Ethics plays a
huge role in the history of civilization, and literature is considered a
reliable history of citizens of different classes of society. However,
industrialization encourages people to escape the reality of intense work by
seeking reality entertainment. Therefore, entertainment industries are growing
rapidly and leaving ethics behind. How to balance literature to do its own
ethical job and stay entertaining is the question that is discussed in MarioVargas Llosa’s “With Pens Drawn.” As he suggests writers as creators and
readers as receptors need to take more ethical accountability for what they
write and read.
Writing purposefully,
raising a public voice, telling the truth and leaving room for active
interpretations are the main essentials for writers. Creating literature out of
words and playing with them in aesthetic ways is the beauty of literature. Thus,
if writers use words purposefully, they can enhance the quality of their
literary works. Literature has been the voice for ethnic groups throughout
history. For example, “War and Peace”, “Poor Folks”, “Remembrance of ThingsPast" and dozens of other pieces of literature come from the “street”; they
are the voice of the public that leads people to proper human behaviour. There
is an unfortunate tendency toward sensual fantasy rather the real need to
explore moral and ethical dilemmas in the industrialized world nowadays. Some
writers think that the real needs of first world citizens have been taken care
of. However, encouraging people toward “voyeurism” is contemptible in real
literature. In reality, it is difficult for a writer to stand against the
powerful entertainment industries. There are potential dangers for writers to
lose jobs if they avoid writing just for sensual pleasure. But in the third
word countries, writers lose their lives for telling the truth, which they see
as their main task. For instance, Mario Vargas points out at Ken Saro-Wiwas’
execution in Nigeria; he was a committed novelist and wrote the truth. The
developed world writers have to adopt the third worlds’ writers’ courage as
Mario Vargas proposes. Entertainment industries are potential employers for writers.
It is understandable, if writers do not want to do what these industries ask,
they lose their jobs. However, losing jobs and being degraded to the level of
the street class is the biggest life experience, which good writers need. It is
the street experience that helps writers to raise the public voice, and enables
them to engrave their names in the memory of real history. Allocating a free
space for imagination, which is the main element of profound writing is lacking
in the literature of industrialized countries, especially when a piece of
writing is transformed into a movie or broadcast on TV. Vargas believes because
there is no imagination involved in audio-visual, the information is not stuck in
the reader’s memory for long. It is obvious the forgetting information does not
change its reader’s behaviour. So, it is a writer’s job to free room for the
reader’s active imagination.
It is not only
writers, who are obligated to rescue literature from industrialization’s effects.
Readers also should stop going to movie theatres all the time, and push themselves
and their children toward active reading instead of watching TV. A movie makes millions
of dollars, yet a well sold book does not. If a reader goes as deep as literature
requires, they do not need to go to move theatres to pay for those industries
that exploit writers to do anything they want. The movie industries
disdainfully focus on their own prosperity and ignore literature’s real values.
Active reading, which is a combination of reading, thinking and acting, is the
most important aspect of successful education. Therefore, the new generation of
youth and children need to learn how to perform active reading to have a better
tomorrow than today. Spending time in front of TVs and computers jeopardizes
the opportunities for reading and “free thinking” as Mario Vargas also
believes. While reading there is a choice what to read, but with watching TV
there are few choices for them to learn.
