07/11/2014
About Writing
I have been asking myself how to develop my critical writing in order to organise my intellectual skills between thinking, analysing and criticising. But first it is important to understand that there is a feeling of insecurity before that process. Such feeling is well based on a concrete foundation of years of formal education telling us -students- how great the authors are, how unreachable, how stupendous: everything we are not (also considering the same evaluation processes established to whole diverse range of students in terms of needs and time of learning, which is like a funnel that only a few will pass through). One of the most important Brazilian authors, Machado de Assis, said that the Brazilian Academy of Letters was an “ivory tower”, as they were the ones who would write the pages of history, while the history is made “outside”. The traditional way to look up great authors is how they are differentiated and classified. And the gap between us and them increases inasmuch as we “learn” and develop our reading skills.
At school, we learn how to write. But one thing is knowing how to write; another is to get our readers to understand us; another is to do a critical writing; and a whole other thing is to write well.
But how to do a good critical writing? First we need to deconstruct everything we have learned so far about those we read. I will talk from the point of view of institutionalisation of writing. Of course I consider that families with libraries in their houses and easy access to books are deeply privileged and will create a total different environment to able someone’s writing. But the school is how we project our heroes systematically through the reading list suggested in the curriculum; through our teachers’ voices (who outside of the school is just a person, but inside it is a figure whose thoughts and knowledge have a different weight); on the corridors; and how/why some authors are selected on a specific date to celebrate a specific topic. I am not saying we should not value literature. I am criticising how schools do it.
The “boxes” we are putted in since our first year of school is already devastating to any teeny sparkle of creativity. Norms are imposed about what kind of handwriting we are supposed to have; since kindergarten we are told the topic of our essays, and after a while we have difficulties to create our own topics whenever the teacher says “free topic”; two generations ago we could not even choose which hand to write with (it would forbid left-handed. I saw my grandfather shaking to write with his right hand, and whenever he would try to use his left hand his handwriting was difficult to read due to poor practice. It goes on with that idea that “at that age, she/he is supposed to be doing this or that”. Some schools have the concern to promote the pleasure of reading. For those that actually achieve that goal, the student is half way to a good writing. But the normativity goes on, and students are supposed to be autonomous writers by a certain age, when they reach a certain scholar year. If it was not for that, the name “late bloomers” addressed for writers after the “normal” age would not make much of sense. What is to be late bloomer writer, anyway? What age define that? Why? And why do we reproduce that?
Those “boxes” made me believe that I would never play well the piano, because I started with twelve, and not three, as Mozart did. And I would never ride a horse for competition as well as those girls who were born in a farm (or had money to maintain a horse and ride it since she was a kid) - and even worse: to overcome the idea that riding a horse is also something that girls can do. I always felt “kind of” secure to write, until I started to write in a different language than Portuguese and that is when my writing style got confused: to build a whole vocabulary in English or Spanish about the concepts I want to use is challenging enough; but now writing in Portuguese and often getting puzzled with translations and “false friends” of the languages make the “ride” a more adventure, challenging and difficult task for me. At the end, I played the piano, rode horses and I am writing my thoughts right now. I know I could have been a great horse rider, not so great as a pianist because I am really not good at it. But the timing and the style depends on how we give our own “touch” in our own time.
For me, it is very difficult to read Bauman. His paragraphs are way too long and sometimes I get lost with the way he presents his ideas. But I can not deny that his geniality is inspiring using the metaphor to explain how “liquid” our contemporary society is. It is also liquid the process of writing, an activity that demands some of our intellectual, objectivity, emotions, and so many other mixtures of feelings and thinkings that sometimes curdle our writing productivity. I can borrow one of his analysis on love, to understand the process of writing. He argues that nowadays everyone is concerned to master the technique, the performance, and that leaves no room (or time) for ecstasy. Writing may be painful or horrendous because before thinking in writing, it is important to “break some boxes”, the boundaries that has been thought since school, and going beyond techniques, vocabulary, grammar. Between the brain, arms, hands, fingers there are a whole process that requires freedom and concentration. The style and critical writing will depend on the familiarity we have first, with ourselves (what our ideas are) and then how we may relate with other authors’ thoughts.
Although there is no recipe for a good critical writing, I find always helpful a mind map to organise the initial script and main concepts we cannot forget to write, and allow ourselves to choose our path along with the writing. No handcuffs, no boxes, and yes, some creativity. Making sure our readers will take more time thinking about what we have said instead of look up some difficult words on the dictionary. Moreover, in a political point of view, always remember that sociologists analyse the society, a certain group, or a small group of individuals. For whatever that is, I believe it is important to have solidarity on the knowledge we are producing and spread it as accessible and democratic as possible.
Katucha Rodrigues Bento ®
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