You were one of the first authors I subscribed to on Substack because your writing is so honest and authentic. Honesty in media is water in the desert; Substack is an oasis. Truth and dissent are never comfortable, but they are essential.
I think another reason for all the dishonest writing is a cultural explosion of exaggeration. I’m not sure anything in your list of motives really covers it. It’s just the way some people talk (and presumably think) now. Some people are so far down that hole that they can’t help themselves or notice anything wrong with it. There’s no profit motive for just running your mouth with things like “I had the worst day ever. My boss is a total tyrant, and she gave me a ton of work to do with a deadline of yesterday, and I about had a heart attack,” etc. That rhetorical habit naturally spills over into writing. “I hear it constantly from everybody!” (LOL) Blame Trump and Fox.
The writer who likely conveyed this advice is Julia Cameron, particularly from her book "The Artist's Way." Cameron advocates for a practice called "Morning Pages," where individuals write three pages of longhand stream-of-consciousness writing every morning. While the instructions you provided don't exactly match the Morning Pages practice, the emphasis on honest, unfiltered writing and the realization of hidden creativity align closely with Cameron's philosophy. (From ChatGPT)
This applies not just to writing. I sometimes see a high skilled vocalist perform and can't put my finger on why I don't enjoy them, despite their technical abilities. But I nearly always come around to realizing the problem is that I don't BELIEVE them when they sing. At some level, their performance seems contrived, not honest. Without honesty, any form of communication - musical, political, personal - doesn't work.
For what it’s worth, you really live up to your name as the Honest Broker. One of my favourite essays you’ve written is the one about evaluating someone’s character… looking at their spouse, and so on. I revisit it often. Thanks again; this food for thought is delicious.
Honest writing is not bound to the moment or circumstance of its creation. It’s the only writing capable of being timeless. Thanks for pointing in that direction.
No doubt these 21 reasons are applicable at times, but you ignore the most important reason writers are not honest, which is that it's very difficult to be honest. As one of the other commenters here pointed out, it's often not easy even to know what "honest" is. Martin Amis captured part of the problem in his phrase "the war against cliché," which is how he defined the writer's job. But fighting against cliché is hard and it's a struggle most of us lose most of the time. I think it might be useful to think of honesty in writing as a skill that takes time to develop. It's surely not an accident that you didn't feel you'd written a truly honest book until your 40s.
I agree, but, I think there is a clarification missing.
Honest writing does not equal unbiased or impartial writing.
It should mean we are honest about our opinions and our known biases. If everyone wrote honestly it wouldn't solve all the world's problems, but it would certainly big a step in the right direction.
Two events in college taught me to check my language and make sure I was saying what I was thinking as opposed to performative writing.
One was Zinsser's "On Writing Well" where he described how critics will often indulge themselves in negative reviews because it gives them an opportunity to exercise wit. I read this shortly after Facebook was a thing and recognized it in the rush of new media movie critics to every new Transformers and Twilight movie, competing over who could write the most vicious takedown. It made me reflect on my own "snark" and consider Zinsser's question: is it about the work, or about how smart you think you are? This is one reason why I only write "Movie Recommendations" rather than movie reviews: I'm not interested in reviewing or critiquing movies, I'm interested in pushing for good work to be seen.
The other college event was far more embarrassing. I had a ln assignment to go to a poetry reading event for the Masters degree students and write a review of the event. I wanted my paper to sound more "professional" so I wrote shit like, "The coy shrugs hidden behind nervous smiles as the poets lined up and fidgeted with their printouts." Something like that.
I don't remember what grade I received for the paper. It passed or whatever. But my professor took me aside after class and said, "You're too good of a writer to write that condescending New Yorker bullshit. Please be mindful that these poets were people and not subjects for your wordplay."
Man, I felt like shit, but I learned my lesson. I've been allergic to that type of writing ever since.
Anyway, this post is great, and it surprised me by being honest about "honesty." I was worried because in the name of "authenticity," journalism already gave us the experiential take, where instead of investigating corruption in the fast food market, "journalists" showed up to McDonalds and talked about their thoughts and feelings having a hamburger after two years of veganism, and what that MeAnS iN cUlTuRaL dIsCoUrSe, and it's been sour grapes in the whole "honesty and transparency" thing.
But yes, a good writer knows how to be honest, as opposed to confessional, about saying what they mean and meaning what they say.
I took a screenshot of your bullet points. I currently do Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages”. I’m going to up the ante by facing my biggest bully (inner critic) and being brutally honest. I actually do CARE what others think. What if they find it? What if my lyrics suck? It’s narcissistic of me to think anyone else is invested.
Thank you for the swift kick in the rear. One I desperately need…
Ted your writing is not only honest but sincere. Sensationalism, in my opinion, is the worst of the lot. Look at the clickbait and other feed sources. Our culture seems to addicted to the sensational. Perhaps it is a lack of soul that breeds this insatiable hunger for all things sensational.
When I write about popular music, I have to check the impulse to write in the voice of someone much more youthful and hip than I'll ever be--I'm tempted to use 'dope' as an adjective. But when I write about visual art, I feel expected to go the other way, toward a voice more formal and more academic than it really needs to be (often loaded up with technical jargon and theoretical positions). All of which is fine if that's the language and lens that is authentically yours, I suppose. But how refreshing (and healthy for music and art, I think) to write and to read writers with more honesty and integrity, less posturing and pretense and other forms of insecurity. As another comment put it earlier, it is in part a matter of taking the time to do it right (to sort out the honest authentic and original position, to weed out received ideas and shabby vocabulary), and time is not something every writer is granted by those who publish the writing.
The hardest thing about honesty is being honest with yourself. Few people will admit to lying. They'll look at those 21 motives and claim they were incidental to telling their truth. Some people, worrying about lying on those grounds will overcompensate in the other direction. I'm not going to make some grandiose post-modern statement against the possibility of truth, but I'll say it's damn hard to nail down. Lying is much easier - just as it's much easier to be misled than it is to seriously question the truth.
Some notes about Ted's style:
- Ted avoids the usual controversies on partisan and sectarian lines by doing his rhetorical ju-jitsu to stir up new controversies instead. I think his not engaging with those topics is an interesting way to tell the truth if you accept that most of what gets talked about in those areas is probably bullshit.
- Ted seems to have a generous opinion of others. Sure, he has his villains - the incompetent prime movers of the music industry, and big tech executives, for examples - but I can't remember him slagging on someone unless he believed it was justified by a personal moral outrage.
- Ted generally creates a lot of context around his stated opinions - relating documentation and evidence, crediting fellow authors, telling stories, or just supporting his ideas with a lot background. He doesn't say you should trust him because he's honest, he's says he expects a critical audience that wants to be persuaded of the truth.
It's not that I never want to argue with Ted, but I greatly respect his style.
Like many aspiring writers, I've often wondered if I ought to let myself careen into otherwise unhealthy lifestyle options (e.g., smoking and drinking), like so many others trying to become Hemingway. I long believed the trope that good writing (and good art) necessarily comes from past tragedy or trauma, or better-yet, a life full of ongoing tragedy.
I've recently realized that the cause and effect are backwards! For many (writers and otherwise), being honest is scary. Perhaps the scariest there is. To peer into the eyes of my own unvarnished soul, as far as my limbic brain is concerned, is tantamount to death. Why? Varnish is my would-be protector, in a society that punishes the uncool, the weak, and the insecure.
So, to pursue honesty in art, one must dig diligently through layers upon layers of emotional sediment. And digging is hard and sometimes painful, dare I say traumatic and tragic work. Until finally it isn't. Until one opens the black box with a 10 foot pole, peers in and much to one's surprise, finds nothing.
It was nothing all along. Nothing to fear, and nothing any longer to hide.
Let's hope so! But the public will keep you waiting. I look at what so many ppl settle for as honest now and know it won't happen anytime soon. The deep pocket psychos are obsessed with lying en masse and what they're paying for actually works. The controlled op situation is real and ongoing. The good news is how insulting it is when ppl realize they've trusted a bogus source. They'll abandon bad ones gradually and hopefully shift to good ones. But probably not. The process will take far too long. Westerners are too addicted to being entertained to demand honesty.
You were one of the first authors I subscribed to on Substack because your writing is so honest and authentic. Honesty in media is water in the desert; Substack is an oasis. Truth and dissent are never comfortable, but they are essential.
I think another reason for all the dishonest writing is a cultural explosion of exaggeration. I’m not sure anything in your list of motives really covers it. It’s just the way some people talk (and presumably think) now. Some people are so far down that hole that they can’t help themselves or notice anything wrong with it. There’s no profit motive for just running your mouth with things like “I had the worst day ever. My boss is a total tyrant, and she gave me a ton of work to do with a deadline of yesterday, and I about had a heart attack,” etc. That rhetorical habit naturally spills over into writing. “I hear it constantly from everybody!” (LOL) Blame Trump and Fox.
The writer who likely conveyed this advice is Julia Cameron, particularly from her book "The Artist's Way." Cameron advocates for a practice called "Morning Pages," where individuals write three pages of longhand stream-of-consciousness writing every morning. While the instructions you provided don't exactly match the Morning Pages practice, the emphasis on honest, unfiltered writing and the realization of hidden creativity align closely with Cameron's philosophy. (From ChatGPT)
This applies not just to writing. I sometimes see a high skilled vocalist perform and can't put my finger on why I don't enjoy them, despite their technical abilities. But I nearly always come around to realizing the problem is that I don't BELIEVE them when they sing. At some level, their performance seems contrived, not honest. Without honesty, any form of communication - musical, political, personal - doesn't work.
For what it’s worth, you really live up to your name as the Honest Broker. One of my favourite essays you’ve written is the one about evaluating someone’s character… looking at their spouse, and so on. I revisit it often. Thanks again; this food for thought is delicious.
As a practitioner of journalism for years more than I can count, let me add one other way journos mess up...
...they think they're smarter than the reader.
(Which explains the NYT.)
Honest writing is not bound to the moment or circumstance of its creation. It’s the only writing capable of being timeless. Thanks for pointing in that direction.
No doubt these 21 reasons are applicable at times, but you ignore the most important reason writers are not honest, which is that it's very difficult to be honest. As one of the other commenters here pointed out, it's often not easy even to know what "honest" is. Martin Amis captured part of the problem in his phrase "the war against cliché," which is how he defined the writer's job. But fighting against cliché is hard and it's a struggle most of us lose most of the time. I think it might be useful to think of honesty in writing as a skill that takes time to develop. It's surely not an accident that you didn't feel you'd written a truly honest book until your 40s.
I agree, but, I think there is a clarification missing.
Honest writing does not equal unbiased or impartial writing.
It should mean we are honest about our opinions and our known biases. If everyone wrote honestly it wouldn't solve all the world's problems, but it would certainly big a step in the right direction.
Two events in college taught me to check my language and make sure I was saying what I was thinking as opposed to performative writing.
One was Zinsser's "On Writing Well" where he described how critics will often indulge themselves in negative reviews because it gives them an opportunity to exercise wit. I read this shortly after Facebook was a thing and recognized it in the rush of new media movie critics to every new Transformers and Twilight movie, competing over who could write the most vicious takedown. It made me reflect on my own "snark" and consider Zinsser's question: is it about the work, or about how smart you think you are? This is one reason why I only write "Movie Recommendations" rather than movie reviews: I'm not interested in reviewing or critiquing movies, I'm interested in pushing for good work to be seen.
The other college event was far more embarrassing. I had a ln assignment to go to a poetry reading event for the Masters degree students and write a review of the event. I wanted my paper to sound more "professional" so I wrote shit like, "The coy shrugs hidden behind nervous smiles as the poets lined up and fidgeted with their printouts." Something like that.
I don't remember what grade I received for the paper. It passed or whatever. But my professor took me aside after class and said, "You're too good of a writer to write that condescending New Yorker bullshit. Please be mindful that these poets were people and not subjects for your wordplay."
Man, I felt like shit, but I learned my lesson. I've been allergic to that type of writing ever since.
Anyway, this post is great, and it surprised me by being honest about "honesty." I was worried because in the name of "authenticity," journalism already gave us the experiential take, where instead of investigating corruption in the fast food market, "journalists" showed up to McDonalds and talked about their thoughts and feelings having a hamburger after two years of veganism, and what that MeAnS iN cUlTuRaL dIsCoUrSe, and it's been sour grapes in the whole "honesty and transparency" thing.
But yes, a good writer knows how to be honest, as opposed to confessional, about saying what they mean and meaning what they say.
I took a screenshot of your bullet points. I currently do Julia Cameron’s “Morning Pages”. I’m going to up the ante by facing my biggest bully (inner critic) and being brutally honest. I actually do CARE what others think. What if they find it? What if my lyrics suck? It’s narcissistic of me to think anyone else is invested.
Thank you for the swift kick in the rear. One I desperately need…
Ted your writing is not only honest but sincere. Sensationalism, in my opinion, is the worst of the lot. Look at the clickbait and other feed sources. Our culture seems to addicted to the sensational. Perhaps it is a lack of soul that breeds this insatiable hunger for all things sensational.
When I write about popular music, I have to check the impulse to write in the voice of someone much more youthful and hip than I'll ever be--I'm tempted to use 'dope' as an adjective. But when I write about visual art, I feel expected to go the other way, toward a voice more formal and more academic than it really needs to be (often loaded up with technical jargon and theoretical positions). All of which is fine if that's the language and lens that is authentically yours, I suppose. But how refreshing (and healthy for music and art, I think) to write and to read writers with more honesty and integrity, less posturing and pretense and other forms of insecurity. As another comment put it earlier, it is in part a matter of taking the time to do it right (to sort out the honest authentic and original position, to weed out received ideas and shabby vocabulary), and time is not something every writer is granted by those who publish the writing.
The hardest thing about honesty is being honest with yourself. Few people will admit to lying. They'll look at those 21 motives and claim they were incidental to telling their truth. Some people, worrying about lying on those grounds will overcompensate in the other direction. I'm not going to make some grandiose post-modern statement against the possibility of truth, but I'll say it's damn hard to nail down. Lying is much easier - just as it's much easier to be misled than it is to seriously question the truth.
Some notes about Ted's style:
- Ted avoids the usual controversies on partisan and sectarian lines by doing his rhetorical ju-jitsu to stir up new controversies instead. I think his not engaging with those topics is an interesting way to tell the truth if you accept that most of what gets talked about in those areas is probably bullshit.
- Ted seems to have a generous opinion of others. Sure, he has his villains - the incompetent prime movers of the music industry, and big tech executives, for examples - but I can't remember him slagging on someone unless he believed it was justified by a personal moral outrage.
- Ted generally creates a lot of context around his stated opinions - relating documentation and evidence, crediting fellow authors, telling stories, or just supporting his ideas with a lot background. He doesn't say you should trust him because he's honest, he's says he expects a critical audience that wants to be persuaded of the truth.
It's not that I never want to argue with Ted, but I greatly respect his style.
Like many aspiring writers, I've often wondered if I ought to let myself careen into otherwise unhealthy lifestyle options (e.g., smoking and drinking), like so many others trying to become Hemingway. I long believed the trope that good writing (and good art) necessarily comes from past tragedy or trauma, or better-yet, a life full of ongoing tragedy.
I've recently realized that the cause and effect are backwards! For many (writers and otherwise), being honest is scary. Perhaps the scariest there is. To peer into the eyes of my own unvarnished soul, as far as my limbic brain is concerned, is tantamount to death. Why? Varnish is my would-be protector, in a society that punishes the uncool, the weak, and the insecure.
So, to pursue honesty in art, one must dig diligently through layers upon layers of emotional sediment. And digging is hard and sometimes painful, dare I say traumatic and tragic work. Until finally it isn't. Until one opens the black box with a 10 foot pole, peers in and much to one's surprise, finds nothing.
It was nothing all along. Nothing to fear, and nothing any longer to hide.
I am grateful for your digging, Ted.
Let's hope so! But the public will keep you waiting. I look at what so many ppl settle for as honest now and know it won't happen anytime soon. The deep pocket psychos are obsessed with lying en masse and what they're paying for actually works. The controlled op situation is real and ongoing. The good news is how insulting it is when ppl realize they've trusted a bogus source. They'll abandon bad ones gradually and hopefully shift to good ones. But probably not. The process will take far too long. Westerners are too addicted to being entertained to demand honesty.