The writer in me distrusts the good citizen, the 'intellectual ambassador,' the human rights activist - those roles which are mentioned in the citation for this prize, much as I am committed to them. The writer is more skeptical, more self-doubting, than the person who tries to do (and to support) the right thing.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The writer inside Sontag distrusts rigid roles like activist or ambassador because writing requires skepticism and self-doubt unlike those roles.
- In plain terms
- Writers need to be more skeptical and less confident than activists.
- What can you take from it?
- Writing demands skepticism and doubt, which conflicts with confident activist roles.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Can you be a writer and an activist?
- Is doubt necessary for creativity?
Another view
Some writers successfully combine activism and writing without contradiction.
More from Susan Sontag
We are told we must choose - the old or the new. In fact, we must choose both. What is a life if not a series of negotiations between the old and the new? It s…
Permalink to quote #63 Literature is dialogue; responsiveness. Literature might be described as the history of human responsiveness to what is alive and what is moribund as cultures …
Permalink to quote #65 'Old' and 'new' are the perennial poles of all feeling and sense of orientation in the world. We cannot do without the old, because in what is old is invested …
Permalink to quote #62
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