I am in my noir fanfiction and my literary fiction an American Realist. That's a chauvinist and gauche way to say it, I know. United States Realist has no history nor poesy so American Realist it is. As an exception.
We are in the habit in this country of having unsettled ways. We do not disrupt a culture as much as disrupt disruption with our innovations. We are historically outsiders. We do not quite belong. That is why writers who deal in gritty Realism are called American Realists. It is our literature, our milieu.
Outsiders are notoriously the Devil's substrate. He feeds there. And so does tomorrow. And so do American Realist writers. Notice that I do not say that outsiders are evil, just that the Devil feeds on them. Certain Middle Eastern types do not understand that differentiation. To them a nation of outsiders is evil when, in fact, we may only lack wisdom.
If I feed where the Devil feeds does that make me of him? Are American Realists evil? Plato once made an impassioned plea for censorship based on the construct of casual tales told by casual persons being destructive to social existence. We decided that question in favor of a marketplace of ideas in which Realists are in good standing. That of course begs the question of the malevolence of the practice, of the perspective.
In my opinion, which counts since it informs my behavior, I am not quite Evil. I observe and recount the Other Side of moral social existence as existing which it does. Take it or leave it. Study that milieu or be blindsided by it. I have a sorcerer character who justifies his inclusion in society as being like an incidental pathology. One feels much better when it's over and one develops resistance in the process.
American Realism is in the curious position of that sorcerer, possibly harming social existence while increasing its robust nature. It's a dynamic. And not quite Evil.
Do Well and Be Well.
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