[et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ admin_label=”ADD Image” background_color=”#0bc1af” parallax_method=”off” padding_mobile=”on” custom_padding=”||0px|” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ next_background_color=”#f7f7f4″ background_image=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/01\/dickens-writing.jpg”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” custom_padding=”||0px|” padding_mobile=”on” parallax_method=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ background_color=”rgba(30,8,6,0.51)”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_divider height=”50″ divider_style=”solid” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”on” _builder_version=”3.0.64″ disabled_on=”on|on|off” color=”#ffffff” show_divider=”off” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”ADD Category” text_orientation=”center” text_font=”PT Sans|on|||” text_text_color=”#bcbcbc” border_style=”solid” text_letter_spacing=”2px” custom_margin=”||0px|” custom_padding=”||0px|” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″]<\/p>\n
POLITICS & ETHICS<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”ADD Title” text_orientation=”center” max_width=”660px” text_font_size=”72″ text_text_color=”#e0ddd9″ border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”18px||80px|” text_line_height=”1.1em” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|desktop” text_font_size_tablet=”52″ background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ background_layout=”dark” header_text_shadow_style=”preset5″]<\/p>\n Ghost of Writings Past<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section bb_built=”1″ fullwidth=”off” specialty=”off” transparent_background=”off” background_color=”#f7f7f4″ allow_player_pause=”off” inner_shadow=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” padding_mobile=”on” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” make_equal=”off” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”0px|||” prev_background_color=”#0bc1af” next_background_color=”#ffffff” custom_padding_tablet=”0px|||”][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”on” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”0px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_width_px=”620px” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_image admin_label=”Profile Pic” src=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/07\/chizpicpng.png” show_in_lightbox=”off” url_new_window=”off” use_overlay=”off” animation=”off” sticky=”on” align=”center” force_fullwidth=”off” always_center_on_mobile=”on” border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”-48px|||” _builder_version=”3.0.64″ max_width=”125px” animation_style=”none” animation_duration=”1000ms” animation_intensity_slide=”50%” show_bottom_space=”off” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Name” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”center” text_font=”PT Sans||||” text_font_size=”18″ text_text_color=”#323232″ text_line_height=”1.4em” border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”14px||0px|” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.0.64″ module_alignment=”center”]<\/p>\n \nSteve Chisnell<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”ADD Date” text_orientation=”center” text_font=”PT Sans|on|||” text_text_color=”#363636″ border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”0px|||” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ text_font_size=”24″]<\/p>\n 19 January 2019<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”on” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”0px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_width_px=”620px” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Lead Text” max_width=”620px” text_font_size=”24″ text_text_color=”#363636″ border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”40px||0px|” text_line_height=”1.4em” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ text_font_size_tablet=”22″]<\/p>\n For someone who writes, who teaches writing, I wonder how seldom I give myself time to reflect on why I write, why writing is critical, its necessity. Especially as we reduce our composition to Snaps and 140-character tweets, video and spoken word, and especially because I see an emerging tension between a composition of substance and one of efficiency, this space seems a likely one for some exploration.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text admin_label=”Part 2 Text” max_width=”620px” text_font_size=”20″ text_text_color=”#363636″ border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”30px||0px|” text_line_height=”1.5em” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ text_font_size_tablet=”16″]<\/p>\n I\u2019ve made some brief forays into this area through my journaling with my high school freshmen over the past few years, and some of these ideas will re-emerge here, though these were not the inspiration for this post. But, in some important sense, even in this political chaos, there must be an accountability for all composition. <\/span><\/p>\n When I blather about out loud, I value my ideas, but I don’t worry so much if everything makes sense, holds together coherently, exists without grotesque contradiction. \u00a0But by writing, when I inscribe (or in this case digitize) I hesitate and consider. I am not an oral wind which works too briefly to cool or heat, but more a smith working with steel that is quenched the moment I hit “Save” or “Publish.”<\/span><\/p>\n Writing is a publishing, then, even when it is written in a journal. Yes, though journals might be my private ideas, they are published <\/span>to me<\/span><\/i>, they speak back <\/span>to me<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0They remind me of who I am and of what I am supposed to be. \u00a0They make me accountable to them. <\/span><\/p>\n This must, then, be something I desire: to be slowed down, to be held accountable, to forge something more permanent about who I am. \u00a0Otherwise, I am just a wind, a breath of words which last too few decades of lifetime, perhaps cooling or heating the spaces I walk, but to which one may never return. <\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”off” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”on” custom_padding=”50px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_padding_tablet=”17px|||” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” custom_width_px=”830px” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” gutter_width=”2″ background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”3_4″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/01\/writing-belize.jpg” animation=”fade_in” sticky=”on” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_4″][et_pb_divider color=”#aeaeac” show_divider=”on” divider_style=”solid” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”off” custom_css_main_element=”width:130px;” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Photo Caption” text_text_color=”#363636″ border_style=”solid” text_font=”PT Serif||on||” text_font_size=”16″ text_line_height=”1em” custom_margin=”20px||0px|” max_width=”130px” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″]<\/p>\n Too infrequent, a place where there is little call but to write.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”on” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”0px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_width_px=”620px” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Part 3 Text” max_width=”620px” text_font_size=”20″ text_text_color=”#363636″ border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”46px||0px|” text_line_height=”1.5em” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ text_font_size_tablet=”16″]<\/p>\n Even so, like a blacksmith whose hands work automatically, charred and stained by the tungsten and coal of his craft, if I’m not careful, my writing can become routine, just another craft, no different from a ceramic ashtray, a retweet, or a <\/span>Transformers 14<\/span><\/i> film. <\/span><\/p>\n And writing shouldn’t be like that. When I stop taking risks, when the writing fails to poke readers straight in the eye like an olive fork, my brain turns off. \u00a0There is nothing efficient or routine about that sort of mark.<\/span><\/p>\n For me, the biggest challenge of writing, then, is the risk of not <\/span>really writing <\/span><\/i>but engaging only in a composition of efficiency, an exhibition of economy. \u00a0To write, when I am my best, is to saturate my words with moist layers of meaning, where readers–unable to pull the layers apart–can no longer determine if my idea is simple or complicated. \u00a0When I am at my best, the moist layers drip with irony, with image, with idea. When I am writing my best, I am thinking my best; and when I am thinking best, I feel the most human. <\/span><\/p>\n And writing is the movement of my thinking, the marking that I am here. \u00a0Artists make their marks in the world: they paint, they sculpt, they dance. \u00a0Writers–a talent that comes to humans from thinking–write. What the merit of a legacy left of monotony or mutability?<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”on” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”50px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_width_px=”620px” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_divider color=”#aeaeac” show_divider=”on” divider_style=”solid” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”off” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Pull Quote” text_font=”PT Serif||||” text_font_size=”32″ text_text_color=”#363636″ border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”16px||30px|” text_line_height=”1.3em” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” max_width=”900px” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″]<\/p>\n “And writing is the movement of my thinking, the marking that I am here. . . . What the merit of a legacy left of monotony or mutability?<\/span>“<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#aeaeac” show_divider=”on” divider_style=”solid” divider_position=”top” hide_on_mobile=”off” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”on” width_unit=”on” custom_width_px=”980px” use_custom_gutter=”on” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” parallax_3=”off” parallax_method_3=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” gutter_width=”2″ custom_padding=”30px|||” custom_padding_tablet=”6px|||” custom_padding_last_edited=”on|tablet” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/01\/write.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” animation=”off” sticky=”off” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2017\/04\/write.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” animation=”off” sticky=”off” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/01\/write-type.jpg” show_in_lightbox=”on” animation=”off” sticky=”off” use_border_color=”off” border_color=”#ffffff” border_style=”solid” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”on” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”0px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_width_px=”620px” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Part 4a Text” max_width=”620px” text_font_size=”20″ text_text_color=”#363636″ border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”46px||0px|” text_line_height=”1.5em” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ text_font_size_tablet=”16″]<\/p>\n But I also think that writing tests me. \u00a0When I don’t write, I am casually comfortable with my thoughts. That is, I’m not forced to think hard, and when I come upon an idea that challenges me, I can just ignore it. \u00a0But when that idea is written down–like a question about why I yelled while standing alone in my kitchen, just because I dropped a glass–I am not allowed to ignore it. I have to face it.<\/span><\/p>\n Writing about that kitchen glass, I have to ask myself, “Who was I yelling at or to?” \u00a0What was the point of yelling if no one heard me? And, does that mean I’m irrational or worse? <\/span><\/p>\n But if I do not write, I cannot know.<\/span><\/p>\n Sometimes I wonder how much I know. \u00a0I mean, when I’m thinking or talking on my own, a single idea comes out, one at a time. When I talk with friends, we talk about one topic at a time, and it’s always the ordinary ones: what kind of pizza to order, where we will meet, what the latest Netflix series is. Over and over.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”on” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”17px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_width_px=”620px” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”2_5″][et_pb_divider color=”#aeaeac” hide_on_mobile=”off” custom_css_main_element=”width:130px;” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ height=”75px” show_divider=”off” \/][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.19.6″ src=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/01\/dickens.jpg” align=”center” \/][et_pb_divider color=”#aeaeac” hide_on_mobile=”off” custom_css_main_element=”width:130px;” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ height=”75px” show_divider=”off” \/][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.19.6″ src=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/01\/scrooge.jpg” \/][et_pb_divider color=”#aeaeac” hide_on_mobile=”off” custom_css_main_element=”width:130px;” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ height=”75px” show_divider=”off” \/][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.19.6″ src=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/01\/tiny-tim.jpg” \/][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Part 4 Text” max_width=”620px” text_font_size=”20″ text_text_color=”#363636″ border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”30px||0px|” text_line_height=”1.5em” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ text_font_size_tablet=”16″]<\/p>\n But when I write, I get to find out that I know or believe something that even I hadn’t recognized. For instance, I had grown up with Charles Dickens’s <\/span>A Christmas Carol<\/span><\/i>, always the chains of Jacob Marley’s ghost, always Scrooge buying a Christmas Goose, and ever the insipid Tiny Tim blathering away. I don’t think I realized–until I wrote about it–how much I hated that idea of the world. \u00a0I hated the simple story, the simple idea of good and evil, the simple notion that the world would be made magically transformed by good ghosts or magic powers. <\/span><\/p>\n I thought Scrooge was a jerk, but I also thought Bob Cratchit was dumb for simply hoping life would get better. \u00a0The world doesn’t get better because we hope and wish, offer thoughts and prayers. It gets better when we make choices to be more human, more willful, more resolute, more active. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I guess somewhere in my head I had come to believe this, but until I had written about it, I didn’t really know how much I did. \u00a0Glasses in kitchens fall and break. The people around us don’t treat us fairly. Charles Dickens is foolish. If I yell to myself, it may be because I see that unfairness all the time. \u00a0And I write about that, too. Holding my words accountable, I realize my reading of Dickens was itself far too simple.<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” make_fullwidth=”off” use_custom_width=”on” width_unit=”on” use_custom_gutter=”off” custom_padding=”17px|||” padding_mobile=”on” allow_player_pause=”off” parallax=”off” parallax_method=”off” make_equal=”off” parallax_1=”off” parallax_method_1=”off” parallax_2=”off” parallax_method_2=”off” column_padding_mobile=”on” custom_width_px=”620px” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Part 4b Text” max_width=”620px” text_font_size=”20″ text_text_color=”#363636″ border_style=”solid” custom_margin=”30px||0px|” text_line_height=”1.5em” text_font_size_last_edited=”on|tablet” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat” background_size=”initial” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ text_font_size_tablet=”16″]<\/p>\n Recently, I heard two different podcasts relate parts of Dickens\u2019s story that I did not previously understand. One was an economics fight that Dickens had involved himself with as a motivation to write; more, the very concept of Christmas did not make its way fully into the mainstream (city) <\/span>consciousness until Dickens: that is, few thought the holiday was celebrated if you did not have the fireplace <\/span><\/a>and cetera. <\/span><\/p>\n After the British parliament had published a report in the 1840s about the terrible working conditions for children in England, Dickens (and many others) were furious. He saw the torturous conditions as being an extension of the heartlessness of thinkers like Adam Smith (<\/span>Wealth of Nations<\/span><\/i>) who said that we were driven primarily by self-interest and greed, and Reverend Robert Malthus who argued that our \u201csurplus population\u201d was the result of the pregnant poor and limited resources. \u00a0When England in 1834 passed the New Poor Laws–effectively making the conditions in workhouses far worse–the good Reverend Malthus supported them. <\/span><\/p>\n Dickens determined to write a pamphlet of protest on the issue (Thomas Paine, for instance, had made his career on such things, <\/span>even arguing in <\/span>The Rights of Man<\/span><\/i> for a system of welfare for the poor<\/span><\/a>, but Dickens wasn\u2019t looking for a system of government to change: he wanted the people to. Frederich Engels would read the same report and start a philosophy of revolution with Karl Marx, but Dickens believed revolution was a last resort. More, Dickens soon recognized that his fiction had the power of fable, of mythology, that it could develop a life of its own: he described it as a \u201csledge hammer\u201d blow that would impact these notions of a modern economy through the hearts of readers. <\/span><\/p>\n And so Scrooge mutters his \u201cdecrease the surplus population\u201d line to imitate Malthus, \u201cbusiness is business,\u201d to emulate Smith, and Tiny Tim becomes the casualty of workhouse coal. Inside the coat of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come are two children, Ignorance and Want. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThis boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″][et_pb_divider color=”#aeaeac” hide_on_mobile=”off” custom_css_main_element=”width:130px;” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ height=”75px” show_divider=”off” \/][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.19.6″ src=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/01\/dickens-2.jpg” align=”center” \/][et_pb_divider color=”#aeaeac” show_divider=”off” hide_on_mobile=”off” custom_css_main_element=”width:130px;” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ \/][et_pb_image _builder_version=”3.19.6″ src=”https:\/\/www.chisnell.com\/chizblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2019\/01\/workhouse.jpg” \/][et_pb_divider color=”#aeaeac” hide_on_mobile=”off” custom_css_main_element=”width:130px;” _builder_version=”3.19.6″ height=”75px” divider_position=”bottom” \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.19.6″ text_font=”|600|on||||||” text_font_size=”12px” custom_padding=”9px|9px|9px|9px” border_radii=”on|15px|15px|15px|15px” border_width_all=”2px” border_color_all=”#a37a00″]<\/p>\n