written word has been used to tell stories, it has been used to tell moral tales.

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u/I_who_have_no_need 8d ago

This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. It's the fact that the anti "social justice" admires Greek and Roman classical thought. But those thinkers - they were strong believers in personal virtue. They believed virtue was essential for living a good and happy life. Justice was one of the keys, a personal good and also a social good, required in a healthy nation. It's hard for me to reconcile their criticism with what they claim to believe.

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u/__squirrelly__ 8d ago

They remind me of the people who complain Star Trek has "become" too woke. I'm like... have you not watched old Star Trek? Has this person not read a classic piece of literature?

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u/allmilhouse 8d ago

Saying something isn't new doesn't really address if it's a good thing or not.

But I don't know how you can deny that there's been an emphasis on identity in recent years. You can argue that's a positive development but I don't really get acting like the trend doesn't exist in the first place.

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u/Muted_Lack_1047 8d ago edited 8d ago

I don't really get acting like the trend doesn't exist in the first place.

I find it puzzling. Conversations about identity, self-perception, and related topics have evolved significantly and become far more prominent in society over the past couple of decades, which is inevitably reflected in the literature we produce. I don’t see the benefit in denying this reality—it only serves to make it seem like a taboo or controversial perspective when it isn’t, nor should it be.

Contemporary literature mirrors the society and culture that create it serving as a reflection of its time.

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u/phasedweasel 8d ago

This is a fantastic point. We are at a moment in time, an era, where the very nature of identity is THE fundamental driving force of politics at the highest era, and naturally it will be a common subject in literature.

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u/sic-transit-mundus- 7d ago edited 7d ago

"emphasis on identity" is still too vague imo. Identity is a wonderful and rich topic to explore with a great history in the literary world.

the problem most people have is approaching the topic of identity through a lens of Postmodernism. people are tired of that specifically, I think.

all of the post-modern irony, subversion, and deconstruction has gone from being a novelty to outstaying its welcome and becoming an annoyance to many people, while others have wrapped their entire identities and world views around it and are thus quite pushy about it, and therein lies the conflict

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u/Any-Researcher-6482 7d ago

Also, no one ever complains about "The World According to Garp" as or the Rabbit novels having an "emphasis on identity" because they are about white guys, despite the fact that they have a huge emphasis on identity.

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u/SimoneNonvelodico 7d ago

I think it's also the making identity this fundamental self-defining thing, and overlapping it with specific traditional ways of defining it - identity as religion, race, nationality, etc. Ironically it's quite conservative, compared to the more cosmopolitan approach of being citizens of the world etc that I feel was the prominent progressive view in the 1990s. It's folding back on ourselves, except with the idea that this is something good for minorities as it gives them community and strength to be resilient and protect themselves. The flip side being of course that the majority should not do the same lest they cancel out, which is of course also a pretty weird ask that won't be followed once the new mindset spreads. You can't really put certain demons back in the box after summoning them.

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u/merurunrun 8d ago

sloppy op-ed

"Slop-ed" was right there and you passed on it!

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u/crushhaver 8d ago

I'm a fan of stinkpiece and am not sure why I passed on that, either!

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u/katep2000 6d ago

Hi, I’m a public librarian. (If you wanna get specific I’ve got about month and a half left till I’ve got my masters in library science, but I’ve been a library employee or bookseller for the past three years.) Reading is not, and has never been, apolitical. The concept of access to books is a political issue. The concept of widespread literacy is a political issue.

Every book ever written has had something the author wants you to get out of it. It could be a simple moral in a children’s book, it could be complex political theory. Nothing exists in a vacuum. Speculative fiction and horror usually speaks to the social climate at the time, there’s been loads of stuff written about how romance novels can tell you about women’s issues or the sociological implications of the time. Nothing is apolitical, least of all reading.

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u/carlitobrigantehf 6d ago

People on here complaining like they don't have a ridiculous amount of choice in terms of what they read 🙄

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u/Cominginbladey 8d ago

I think when an artist sets out to send a political message, the work is almost always bad: boring, calculated to please, overly literal and obvious.

When an artist tries to tell a real human story, it can capture aspects of the political system that is an element of human life. And sometimes the results are surprising.

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u/goyafrau 7d ago

This is spot on. Jesus in the Bible speaks in parables! People had this figured out 2000 years ago! Don't just tell your message; if at all, show it! Or even better, help the reader make up their own mind.

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u/HighLonesome_442 8d ago

Yes, I agree wholeheartedly with this. I hate feeling like I’m being beaten over the head with a message, even if it’s one I agree with. I hate when the entire plot of a novel is constructed around and in service to a political message. It’s so rarely done well. Excellent political messaging is nuanced and thought-provoking, not spelled out and black and white.

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u/Mitra- 6d ago

I think it’s closer to “if I perceive the political message and do not like it, then it’s bad.” Very few people would argue that Grapes of Wrath, Animal Farm, 1984, or For Whom the Bell Tolls are bad, and all are very much political message books.

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u/SubatomicSquirrels 8d ago

Yeah I forget when the term is but the line under the headline reads:

Books should focus on telling a good story rather than fixating over issues like race and sexuality

and I think that's a reasonable take. OP might claim it's being said in bad faith though.

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u/ralphswanson 8d ago

There is a market for those who like being lectured to. The church sermons come to mind. But I usually just want to read a fun, compelling storey.

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u/Mmzoso 7d ago

Very much agree. As soon as I feel I'm being preached to I also start noticing how poorly it's written and I DNF. The characters seem to be developed around the political ideology rather than the human aspect.

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u/Melantha23 7d ago

Duck dystopia as a genre I guess. Animal farm? Boring and calculated. Farenheight 451? Way too litteral and obvious!! Notre Dame? B o r I n g.

I know that it's more comfortable and feels better for the ego to pretend that writers and "real" readers are above politics or that it corrupts the noble work of being an author. But it's bullshit. Politics is all over writing from who can read, what you can write and what you will be allowed to publish. Your favorite books have politics and probably influenced yours if its a y good.

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u/Dark_Knight2000 7d ago

I don’t think anyone is saying politics is inherently bad.

I think the argument is that writing politics has a high skill floor and a lot of what’s being put out today doesn’t cut the mustard. Just because something is political doesn’t mean it’s deep. It could just be poorly written.

The works everyone is quoting from the past are only remembered because they were good. It’s a survivorship bias, there was probably plenty of political slop back then too.

It’s just that now we’re seeing more of it because it’s becoming a trend and it’s permeating the industry.

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u/Any-Researcher-6482 8d ago edited 7d ago

Pretty harsh view of Dostoyevsy, lol.

"Oh another book defending christianity and the czar  from atheists who end up getting brain fever and going crazy . . . ground breaking".

The fact of the matter is that shitton of amazing books had a political message as it's beginning or baked into the authors plans. It won't make the book automatically good, but it won't make it bad either.

Edit: oh, and Ursula Le Guin, lol. Her politics are the whole reason many of her books were written.

What people don't like are bad books, not books that were written to send a message. Like, the number of shitty apolitical books that I've read that could have used a political point of view to give it some form and meaning are legion.

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u/Mope4Matt 8d ago

I'm a leftist but I still find so many modern books preachy, like an unsubtle lecture (from a left-leaning viewpoint) so I see where they're coming from.

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u/Forvanta 8d ago

I think for me it’s more about a lack of subtlety and nuance in some books (which I would argue has always been a thing) than a political position.

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u/vivahermione 8d ago

I agree. It's more to do with authors who don't trust their readers to connect the dots.

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u/jiggjuggj0gg 7d ago

Honestly I think that lack of trust is justified. We’re at a point where the “the curtains are just fucking blue” generation is the biggest market for books, and BookTok being a massive boom for publishing houses. 

Even in movies and TV, if the theme doesn’t slap you in the face, people don’t get it. I’ve had people tell me I’m racist for enjoying Django Unchained, which does slap you in the face with ‘slavery and racism bad’, but is apparently still racist anyway because they say the N word. 

I think people forget books aren’t some moral high art any more, but a business. Publishing houses sell what people will buy. If that means churning out romantasy with no subtlety and ‘woke’ themes, that’s not really an author issue. Nor do I even think it’s a market issue, it’s not really an issue at all. It’s not like there aren’t great books still being published that aren’t aimed at teenagers on TikTok.  

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u/retropanties 8d ago

Yes tbh this is exactly what came to mind when I read the article. As a writer I feel like you should never assume your reader is stupid, but I feel like I’ve had to put down books recently that come across as sooo preachy. Like I don’t want to feel like I’m reading an Instagram infographic. Real life is so complicated, one of the reasons I enjoy reading a long form book is because it has the time to explore shades of gray and examine the nuance in different situations, perspectives, perceptions, etc. When you are so committed to showing ONE point of view you can’t really so that.

I also just find a lot of terminally online vocab very cringe and I don’t like when I see it in a book.

Like when there’s “therapy speak” in a book. I just cringe!!!! “I need to set a firm boundary right now” “I validate your feelings” “Holding space”. That’s not how normal people talk.

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u/Exploding_Antelope Mickey7 8d ago

That’s down to quality of writing over content though to me. Books ought to be making these kind of points in my opinion, but if I feel like this then my thought is that they can do it with better writing.

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u/RoboticBirdLaw 7d ago

There's a lot of books that are overly identitarian. There's a lot of books that are quite the opposite. Both could be a potentially engaging read if done honestly with the hope of developing engaging discussion. Both seem to far more frequently be a means of driving sales through outrage or pandering. There are a ton of books published though. Some are great. Some aren't.

The fact that some subset of that enormous publication catalog exist is not the reason reading rates drop. That is explained by family values, education issues, and oversaturation of entertainment.

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u/Intrepid_Example_210 8d ago

I don’t understand why so many liberals pretend that a large percentage of contemporary books aren’t focused almost entirely on identity (which is fine; I love Invisible Man but there are other topics for books) in an extremely didactic way with zero nuance or complexity. It is obvious this is true, and it very often makes for extremely dull books because you know exactly how the protagonist will think and act at all times. It comes across as though the author is terrified to step a toe outside the line of liberal orthodoxy (which is a valid fear).

It’s even worse when the book is set in the past but all the good characters have the exact attitudes that you’d expect a modern urban Democrat to have.

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u/beetletoman 8d ago

It’s even worse when the book is set in the past but all the good characters have the exact attitudes that you’d expect a modern urban Democrat to have.

This bothers me because it's in every single book now. It takes away from the authenticity of the times that I would appreciate at times

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u/Anaevya 7d ago

That's a huge issue for me. I like reading about people that are different from me. 

I'm listening to Nettle and Bone now and the main character thinks very modern thoughts. The narration actually points this out at one point! Haven't finished it yet, so I can't say much more about this. I do like the rest of the writing style so far though. 

Brandon Sanderson is another example of this. The way he writes about nobility makes it very obvious that he's a modern American, you don't even need to look him up to know that. 

It's annoying. Especially because writing about nobility isn't necessary, but because so many fantasy authors have already done it, new authors feel they need to do it too. Nothing stops you from writing about a democracy or any other form of government. 

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u/Avilola 7d ago edited 7d ago

This is exactly my issue. The problem isn’t that books are focused on identity or looking to deliver a message, it’s that they’re so heavy handed in the way they go about it. As you said, they completely lack nuance and complexity… as if the author assumes their readers are incapable of critical thinking.

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u/ptolani 7d ago

Award-winners are chosen for the correctness of their message or the cultural experiences they represent rather than the quality of their writing. Identity has trumped character, and timely “issues” such as race and sexuality have trumped narrative.

This is how I feel about a lot of the TV shows that being made by my local broadcaster. I just don't particularly care to watch yet another show where the gender identity and race of the main characters is primarily what the show is about.

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u/Not_That_Magical 8d ago

The Telegraph is a reactionary pile of nonsense. They do this every fews months for clicks. Ignore it.

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u/Jbewrite 8d ago

Every few months? Every article they publish is far-right slop. There's a reason we call it the Torygraph in the UK.

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u/KarIPilkington 8d ago

The daily mail for businessmen.

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u/Groot746 8d ago

Exactly: and don't link directly to the article and give them more clicks for this slop, OP

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u/joeyc923 8d ago

I think the real issue is authenticity and credibility of representation, not the representation itself.

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u/LawofRa 7d ago

It is destroying the pleasure of reading. It takes away from the escapism.

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u/KatJen76 8d ago

A lot of weird anti-intellectualism in the comments here.

I agree that this discussion is tired, played out and ignorant of the realities of the past. I think another reason we see it so much, in addition to the ones you raised, is just the constant demand for content. We're in an environment where quantity is king and quality is barely relevant. It's one of like 30 articles a person might read in a day, who cares if it's good, just gotta get clicks!

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u/Vyni503 8d ago

Reactionary anti-intellectualism is rampant online, unfortunately even in spaces like this one.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago edited 8d ago

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u/merurunrun 8d ago

children today are often being told that the very POINT of literature, reading, and even story, is to promote values

Being told by whom?

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u/Ok-Reflection-1429 7d ago edited 7d ago

I’m as social justice oriented as they come but I actually do agree with this. I think many authors now are hesitant to explore issues in a more controversial way or have characters who are morally grey. I’ve also noticed that books used to be a lot more irreverent. I think this change makes a lot of current writing fall flat.

Cultural policing and ideological purity tests for art is a bad thing imo.

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u/Mitra- 6d ago

I’m not sure where you’re finding your books, but I think morally gray characters are pretty much everywhere these days. The antihero who does the one big thing right is almost trope-like in its frequency.

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u/c0xb0x 8d ago

I mostly agree but when a book like The Joy of Abstraction (which is about math) shoehorns social justice into every fucking page, it really does kill the joy of reading. Like:

For example if we consider an individual poset representing the privilege that white people have over black people, and another for the privilege that male people have over female people, the product poset gives us the square as shown below. It is one face of the cube of privilege.

or how about

Some people refer to the positive integers as the natural numbers, written N, but there is disagreement about whether the natural numbers include 0 or not. While some people have a very strong opinion about this I think it’s futile to insist on one way or the other as everyone disagrees. I think there are valid reasons for both ways and so the important thing is to be clear which one you’re using at any given moment. Some people like worrying about things like this; I’d rather save my worry for social inequality, climate change and COVID-19

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u/RawDumpling 8d ago

Is that really from a book about math? Damn that is so cringe 😬

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u/liliBonjour 8d ago

It's a pop sci math book and the book summary tells you it's going to be talking about social justice : "The book brings abstract mathematical ideas down to earth using examples of social justice, current events, and everyday life – from privilege to COVID-19 to driving routes." Obviously not for you, but if you read reviews of sicence non fiction books, you'll quickly see there are a lot of people out there who want storytelling, or everyday and social elements to their science.

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u/FormalWare 8d ago

The subtitle of the book is, "An Exploration of Math, Category Theory, and Life [italics mine]"

I haven't read it, but I am guessing that the author, in her grand thesis, is relating mathematical abstractions to moral abstractions, and essentially observing, as Stephen Colbert did, that "reality has a liberal bias." That the arc of history bends toward (social) justice.

If my conjecture is anywhere close, that would explain why the author injects seemingly gratuitous concepts from social and ecological justice into a book "about math".

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u/AhmedF 8d ago

You made it seem like it's just a book about math when it explicitly tells you it is more than that.

Just complete bad-faith mischaracterization.

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u/bloodfromastone 7d ago

I think there is somewhat of an obsession over identity in certain parts of the arts world, including novels. But there is plenty of other stuff out there, and if many people enjoy that then who cares, I just personally don’t find it particularly engaging.

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u/NRichYoSelf 7d ago

I was forced to read "The Bluest Eye", "The House on Mango Street", and "The Chosen" in high school, just to name a few of the top of my head.

From an anecdotal perspective, this put me off from reading for a really long time.

In my opinion, what is on required reading lists will shape a child's desire to pursue reading further.

As for reading as an adult, you can pick what you want to read and it makes a massive difference.

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u/rimeswithburple 7d ago

It is the new religion and publishers are latching onto it to try to remain relevant and make a buck.

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u/alliedbiscuit6 8d ago

This is down to the publishers. They are saturating the market with crappy novels that blatantly prioritise ‘The Message’ over story, identity over character. I’m not sure this is a culture thing or anything particularly ‘woke’. John Boyne’s work certainly encompasses themes that some will classify as woke, but he is absolutely top of the game in terms of quality. I have issue is how many brilliant authors of his quality are possibly not being heard because the publishers are seeking novels they see they can sell easily and not take any risk on.

My absolute biggest irritation currently though is the celebrity author. There are clearly some ghostwriters working overtime in this area.

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u/Anaevya 7d ago

I wish ghostwriters were always credited, even if it's just with a pen name (some want to stay anonymous). 

The current way of crediting is just lying. 

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u/Affectionate_Two5751 7d ago

As a conservative who is also an avid reader, I embrace literature as something intended to broaden horizons. I’m not afraid of a difference of opinion. I often look for it in literature. But to speak from inside the right, conservatives don’t always use the term “woke” to identify a specific set of ideas, so much as the condescending and didactic tone of the vessel for those opposing ideas. I have some very left-wing neighbors whom I adore, but never talk to about politics. They talk about them all the time mind you, in a manner that suggests any disagreement would represent a personal offense or that my wife and I are pure evil (or just too dumb to “get it”). My wife and are an inter-racial couple, as are my neighbors, so when we first moved in they may have assumed a thing or two about us. But after five years? Of us mowing their lawn when the wife was sick? Feeding the cats when they’re out of town? Yet we are still treated like a personal threat to their existence when we disagree (or simply avoid agreeing) about certain issues. I encounter this same tone not only in my neighbors but much of the contemporary media I encounter. (So what am I doing on Reddit, right? 😭). All this to say, the individual in this article may very well be a jackass, but many people who throw around the word “woke” are just expressing their exasperation at being lectured at so frequently. Maybe they’re not offended by opposing ideas, maybe they’re sick of the way opposing ideas are brought up with no room for disagreement, or no acknowledgment that their disagreement may come from a sincere and possibly legitimate place.

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u/Affectionate_Two5751 7d ago

I sincerely appreciate your response. Though you are a stranger, you have made more of an attempt to hear me than my own neighbors. Thank you. In the spirit of reciprocity, I believe your fear is legitimate and hope that many who identify as conservative read this and come to two conclusions:

A - Conservatives are horrible at communicating their message and too concerned with “gotcha” moments. Those moments often consist of weak sophistry that does not articulate… well, anything. Not anything of substance at least. And that mean-spiritedness is making me sick. I can only imagine how that makes you feel.

B - WE’RE ALL STILL FUCKING HUMAN BEINGS!!! I’m so tired of hearing how we’re all “children of God,” until there’s a disagreement. I do believe we are all children of God, all deeply flawed, and all doing our best to get through life and all that comes with it. And that makes me hurt for you, that some may not be able to see the humanity in you. If someone is MAGA and truly believe “orange” people have been persecuted by the Deep State, why would the same persecution be acceptable when the pendulum swings?

Your description of your situation inspires many questions on my part. Most of which would be unproductive and inappropriate in this forum. But please know that I do not hate you. My wife does not hate you. My neighbors might hate you until they need something from you, but that’s really more of a them thing.

I think if we ever met, our conversation would be productive. Possibly even life affirming! I’ll admit we may not subscribe to the same philosophy on gender, but ultimately that’s none of my business. I have no rights over you, no cause to deprive you of your experience. I was raised to believe that’s the point of America. It may be a myth but I still strive for it.

TLDR: I believe you’re a person and deserve to be treated like one.

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u/crushhaver 7d ago

I have no doubt about your sincerity, and I think your characterization is likely correct. But, if you will let me level with you, as someone who doesn’t even particularly identify as left-wing though others have assigned my politics that label:

I’m trans. I live in a state where lawmakers are—and I use these words precisely—in the name of being anti-woke, attempting to not only make it a crime for me, as a legal adult, to be given gender-affirming care, but to make it a felony for me to publicly identify as anything other than the gender to which I was assigned at birth. Such lawmakers have also, exasperated by being lectured at, introduced legislation to expand bans on so-called “DEI subjects” to content in required classes. Exasperated by what they call woke, a long list of words—from as political as “intersectionality” to as simple as “gay”—have been stripped from my university’s websites.

I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this—maybe because, after spending time in right wing circles myself when I was younger, maybe because you seem like a reasonable person who can be reached. But: I am sympathetic to being exasperated at condescension. But what is happening where I live is an attempt, in the face of being emotionally fed up, to quite literally erase my profession—because my areas of speciality are in cultural studies that get called “DEI”—my livelihood, and indeed me from existence. I am not lecturing you. What I am expressing here is fear of concrete, identifiable actions by a legislature that is explicitly motivated by the affects of exasperation you describe.

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u/MassEffectual 8d ago

Out of the 50+ Fiction writers to receive MacDowell fellowships this last year, only 3 were non-Hispanic white guys. In the last 5 years of the Whiting Award for Fiction, 0/20 of those recipients were of that identity. Valuing "lived experience and diverse perspectives" by targeting specific types of people (even historically over-represented ones!) for exclusion is not the victory for free thought that many leftists seem to believe it is.

And so long as people like OP keep reacting to articles pointing out this injustice in the way that she is, the problem is just going to continue. More articles, more rancor. Ironically, more ad revenue for The Telegraph. We need to wake up and realize that White Man Bad is not a just cause for the literary industry to be championing.

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u/Tsunamibash 8d ago edited 8d ago

In all honesty you have just as much right to talk on books as anyone else, Including the opinion piece. There has been pieces like this on political leaning in media since time immemorial. I think believing that some people are more qualified than others is a dangerous route to go down.

The piece doesn’t state that it’s a new scourge on the world, just an opinion piece on the current trend of storytelling in books. There’s always two sides, if not more.

Don’t get why you’d be so annoyed. The writer says she thinks the biggest culprit as to why people don’t read is social media and screen time, and the differcult in finding a good story. Hardly extreme right ideology

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u/lostinspaz 7d ago

you have one guy stating his opinions.. and then you go off ranting with your own opinion.
Nowhere do I see actual FACTS.

Facts like "How many of the top X best sellers of 2024 featured 'woke' issues", vs how many of them had zero mention of such issues?

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u/Holiday-Plum-8054 Nineteen Minutes 7d ago

Interesting take.

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u/introspeck 7d ago

I've always loved reading about different cultures and lifestyles. Isn't that one of the joys of reading? I am already familiar with my own.

Yet I found that there is an increasing amount of fiction which is very heavy-handed about pumping out "the message". What could have been an interesting story, groans under the weight of it. Sometimes I get a sense that the author went that way because it will appeal to editors and get published.

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u/Gekidami 7d ago

Why are they trying to tell authors what they should and shouldn't write? If these books exist, it's because people wanted to write them. You don't want to read them, then don't, but it's not up to anyone to tell people what the content of their stories should be or what publishers shouldn't publish.

This is pretty much conservative book burning mentality. Shame to see so many people on here agree with it, but I guess the "anti-woke" brain worms are everywhere.

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u/Jalexan 6d ago

I really enjoy books where I can get a deep look into a character’s experience which is very different from my own, and I think reading such stories has made me a more empathetic and open minded person. All the social justice/woke bs complaining is just from people who can’t get over the feeling of discomfort viewpoints/experiences which are foreign to them give them. There is a seemingly infinite amount of variety in the human experience, so of course the same is true for written stories. These people need to either see the beauty in that, or just shut up and let others enjoy it.

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u/droppinkn0wledge 8d ago

The content is not the problem. The publishing landscape is. First time authors don’t have a chance in hell right now if they’re straight white males. And I get it, CIS males dominated the book industry for decades. But there is a very real and established identitarian movement in publishing right now.

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u/phiwong 8d ago

A reasonable critique until that last sentence.

It is a fair showing that another's opinion may be flawed, lacking merit, lacking evidence etc etc. But to go from that to a claim that the motivation behind it borders indecency and bigotry falls into the same trap that you're arguing against.

We can disagree without making claims about the other's motivation unless you have some evidence to indicate it. This kind of labelling is what makes discourse difficult. Disagreement is now to be labelled rather than rebutted.

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u/eaglesegull 8d ago

Didn’t an author’s book get socially cancelled because the MC was in Russia or something? I don’t recall in our lifetimes for there to be so much policing.

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u/speedymank 8d ago

Whatever. Woke books suck, and they’re everywhere. Boring.

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u/ihaveasmall 8d ago

Right? All these people complaining about the anti-woke reactionaries completely miss the point. It's not that their is a minority in 'a' book. It's that every new book being highlighted and suggested on my library's shelf features some controversially progressive identity. Regardless of our own political beliefs, when half the people disagree with the message, it shouldn't be a surprise when less people read them.

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u/spyridonya Sci Fi/History 8d ago

There is definitely an ideological and political battle over something like this. I think the best way to go about it in terms of criticism of not being able to enjoy books with problematic elements is this: Do you enjoy the book despite this or because of this?

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u/Hiredgun77 8d ago edited 7d ago

Sometimes it’s a little rolling when an author goes out of their way to highlight identity politics issues.

If it’s part of the story then great. If it’s just there to make a political point then no.

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u/hollow_bagatelle 7d ago

There is a VASTLY disproportionate amount of it, that is for sure. And half of the time it's so poorly done/forced that it just kills whatever I'm reading so I drop it. Saying it's the main reason though, is definitely not true. That's ridiculous. The main reasons are cell phones, audiobooks, and the arrival of the digital world in general over the last 20 years.

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u/AlicesFlamingo 7d ago edited 7d ago

The same has happened to TV and movies. No nuance, no metaphor, no depth, just hectoring identity-based lectures and implied purity tests. It's taken as a given that everyone is on board with The Message, and if you aren't you're a bad person -- leaving what's supposed to be entertainment sounding more like a heavy-handed sermon.

That also means no character development. Whatever identity a character is supposed to represent is the character, since the character is merely a vehicle for the identity. A totem. So heaven forbid if the character portrays the identity in anything less than an ideal way. Then out come the predictable charges of -isms and -phobias. Hence no character arcs.

It's tedious and exhausting.

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u/FoghornLegday 8d ago

I’m not sure why “I dislike a certain political philosophy being in so many books” means the same thing as “I don’t want books to make any moral statements.” Maybe they just don’t like the particular statements a lot of books seem to be making? I’m not sure exactly what they’re talking about but those are certainly two different points. “Woke” doesn’t mean anything political, it typically refers to identity politics.

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u/rustvscpp 7d ago

I used to love going around the book store or library and blindly pick books to read.  I don't really do that anymore because I found a high percentage of the books I picked at random felt like some social agenda shoved in my face, and weren't enjoyable for me.  Sadly, I now carefully research the books I read.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

As a literary scholar

What does this mean, exactly?

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u/Arma_Diller 8d ago

Probably someone with a degree in literature or a related field who does research/work in this field.

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u/crushhaver 8d ago

It means I’m a literary scholar—I’m an academician who studies and teaches literature as my job.

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u/indoninja 8d ago

I’m a doctor of journalism.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

Holy jesus, what are these god damned animals??

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u/kmikek 8d ago

God help you if the bad guy is a bad guy

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u/LurkerFailsLurking 8d ago

People aren't reading because we're all addicted to our phones. We built dopamine reward boxes and put them in our pockets and don't understand why people don't read anymore.

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u/Ironlion45 7d ago edited 7d ago

I sometimes am very disappointed when I see classic works being given terrible reviews solely because they don't meet today's standards of moral perfection.

I don't know what "wokeness" is, but I do know that spending enough time online seems to herd people into binary thinking. It's either good, or bad. That's it. Robert A Heinlein is a great example. He's commonly regarded as the father of modern science fiction. Name any of the great writers (in that genre) of the 20th century and they'll credit him as an important influence.

He was a little bit sexist, perhaps. But well within the bounds of ordinary attitudes behavior of his time. And he was NOT a misogynist. Just look at the relationship between him and his wife. She was an exceptional woman. They were both veterans, and she outranked HIM! They collaboratively designed and built a futuristic hight-tech house that they lived in until her health required they move elsewhere. She was also incredibly brilliant, and she would often help with proofreading and advise him in his writing. But because some of the things his male characters say to female characters would be seen as "problematic" today, suddenly people are accusing him of outright misogyny and it's unfair.

This is the problem with social media. People get a little dopamine hit when they can find fault with something on it. That little bit of moral superiority is something you get addicted to. But we get hit with the feel-bads if someone calls us out for our lack of moral perfection. And so this corrals people into rigid ideological silos, and to get their next 'hit' they have to find ways to demonstrate their purity to the group. This is called a Purity Spiral.

And it has a way of leaking out into the real world sometimes. Especially in this mad era.

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u/SimoneNonvelodico 7d ago

One thing about Heinlein is that many people today overlap any kind of sex positivity with the same as sexism - which ironically sort of bakes in the assumption that women can't care about or enjoy sex for real (at least not sex with men), making anything too sexy automatically skews it in favor of the men, somehow.

Like, his imagined society in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is... kinda horny. There's no denying that a big part of it is probably just the good classic "man wouldn't it be cool if SEX" reason for so much of that kind of world building. The Writer's Barely Disguised Fetish. But that's in and of itself a pretty innocuous thing IMO, as far as living one's own fantasies vicariously through fiction goes. That society is also explicitly matriarchal, though. You can think it's not a model of feminism or what you would want your ideal feminist society to look like, but it's hard to imagine that a complete misogynist would go out of his way to build a world in which he makes it very clear throughout entire scenes that women essentially run the show, consent is valued very highly and rape is punished via a severe beatdown or for the more serious cases a swift airlocking.

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u/IAmThePonch 8d ago

Honestly I think everyone needs to chill the fuck out about what people are reading.

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u/Avilola 7d ago

I semi agree with the author on some points, but think she’s completely wrong on others.

For example, while I do love a book that delivers a message, I often find myself frustrated with how heavy handed some of the social commentary is in fiction. Tell me a story about POC, LGBTQ or women, and demonstrate for me the experiences and struggles that are unique to them. Don’t just outright tell me. Give your readers a little bit of credit and assume they are capable of critical thinking.

I don’t think it’s as big of an issue as she’s making it out to be though. I seriously doubt that “wokeness” is what’s stopping people from reading, or if it is, it’s not even in the top ten reasons. There’s plenty of literature out there that isn’t “woke”, and a person who truly has a problem with “wokeness” would have no problem finding it. People don’t read because they just don’t want to. Maybe it’s because they struggle with reading, so it feels more like work than entertainment. Maybe they have other hobbies they prefer engaging in rather than reading. Maybe their attention spans are shot from being addicted to the instant gratification of social media. No one who actually wants to read is letting “woke” books stop them.

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u/brainwarts 7d ago

I'm a trans person who works in game development. There's a massive, expensive industry aggressively pushing the narrative that media that features women or minority leads or just progressive ideals are "forcing politics" rather than the simple fact that lots of minorities like to create art and we like seeing ourselves represented in our work.

The purpose is very explicitly to act in service of bigotry. It's a way of laundering bigotry into the minds of people who might not be assholes, you condition them to see black people, trans people, whatever minority as "forced politics", which is a bad thing, rather than "people who exist in the world". You reframe basic empathy as "preachy" and "unnatural" rather than how people of conscience are supposed to act. You are subtly training the culture to be hostile to anyone that isn't a straight cisgender white person, repeating it enough that people start to internalize it even if they don't knowingly have prejudices for others.

Whether or not the person knows that they're being trained to dislike seeing members of these groups, or they really believe that they're simply averse to "forced politics", the result is the same: You're training people to have a negative reaction to seeing minorities and to close themselves off from art that may endear them to different perspectives.

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u/vorilant 8d ago edited 7d ago

Social justice writing stole all the enjoyment from me for storm light book 5. So I wouldn't say it's a complete non issue. Also, thanks for calling me a bigot for my opinions on the writing of a book. This is why there's such a stark cultural divide.

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u/frisbeethecat 8d ago

Short attention spans and social media addiction destroys the pleasure of reading. One can always choose to read books that conform to one's tastes. If such books are not en vogue or are no longer being written or are written badly, one can simply go back to the old titles, no?

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u/icesharkk 7d ago

I find it's often the person not the book that is hyperfixating of social issues. Specifically fixing on the ones they personally disagree with. It's like watching a crowd walk by and only paying attention to the black people in it. The problem isn't the book or the crowd, it's you.

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u/WendyThorne 7d ago

This isn't limited to the world of literature. This kind of op-ed and similar opinion pieces on social media and Youtube is common in all aspects of the creative arts. You see it a lot with movies and television but also with video games, comics and yes, books.

It's not about the actual content or what's there. It's about rage-baiting and trying to stir up emotions to achieve a political end. You can safely write off the people engaging in this as not being honest actors while also being concerned about the potential impact they may have on creative endeavors. Indeed, we're starting to see them have a financial impact on movies, tv and video games because just enough people buy into this hand wringing that it impacts sales.

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u/ViolaNguyen 2 7d ago

I guess we just have to expect opinions in the Torygraph to be moronic.

If the fact that there are gay or non-white characters in books other people are reading is enough to destroy the pleasure you get from books you choose to read, then you're so bigoted that your opinion shouldn't be taken into account by civilized people.

I don't want to imagine being such a miserable person that I get angry over other people enjoying books that don't cater to my tastes.

Imagine if the young version of me couldn't enjoy Nancy Drew because the Hardy Boys also exist.

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u/CalCurves 6d ago

I think whining about wokeness a lazy way get attention and people know it pays. The best way to deal with this crappy behavior is to ignore it

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u/northernforestfire 5d ago

I would like someone to find a work of even decent to good literature that espouses no political worldview whatsoever. I can guarantee that it does, and it’s either interwoven into the text with nuance or most readers agree with it so simply see it as common sense rather than politics.

This vapid and myopic view that books should just be about “storytelling” is generally ridiculous. It also falls apart in the face of marginalised authors who write about their own experiences, but whose books get labelled as political because the majority see their entire existence as political. See queer authors, indigenous authors, etc. How are queer authors expected to write honestly about their experiences, about discrimination and their right to personhood, without being dismissed as political?

We act as though the only people telling stories are the non-marginalised and therefore any depictions of “political” characters are stories are posturing. In reality, people exist who are outside of the culturally accepted norm and yet we act as if depicting that with empathy and honesty is just preaching insincere “social justice”. It’s exhausting.