Quietly Subversive
A prominent entity (I think that defines them sufficiently) recently described my writing as “quietly subversive.” Was this an insult or a compliment. Should I be calling the NUJ for advice or laughing over a pint in my local, Joe May's?
Either way, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Not because I objected to it. Quite the opposite. I'll even admit to a mild blush, because honestly, there was something in the description that I recognised.
So it kicked off a moment or two of self-exploration. And the more I explored, the more I realised. Subversive didn't bother me a jot, I've been called much worse and in rooms where the stakes were much higher. No, it was the word quietly that upset my normal daily comfort. It was forcing me to walk backwards through my own history to retrace how I actually put pen to paper. Or more accurately how I sketch out the ambitions and boundaries of an essay.
I have been deliberately writing in a particular way for a very long time, way more than forty years. I take things that seem familiar or settled, examine the assumptions underneath them, and sometimes move one thing. Not much. Just enough to see whether anything changes. The rhythm is simple: Take something familiar. Move one thing. Look again.
What I hadn't fully appreciated was how pervasive the practice had become. Like discovering your vegetable garden is overrun with Japanese knotweed. You know you planted it. That tiny sprig to make use of one corner. Then you blink, and your heart beats double when you discover just how far it has travelled underground.
A way of seeing
It was probably lazy of me to accept all these things as techniques. Ways of writing. Ways of teaching. Ways of organising information. The quietly description is pushing me to ask if something runs deeper. A way, not of writing, not of organising, but of seeing and of asking if you want to see it too.
I am a democrat. That sounds like the political grammar version of a doorstop. I'll just wedge this under here; it'll stop things waving around and everyone will know what I mean. I was going to say it's a statement of the obvious, but it's not. And that not most definitely has consequences for how I think about knowledge and decision-making.
I don't believe that democratic decision-making means everyone arriving at an opinion and then counting the opinions. Ending with the “ayes have it”. Though what happens to the “nays” is a job for another essay.
There is an asymmetry before we ever get to that point. Someone usually has more power to define the question. To define the terms. To decide what is relevant. To determine the sequence in which things are presented. And sometimes, most importantly, to determine what appears to be possible. And if you don't know that another possibility exists, you can't choose it. That may sound like another one of those door-stops. But this one has profound consequences.
The walls we cannot see
One of the ideas I've been exploring elsewhere is that a prison doesn't necessarily need walls if the prisoner believes there is nowhere else to go. I wonder if we don't all suspect this. That constraint can become internal. The walls disappear from sight because the possibility beyond them has disappeared from imagination.
Do you think it's possible that something similar happens in public life? That a system doesn't necessarily have to prevent an alternative. It may be enough if alternatives never become visible.
So what if, as a writer, I choose not to craft adversarial prose, take one position, or submit op-ed pieces to the Irish Times? What if I decide that I don't want to tell people what to think? What if, instead, I try to use my way of seeing to make other possibilities visible? To illustrate that there may be more choices than were first imagined? Because if I carry one opinion, it is this:
People should be able to see what they are choosing between.
So, my writing is not seeking to provide an answer or advocating for a fixed position. It is offering another place from which to stand and look, as honestly as I can. And then, leave the decision up to you.
Quietly Subversive
David Marshall
Dublin