Address to the Society of Young Publishers

Posted on April 14, 2010 in Uncategorized

A friend and collaborator just e-mailed to say he enjoyed my use of Hanif Kureishi’s formulation on multiculturalism in my remarks at Goldsmiths College:

‘Multiculturalism’, he says, ‘is the idea that one might be changed by other ideas’. It is a movement based on the dialogic exchange of ideas, even traditions, based on ‘the idea that purity is incestuous’.

I have used it in another speech recently, to the Society of Young Publishers annual conference, in Oxford last December. In the interests of posting something new to the blog on a Monday morning, here is the speech I wrote. It is not necessarily the one that I actually gave, but until Jon Slack uploads a video of the proceedings, I’m safe. The discussion was on ‘The Responsibility to Publish’, and I shared the panel with Chris Brazier, Co-Editor at the New Internationalist, Sarah Totterdell, Head of Oxfam’s publications department, and Alan Samson from Orion Books.

On being asked to speak at this event, I was terrified that I was going to end up speaking in tautologies. If you’re at the Society of Young Publishers, then you’re already speaking to a group of people who are, by definition, of the belief that publishing is a civic good, that they are part of civil society.

So, I want to say more. Let’s go the whole hog. My first thought is this: That of The Arts, it is literature and publishing, that has by far the greatest impact on politics.

Films and music might tap in to the Zeitgeist. They might be the anthem of the summer, they might be the film that sums up the decade.
And the fine arts, and design, might capture something about the kind of society and where we are.

But I don’t think they can hold a candle to books, when it comes to defining, shaping, evolving political and social ideas. Only books have the space to really develop a thought. Books are the primary medium, for where philosophy happens.

Most explicitly in non-fiction books, of course. Behind all political movements are academic and political tracts. Investigative journalism which sets an agenda.

But also fiction. I haven’t done a count, but I think you’ll all agree with me, that it is still the characters and the narratives of fiction that allow us the appropriate metaphors for political discussion, more so than films or TV. I work for a Free Speech charity so Orwell is the obvious example. If you want to talk about social class, colonialism and race, sexuality, war, marginalisation and alienation, you’ll find that there are characters, narratives to help you describe it. And those same books are what form our ideas and our values on these things in the first place.

Books also inform other arts too. I was looking at the top 20 grossing films of the 21^st Century (so far), and twelve of them are adaptations of books. Maybe not the most high-brow books – they’re all superheros and fantasy – but it is worth noting that these franchises started in print.

So let me draw that line in the sand. Let’s all stand on the same side, we’re among friends here, let’s be arrogant about it: Literature has a unique power among the arts. It is the first and most effective of the arts to change society. So rather than interrogate the question of whether we have a responsibility to society, I’m going right ahead and claiming that we have more responsibility than everyone else! I’m claiming a leadership role for publishers, amongst the arts.

I’m claiming a ‘meta’ role for publishing too. Its the medium by which we change everything else, from cooking, to environmentalism. Because you don’t have the detail anywhere else. If I talk about having the keys to the printing press, I think am mixing my proverbs, but there is something important about the custodial role, the task you are charged with. In terms of publishing’s place in society, I would actually elevate it to the level of other great institutions: Like the police force, a healthy publishing industry is something that is essential if you want to call a group of people ‘society’.

(This speech originally featured on Robert Sharp’s blog: http://www.robertsharp.co.uk/)