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Q&A
Are there any ideas or topics that you wish you had the courage to write about?
I love this question, and the answer is “no” with a caveat.
I will write about anything I consider important or, at least, that’s what I have so far. I will ultimately go after issues, regardless of how touchy they are, because I fundamentally believe that an issue being touchy or dangerous is a very good indication that it matters to a lot of people or, at least, that it symbolizes something that matters to a lot of people. Granted the premise that writers ought to write about things that matter to a lot of people, it then follows I ought not avoid the controversial stuff. However, I think there’s a delicacy needed to handle these touchy issues lest I just piss people off and drive them farther into their preexisting worldviews.
In my experience, the way to constructively discuss touchy issues is to understand the major ideological positions involved, figure out the assumptions behind said ideological positions, and then make a point of ignoring those ideologies. The George Floyd protests and all the things that followed on them make a convenient example. The first major ideological point of view is that Floyd symbolizes systemic racism, that black people are hunted by the police, and that white supremacy is the dominant guiding force in American society. The second major ideological point of view is that Floyd was a meth addicted loser who symbolizes the failure of “black culture” and that racial justice is just a dishonest synonym for anti-Americanism. I refuse to write from the standpoint of either of these views because a) there’s nothing new I can add to them b) they are so tied up in emotions and identities reason gets squeezed out and c) they’re both tedious and obnoxious.
Instead, I would write about the evolution of race as a concept, how it started off as a synonym for ethno-cultural group and turned cancerous with the invention of scientific race theory in the 1880s. I would point out that “black culture” is an incoherent concept, and that black people whose ancestors willingly immigrated to the US are doing quite well. I would also point out that some cities use their police for fundraising, and that those cities have police brutality problems much more reliably than a racial analysis would lead us to believe.
This approach, by dismissing the ideologies as irrelevant and keeping the moral judgments out of the discussion, invites the reader to re-engage with the issue rationally. In this sense, there’s no issue I won’t write about. On the other hand, in the sense of jumping on moral bandwagons and cheerleading controversial ideological causes, there’s a lot of stuff I’d prefer to avoid.
Incidentally, my next book is going to deal with pedophilia as a metaphor for original sin. This stems from the well attested fact that pedophiles don’t control their sexual orientations any more than gays or straight people do. The idea that unchosen sexual orientations can make you “evil” regardless of your actions, such as in the Abrahamic original sin concept, fascinates me. I’m also interested in the extremely controversial idea that at least some of the damage pedophiles cause is the consequence of social norms unique to the modern West.
Which philosophy or philosopher most aligns with your own beliefs?
Damn, another great question. I think that the stoicism of Epictetus is ultimately closest to the way I choose to lead my life. Learning to control one’s expectations is, in my experience, the single most powerful tool a person can develop to become happier and more resilient. The Enchiridion is the best guide to that process I’m familiar with.
However, the philosopher I’m most indebted to, by a long shot, is Niccolò Machiavelli. His politics is brilliant, and I do appreciate him for that, but the real reason for my admiration is his insistence on marginalizing the idea of “should” in favor of the idea of “is.” This requires a personal story.
I grew up in a deeply idealistic environment. I learned that it was always better to stand up for principles than to compromise with the evil ways of the world, that beliefs came before contingencies, and that ideological models were higher truths than mere circumstance. I brought this belief system with me to college when, by complete coincidence, I ended up reading Marx’s Communist Manifesto and Machiavelli’s Prince at the same time.
Marx was immediately familiar - an unhappy idealist raging against a corrupt world, dreaming of a future where Abrahamic ideals like equality, compassion, peace, and moral universality came to pass. In short, he took the idea of how people “should” be and condemned existing reality on the grounds that it didn’t measure up to the beautiful utopia of his imagination. This impression was so strong that my term paper argued the Communist Manifesto was fundamentally an attempt to shoehorn the Disciple Paul into an economics tract. (I got an A.)
By contrast, Machiavelli was a revelation. He didn’t talk about how people should be, he didn’t even seem to care. Men are ungrateful and corrupt when comfortable, but brave and noble when necessity calls for it. The prince is just when he makes his citizens loyal and orderly, but unjust when he allows chaos. Fear is better than love, but the combination of fear and love is best and nothing is as bad as inspiring hatred. A leader’s first responsibility is to avoid revenge. The way the world is dominates Machiavelli and, freed from the idealistic ideas of how the world should be, Machiavelli provides an endless stream of tips and tricks for managing the world I actually experience. My overwhelming impression of The Prince, and even more so Machiavelli’s later book Discourses on Livy, was an extremely hopeful alternative to the frustration, bitterness, and otherworldliness of the idealistic philosophies I’d grown up with.
Is there any standard publishing or writing advice that you disagree with? Or any standard advice you feel is too often neglected?
Yes! There’s an ethos common to many writers where we feel that our art has to be a pure and uncompromised expression of something or other. It’s this philosophically romantic notion that, deep within our essences, there is some “true self” that needs to be radiated, and that said radiation is the essence of “true art.”
First off, I don’t think this idea of a true self independent from the rest of the world makes any sense. Maybe I’m weird, but my experience of reality has always been in reference to something external. I’ve never been happy, sad, scared, or excited in a vacuum, in other words.
Secondly, I don’t think this true art thing makes sense either. Art is symbolic, it is representational, it is designed to create an affect or effect in the reader or viewer and, as such, it can no more exist in this pure essence vacuum than the “true self” myth.
That’s all a really fancy way of saying I think writers will save themselves a ton of heartache by being less precious about their works. This is particularly the case with a lot of “literary” writers who seem to feel their books are artistic to the extent they are difficult to understand and plotless.
This observation actually led me to cofound a small publisher with friend and fellow writer Jamal Barbari. Our company, J&B Publishing, is based entirely on the idea of making ambitious and challenging books accessible and marketable. As such, we are organizing our publications around the ideas of shared “universes.”
The idea is that readers tend to fall in love with series and shared universes. The sense of familiarity these shared universes create, more than the author’s name or the power of any one book, seems to draw readers back for more and more. As such, we are looking for authors who are willing to either collaborate in our existing “universes” or found their own “universes.”
This is not “pure,” and it doesn’t allow for the idealized expression of artistic essences, but it does allow writers to take big risks and go for ambitious projects from within the safety of an established, larger context. It also, I believe, allows much more opportunity for a writer to grow and learn than the head-beating-wall system of single submissions to literary agents.
Ben Garrido is originally from California and Nevada. He has lived in South Korea and Japan since 2009.
He has worked as a reporter for the Reno News and Review, an associate professor at Mokwon University, as a full professor at Shimonoseki City University, as an auditor for the Korean Institute of Curriculum Evaluation, and as an editor for several major textbook publishers, and as a consultant on hundreds of writing projects – everything from books about 14th century rice farming to paranormal romance novels.
In addition, Ben is the author of three novels, two textbooks, several philosophical papers, and a book of essays. In his free time, he enjoys motorsports, the Coen Brothers’ films, and being a very bad gardener.
J and B Publishing is currently looking for writers to work on their “universes” series.
Click here for the Submissions page.
In an ideal world a dialogue on race would start with white people admitting the power of the N word and black people admitting in this day its power is given to it by they themselves, which would involve concessions from both sides. A perfect jumping off point! B.G. touches on an idea I'd like to elaborate: coming from a place of sanctimony and defensiveness is the territory of triggers, and all we succeed in doing is making both sides more entrenched. A mutual dialogue is a wonderful idea and I don't think it contradicts human nature any more than a black father's love of his white/mixed son does. This can be a basis for concessions and for a willing peace on Earth. As far as determining right or wrong, there's no such thing in reality, because it never escapes a person's own boundaries--there's only the 'preferred' and the 'rejected.' Right or wrong only exist when we project our own preferences on others, which is an imposition and, in my opinion, a great evil.
Do you argue, then, that only societal norms give us any idea of “right” and “wrong” and there is no actual “right” and wrong?” This is what you seem to be saying about pedophilia. It is only wrong because of societal norms. Is slavery only wrong because of societal norms? Is human sacrifice okay or, rather NOT okay, because of modern, western, societal norms? It was a societal norm for several cultures. Is cannibalism not okay only because of societal norms? I’m just wondering how (or if) you have any true definition for how we may determine what is right or wrong as humans.