The Ethics of Life Writing
Has anyone here ever been surprised at what fell out when they shook their family tree?
When the members of our Anabaptist History class researched our family history, we uncovered a few facts that must have created scandals during the lifetime of the people involved. One immigrant ancestor was divorced by his wife. The wife remarried and had other children. When that person's descendant in the class was preparing a fact sheet to be displayed on the wall at school, he asked if he should include information about the divorce. We talked about it briefly, and I ended up saying that I thought he probably should include the information. This was a fact-gathering project, and we had specifically written information on the spouses when it was available, in other cases. The student involved did not seem particularly conflicted about the matter.
In researching my own family history, I found reference to a document on public record where one of my ancestors announced that, since his wife had left him, he would no longer be liable for any financial transactions she was involved in. I told the class about what I found.
I read a book recently about a woman I knew. Later I heard the woman's brother say of the book, "I haven't gotten very far in the book, but already I've found things I wish he [the author] would not have written." I tried to think what the brother might have been referring to. Assuredly, the author wrote only truthful things. Was there family history he was embarrassed by? If so, it didn't stick long enough in my memory to know what he might have meant. Did it diminish my appreciation for the woman's brother? Certainly not. Did it reflect negatively on the woman who was the subject of the story? If so, I can't remember that either. The context of the story is so complete and sympathetic overall that I couldn't muster up any feelings of condemnation if I tried, even if imperfections came to light.
Someone asked me recently if I would write about unpleasant things in my own experience if they reflected negatively on someone I loved (I'm paraphrasing the exact question). I said I thought I would, if I felt that doing so was truthful and could be a help to someone else. Mentally at least, I was rehearsing how carefully I would want to do that, providing sympathetic context whenever possible, and providing just enough detail to be clear.
Later, it occurred to me that I would be less likely to write about the unpleasant things closest to me than I would be to grant others permission to write them, assuming I could feel that others would exercise the same carefulness I envisioned if I was doing it myself. While there would be an emotional cost either way, I think the relational cost would be far less with someone else doing the writing, particularly if everyone involved will go on relating to each other in some way.
I finally figured out what to call this conflictive area that has occupied a lot of my thinking the last while when I came upon a book titled The Ethics of Life Writing by Paul John Eakin, 2004. Part of the book is available online, and I read enough of it to learn that others have given considerable thought to this dilemma. I am not alone in mulling it over.
Believing that this is a dilemma only to humans and not to God, I have prayed for insight, and reflected on clues available in Scripture. I've talked to Hiromi and Joel, and to my uncle, who is an editor. While not everything is clear, the fog is lifting a bit, and certain truths are emerging. In no particular order, here is what I see now:
1. Truthfulness is important. That does not mean we will always say all that we know. It does mean that when we engage in conjecture, we will be clear about what we're doing.
2. The motivation for writing is important. Vindictiveness is an evil motivation. Desire to see God Himself honored or Godliness in others honored are good motivations. Willingness to reference sad situations or wrong actions in others can happen out of either good or bad motivations. Providing titillating detail or having a morbid preoccupation with particularly dark elements of a story would be wrong. Christian writers ought to pray for understanding of their own motivations.
3. Stories in Scripture are sometimes brutally frank in their portrayal of wrongdoing and evil intent. Sometimes no accompanying sympathetic commentary is present. Just the facts. The Bible tells us that the stories are given for our learning.
4. By its nature, writing about another's life is an intrusive undertaking. Getting information is a necessity, and the ones best able to provide it are also likely to be deeply invested in the result. This makes the outcome a potential minefield, and unwelcome bad-memory explosions are easy to trigger. Any individual source can, of course, be as selective as they choose about the information they provide. Writers expect and understand such selectivity. That's why they usually do not limit themselves to one information source, or one perspective on what is appropriate to write about.
5. A writer would be wise to make clear, up front, when soliciting information, that the purpose is indeed to seek information, not permission.
6. Christian principles must be considered when information is shared, not only professional or legal codes.
7. In a story about another's life, the person who lived the life and the people who choose how to respond to what they learn from that life are the principal players in the scenario. The writer is a conveyor of truth, not a creator of it.
8. A written piece, as is true for many other pieces of life, may present an opportunity for a person exposed to it to re-process experiences from the past. Whether the exercise turns into a positive or a negative for the reader is not primarily under the writer's control.
9. A written account is most effective when the story is allowed to speak for itself. Strong verbs and images are far more memorable than anyone's conclusions or the most skillfully selected adjectives. While this is more an issue of art and craft than ethics, a writer who ignores these realities risks not being being able to enter the "marketplace" at all. An unread story has no more impact than an unwritten story.
10. If a story needs to be told and is too "hot" to handle, using pseudonyms might be considered. If a person is writing autobiographically, he or she can simply write anonymously. If the story is about someone else, false names can be used instead of real names. As a writer, I would have no qualms about doing this if appropriate disclaimers were present. But I can see it presenting a dilemma to people whose story is being told. I doubt that most people would choose anonymity if the entire story was laudatory. But what if 1% of it were true but not laudatory? Or more than 1%? Or what if a negative element received a bare mention, but was particularly embarrassing? I know of no reliable formula for determining the tipping point where the choice becomes clear between anonymity and true identity. I do not see routine banishment of the 1% to be a wise choice.
If you're still reading, I thank you for your perseverance. Now you know how things look to me and you may have identified some opinions of your own.
What am I missing? Do you see things differently?
I'd love to hear about it.
When the members of our Anabaptist History class researched our family history, we uncovered a few facts that must have created scandals during the lifetime of the people involved. One immigrant ancestor was divorced by his wife. The wife remarried and had other children. When that person's descendant in the class was preparing a fact sheet to be displayed on the wall at school, he asked if he should include information about the divorce. We talked about it briefly, and I ended up saying that I thought he probably should include the information. This was a fact-gathering project, and we had specifically written information on the spouses when it was available, in other cases. The student involved did not seem particularly conflicted about the matter.
In researching my own family history, I found reference to a document on public record where one of my ancestors announced that, since his wife had left him, he would no longer be liable for any financial transactions she was involved in. I told the class about what I found.
I read a book recently about a woman I knew. Later I heard the woman's brother say of the book, "I haven't gotten very far in the book, but already I've found things I wish he [the author] would not have written." I tried to think what the brother might have been referring to. Assuredly, the author wrote only truthful things. Was there family history he was embarrassed by? If so, it didn't stick long enough in my memory to know what he might have meant. Did it diminish my appreciation for the woman's brother? Certainly not. Did it reflect negatively on the woman who was the subject of the story? If so, I can't remember that either. The context of the story is so complete and sympathetic overall that I couldn't muster up any feelings of condemnation if I tried, even if imperfections came to light.
Someone asked me recently if I would write about unpleasant things in my own experience if they reflected negatively on someone I loved (I'm paraphrasing the exact question). I said I thought I would, if I felt that doing so was truthful and could be a help to someone else. Mentally at least, I was rehearsing how carefully I would want to do that, providing sympathetic context whenever possible, and providing just enough detail to be clear.
Later, it occurred to me that I would be less likely to write about the unpleasant things closest to me than I would be to grant others permission to write them, assuming I could feel that others would exercise the same carefulness I envisioned if I was doing it myself. While there would be an emotional cost either way, I think the relational cost would be far less with someone else doing the writing, particularly if everyone involved will go on relating to each other in some way.
I finally figured out what to call this conflictive area that has occupied a lot of my thinking the last while when I came upon a book titled The Ethics of Life Writing by Paul John Eakin, 2004. Part of the book is available online, and I read enough of it to learn that others have given considerable thought to this dilemma. I am not alone in mulling it over.
Believing that this is a dilemma only to humans and not to God, I have prayed for insight, and reflected on clues available in Scripture. I've talked to Hiromi and Joel, and to my uncle, who is an editor. While not everything is clear, the fog is lifting a bit, and certain truths are emerging. In no particular order, here is what I see now:
1. Truthfulness is important. That does not mean we will always say all that we know. It does mean that when we engage in conjecture, we will be clear about what we're doing.
2. The motivation for writing is important. Vindictiveness is an evil motivation. Desire to see God Himself honored or Godliness in others honored are good motivations. Willingness to reference sad situations or wrong actions in others can happen out of either good or bad motivations. Providing titillating detail or having a morbid preoccupation with particularly dark elements of a story would be wrong. Christian writers ought to pray for understanding of their own motivations.
3. Stories in Scripture are sometimes brutally frank in their portrayal of wrongdoing and evil intent. Sometimes no accompanying sympathetic commentary is present. Just the facts. The Bible tells us that the stories are given for our learning.
4. By its nature, writing about another's life is an intrusive undertaking. Getting information is a necessity, and the ones best able to provide it are also likely to be deeply invested in the result. This makes the outcome a potential minefield, and unwelcome bad-memory explosions are easy to trigger. Any individual source can, of course, be as selective as they choose about the information they provide. Writers expect and understand such selectivity. That's why they usually do not limit themselves to one information source, or one perspective on what is appropriate to write about.
5. A writer would be wise to make clear, up front, when soliciting information, that the purpose is indeed to seek information, not permission.
6. Christian principles must be considered when information is shared, not only professional or legal codes.
7. In a story about another's life, the person who lived the life and the people who choose how to respond to what they learn from that life are the principal players in the scenario. The writer is a conveyor of truth, not a creator of it.
8. A written piece, as is true for many other pieces of life, may present an opportunity for a person exposed to it to re-process experiences from the past. Whether the exercise turns into a positive or a negative for the reader is not primarily under the writer's control.
9. A written account is most effective when the story is allowed to speak for itself. Strong verbs and images are far more memorable than anyone's conclusions or the most skillfully selected adjectives. While this is more an issue of art and craft than ethics, a writer who ignores these realities risks not being being able to enter the "marketplace" at all. An unread story has no more impact than an unwritten story.
10. If a story needs to be told and is too "hot" to handle, using pseudonyms might be considered. If a person is writing autobiographically, he or she can simply write anonymously. If the story is about someone else, false names can be used instead of real names. As a writer, I would have no qualms about doing this if appropriate disclaimers were present. But I can see it presenting a dilemma to people whose story is being told. I doubt that most people would choose anonymity if the entire story was laudatory. But what if 1% of it were true but not laudatory? Or more than 1%? Or what if a negative element received a bare mention, but was particularly embarrassing? I know of no reliable formula for determining the tipping point where the choice becomes clear between anonymity and true identity. I do not see routine banishment of the 1% to be a wise choice.
If you're still reading, I thank you for your perseverance. Now you know how things look to me and you may have identified some opinions of your own.
What am I missing? Do you see things differently?
I'd love to hear about it.
posted by Mrs. I at
7:26 PM
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