Why I write

Someone once told me that certain Native American tribes did not believe in the power of the written word. They believed that words, once spoken or written, were like feathers on the wind that could be scattered and dispersed. Actions were the true test of trustworthiness. While I do not think that actions are unimportant, I strongly feel that this ideology is somewhat flawed. While any promise can be made or broken, words have an inherent power. Specifically, the written word has a unique force that is not apparent in other facets of language. The written word can challenge ideology, manifest the controversial, and cause people to critically interrogate the world in which they live. It is for these reasons that I write.
Historically, it has been written works that have most strongly challenged the dominant ideologies of cultures and governmental systems. Such novels as Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire constantly emerge, causing people to question their government and their cooperation with it, awakening the mind to the harsh realities of the continued existence of oppression today. This happened historically with such writers as Karl Marx and even the founders of the United States of America, who used print newspaper to advance their cause and help people understand the reason that the monarchy must be challenged. As a debater, I love reading these ideas, and can only hope to be able to put some of them into practice in my lifetime. The thought processes that such writing stirs in me leads me to constantly interrogate and contextualize such ideologies in the face of our own system of representative democracy and global market capitalist system. These authors create in me an intensity and excitement that cannot be contained, and must flow out. This has taken place most often in my writing, as my journal entries, letters to the editor, and even my senior project have been infused with principles that do not occur in the dominant mainstream media or literature. The power of the written word is intricately related to my own desire to write, as the process of reading what others have written intensifies that desire. I hope that one day our society will turn away from the mainstream media and take up their own ideas, refusing to engage any longer in a system that asks only for an increase in the size pocketbooks and not the development of their minds and hearts.
Tied to the idea of challenging dominant philosophies and structures is the precept that the written word has the ability to manifest the controversial. Writers such as Karl Marx and Malcolm X experienced an extreme amount of criticism from their peers, even unto violence. Yet in the presence of such strong criticism, their writing was accomplishing its work. People were confronted with radical ideas and forced to reevaluate what they believed. We see this happen today as well. People write letters to the editor in order to stir up controversy, leading people to think differently about their own stances. In Cal Poly’s Mustang Daily, a letter was written a few years ago that described Liberal Studies majors as desperate women, waiting around to catch an engineer husband. This letter was highly controversial at the time, but it ultimately caused people to defend Liberal Studies as a legitimate major. This ultimately dispelled a portion of the existing stigma that had been attached to the Liberal Studies Major. As a debater, I have written arguments simply for the sake of creating controversy. However, the controversy created by reading such arguments as the advocacy of the ‘Scum Manifesto’ has always led my fellow debaters and me to seriously think about why our beliefs exist and how they came to be. This process of constantly shifting and questioning through controversy is one of the reasons I love to write.
The written word has power to challenge the foundations of our beliefs and give the controversial byword a voice, thus leading us to genuinely question the world in which we live. I sincerely love writing, and believe in its ability to make my ideas (and the philosophies of others) both material and timeless. The ability to critically interrogate my world and effectively communicate that process of questioning is power in and of itself. It is for all of these reasons that I write.