I don’t speak much on this blog about my personal faith, but I’ve found something useful to say to a broad audience.  I won’t go into the details of my conversion, but it suffices to say that I experienced a conversion several years ago and entered the Catholic Church several months afterward.  I’ve been through enough phases of spirituality to vet myself of most of the nasty bits (the parts that cradles criticize us for–"convert’s zeal" and all that), and I’ve come to the conclusion that I would not have passed through those phases if I had had my way.  Like most converts, I began my conversion with a desire that did not nearly match my wisdom.  But I was slowed down by catechesis, and I’ve found that I’m grateful for it.

As is probably evident to regular readers of "Refuge," I don’t put much stock in nonintellectual forms of spirituality.*  I think that approach is partly derived from academic snobbery (and if you know me, you know that’s a factor in all my personality traits), but it’s mostly derived from my catechetical experience.  There’s the pragmatic concern of eliminating overzealous behavior that I mentioned above, but there’s also an issue of truth. 

If someone  is entering a religion, that someone generally is entering into a truth claim.  Christianity, even in its most nonintellectual forms–indeed, even its anti-intellectual forms–proclaims not only to be the truth, but worship a man who proclaimed himself to be the Truth.  With that in mind, I question the wisdom (if not the motives) of people who insist on "salvation prayer" conversions after a short talk and Bible discussion.**  Such conversions are bound to be short-lived because the faith is generally of an emotional nature, rather than of a truly spiritual nature.  Spirituality, in my mind, cannot be based on emotion because emotion is purely subjective.  If someone is to experience spirituality, that someone must find the objective truth behind it–or the lack thereof.

My $0.02. 

*Generally practiced by people who describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious."  I’m not confident that someone can be one without the other in some capacity.

**I’m not, of course, generalizing this tendency to Protestants or Evangelicals.  There are a great many of those who insist on intellectual discussion before someone fully converts.

I’ve given a lot of thought to the subject of the last post, especially since later that evening I read the introduction (sort of) to Cory Doctorow’s latest novel.  In it, he defends the viability of his CC license business model, on the basis of two assumptions: downloads will lead to print sales, and writers will start to raise more income through speaking engagements.

Regarding downloads-print sales: If I remember correctly, Doctorow cites this argument under short-term benefits of his business model.  He gives explicit indication that the connection has certainly been true of his books.  I’m more or less willing to buy into this assumption, as he does, in the short term.

Speaking engagements: This issue is a bit more sticky, I think.  Most writers are solitary sorts, hiding in their writing cabins and only coming out when their publishers threaten them with a decline in royalties.  Doctorow accounts for this eventuality by stating that the marketplace will favor authors who are also good speakers, and I can see the logic in his argument.  Certainly, Stephen King and J.K. Rowling could charge a speaking fee to rival former President Clinton (last I heard, it was $100,000).  But I make that statement on the basis of their vociferous fan bases–what if their literary reputations lived and died largely on their public speaking talents?  King could probably do well, and I’ve never seen Rowling speak; still, the idea gives me pause.  I also think that Doctorow fails to account for how the expanding Internet will likely reduce demands for lectures–surely, a camera or two will sneak into the audience and post the event on BitTorrent.  Doctorow’s idea intrigues me, and gives me a little hope (I’ve discovered that I’m quite good in front of a crowd), but I’m still unsure if he’s right. 

I don’t consider this blog literature–at least not yet.  Right now, it’s just the space for another blowhard (that would be me) to vent his opinions and try to hide his faults.  Maybe one day I’ll get it up to the point of literature,* but I haven’t done so yet.

That said, I am intrigued by digital publishing of popular literature.  To date, no major author has achieved a satisfactory result in digital publishing.**  I remember that Stephen King made a foray into ebook-dom, but the story later appeared in print.  Several authors (including Gaiman) offer ebooks, but they use the extremely restrictive Adobe ebook format and are (to my knowledge) always offered alongside print books.  That format, in my mind, is not true digital publishing because it does not differ from the printed version.

While surfing, though, I did find an example of what I consider true digital publishing: Cory Doctorow’s "Craphound" site.  Doctorow’s model uses both print and online publishing: he publishes science fiction books via Tor (a major publisher of the genre), but releases the same books as ebooks that are protected by a Creative Commons license.  A CC license, of course, allows varied amounts of reprinting according to the preference of the author–for example, my CC license allows reprinting in non-commercial use and with attribution.  A CC license is perfectly suited to a blog and to open-access publishing (mostly done by scientific and medical journals) because the Internet is a free-for-all that cannot be restricted in the same way that print can.  Fiction authors, though, typically depend on royalties and brand protection.  Doctorow’s use of the CC is unique, then, because it cuts into his royalties and increases the chance that his writing will be pilfered by others.  His bio states, of course, that he does not mind either.

The problem, of course, arises: Can a fiction author make a decent living purely off digital publishing novel and stories?  Doctorow, for example, is a fairly prominent freelance writer in addition to being a novelist and short story writer.  To be successful in digital publishing, must an author derive income from other sources?  This question lies at the heart of digital publishing, because the endeavor will simply not be successful until people can make money from it.

*As, I would argue, Neil Gaiman has done over the course of several years.  I think his blog will someday be considered among his literary works, and hopefully it will be preserved long after he kicks the blogging habit. 

 **I seem to remember that an online novel (later printed in traditional format) involving the subway grew to some popularity.  I remember seeing it linked on Gaiman’s blog, and I have completely forgotten any info about it.  Anyone else have an idea?

—–

Neil Gaiman writes,

If I were only allowed to read or enjoy art or listen to music made by people whose opinions and beliefs were the same as mine, I think the world would be a pretty dismal sort of a place….Ezra Pound was a fascist, an antisemite on a level that makes the Aryan Nation seem wishy washy, a traitor (or at best, a collaborator), and I’m very glad I got to read his poetry, and appreciate it and learn from it.

I remember my first real encounter with the conflict between dislike of the author and appreciation of the author’s work.  It was in a poetry class, and my professor explained how he thought that the great suicidal poets (think Sylvia Plath) "sacrificed" themselves to bring us beautiful art.  I remember being utterly repulsed by the argument, but intrigued nonetheless.  Certainly, the world would have been a better place if Plath had enjoyed a well-adjusted, blissful existence–but would her poetry have been any good?  I would argue that it would have been good, maybe even canonical, but it may not have been revolutionary.  I then stretched the analogy a bit: Ezra Pound was certainly all the things that Gaiman listed.  Would he have been the great poet we think of today had he been, say, a supporter of the allies and a friend to the Jews?  Maybe so.  Maybe not.  I think we can all agree that we would rather Pound had not been a maniacal anti-Semite, regardless of his literary output.

The problem manifests itself in my mind, then, as a conflict between people and art.  Which do we value more?  Which contributes more to society?  Plath could have, I don’t know, lived on to make great strides in women’s rights.  Pound could have, I don’t know, helped the clandestine operations to help Jews escape from Italy.  Both artists could have made great strides for humanity alongside their literary accomplishments, but (respectively) her depression and his racism stood in the way. 

But then we arrive at another conflict: is the world better because of their art as it stands?  I’m not convinced that it is.  I don’t have enough critical knowledge of Plath or Pound to judge how influencial depression and racism (respectively) was in their canonical work (as opposed to political activism).  But I do think that if they were able to live better, more productive lives, the world would be better for it, even if we did not have their fabulous literary accomplishments as well.