We Must Earn Your Attention
And While We’re At It, Splash Some Hot Sauce on Your Breakfast Burrito
BY DAVID S. LEWIS
It’s hard to say how many of you read Justin Case’s little ramble last month on funemployment, so here’s a summary: It was an editorial advancing the idea that many people are incentivized to avoid employment because they prefer to get paid by the state for not working. Justin’s got nerve, you have to admit, taking on such a sensitive issue these days, joblessness, and turning it on its head. People then wonder if I, the editor, agree with such a proposition, or if I need to, and here’s what I have to say about that—What interests me is giving readers something worth reading, something that makes sense, something relevant that makes them think, and that’s written in a way that allows them to easily digest it along with their Breakfast Burrito at the local coffee shop. No one asks, after all, if the owner of the shop likes the Breakfast Burrito, because what’s important is simply that you are able to enjoy your tidy little meal and digest the contents. Same here.
What is required is that Justin make sense. Thoughts and words have to flow in such a way that readers clearly understand the intent of the editorial or news story. And if the phrasings make sense, in their parts and as a whole, then the piece works, it persuades or convinces, and in my judgement Justin succeeded in making his case.
In a related matter, I bought some audio books lately, a great little invention for those of us who are from time to time too lazy to read. People ask me what I read, and I tell them I read the Montana Pio-neer over and over again. What I mean by that is that out of necessity I read the contents of this publication repeatedly (so that it’s actually readable by the time it’s in your hands), and that as a result pleasure reading takes a back seat, in part because of the stress on my eyes, neck, shoulders, and so forth, as I focus on a computer screen for so many hours at a time, though I love to read. So, I bought audio books, and I began listening as someone read to me, just as when I was a child, although the readings are somewhat more advanced now, but only somewhat, and after the experience I’m considering revisiting Dr. Seuss, maybe a little Green Eggs and Ham, the cadence of which rings in my mind after all these years and the hearing of which was more satisfying than the audio books. The issue then, relating to our premise, is, why should I bother listening to, reading, or publishing the words somebody happens to throw together on a page, or an MP3 file, with any degree of enthusiasm or attention, and why should you? What could a writer have to say that interests us, or holds our attention for the number of minutes or hours it takes to digest their thoughts, phrases, story, theories or narcissis-tic rambling?
Pat Hill certainly turns out good stuff (see page 15). We usually confer regarding topics and content, so that you will have something worth reading by the time we go to press. But writing is a tricky thing. Much of it is boring, or written by people who have good ideas, but who are boring writers, or worse, by those who write poorly.
After stumbling through a few yawners lately, audio and in print, I came across another (so I thought), The Rational Optimist by Matt Ridley. It’s not exactly John le Carré, mind you. And some of it, frankly, I skimmed or skipped, but it turned out to be worthwhile, and the author, though steeped in several doctrines I avoid, turns a lot of conventional thought on its ear. In his own way, Ridley turns human history on its ear (the way history has been taught) by showing just what it is that has been the driving factor in most societies that have offered people peaceful, high quality lives—the impetus and sustaining element—and it’s something nobody has ever done before. Ridley can be textbook tedious, not always a joy to read, like a Burrito in need of hot sauce, and at first I thought I could have summed up his book in 50 words. That still may be so, but, as with hypnosis, repetition induces belief, and I began to believe because the guy covers his subject so well.
The basic idea is that mankind is doing just fine if we look at the big picture (history), having steadfastly and monumentally improved his condition, his standard of living, his health, education, and much more over the last 10,000 years, mostly as a result of one key activity, and in the absence of that activity, one that brings peace, his world has devolved into despair, drudgery, disease, and war. There, I said it in 50 words—no need for you to read the book, except that I left out the key factor (hint: see story page 9), the same way you don’t reveal how a movie ends, unless it’s a dog like Eat Pray Love, Eat Love Pray, whatever it’s called, because nobody cares how it ends—read the book, it’s probably better than the movie, or better yet listen to it.
In an intellectual sense though, Ridley is a bad ass. His power is in his depth, details, discipline, and the fact that you can use his book for something more than a doorstop.
Justin Case, on the other hand, applies hot sauce. He captures what he has to say and wraps it around your head like a Kashmiri turban. He’s not an intellectual bad ass, he’s just a bad ass, one who slays with honesty, and runs suspensefully up to the line that separates candor from offense, dances around it, then comes back and says have a nice day like nothing ever happened. I’m sure he offends some, but were that not the case, he would hardly have proffered anything of interest, let alone something you would suffer through while wolfing down that Breakfast Burrito.
Wish I could write like that.
