Written February 27, 2012
Independent idea trigger: Philosophizing (gah! why? I really don't know) about the limits on our freedoms in writing exercises...
So I was wondering, how free are we in these writing assignments? I would think, as vehicles for our expression, practice for growth as a writer, etc. etc., there should be as few restrictions as possible, so we can best develop our craft, etc. etc. But then we run into difficulties related to taste: should we be allowed to include prejudices, stereotypes, sexism, racism, profanity, or even sexual content?! (These roughly in order of offensiveness.) Not that I'd particularly want to--I tend to avoid these things myself. But how far can (or could) we push it before our attempts to more farther in the development of our writing skills runs into the wall of censorship, aka keeping such improprieties out of student work? And if some are permitted (the first two especially spring to mind here, as denying prejudices would be tantamount to denying your writing voice), then why not the others? As so often we have an unresolvable (at least, and in my mind, not satisfactorily resolvable) dilemma between pragmatism and principle...
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