the importance of being a writer

[cacian]

can a writer be as influential as politics?
in other words can a writer overide one trend of thinking to another one without lifting the finger?

[Pierre Menard]

From a readers perspective, the only important thing I want writers to be is interesting and talented.

Nothing more.

However, writers can choose to be or write for whatever he/she wants. I am a little skeptical of a writer solely being responsible for changing a political/social trend though; most political/social trends are more complicated than that, with a number of other issues and reasons for changing.

[PeterL]

Some writers have been very influential. It has been said that until after "Common Sense" was written that the idea of the British North America colonies becoming independent wasn't really considered. Although Henry David Thoreau isn't widely read any more; he was influential in his time. The idea od a man being independent was largely from him. More recently, many of the things that are being done in space and scienc were first expressed in fiction. When geo-synchrous satellites were set up, they couldn't be patented, because they were already well known from fiction.

[JuniperWoolf]

That obviously depends on the writer and the politician you're comparing him or her to. Was Dante more influential than James A. Garfield? I don't think anyone would dispute that.

[Polednice]

I think writers certainly have been, but the possibility has lessened considerably. You have to be a journalist or a song-writer now for your words to have significant impact.

[mal4mac]

You have to lift the finger to write! And often the feet, very quickly, in the direction of Switzerland...

I just read a superb review of Israel's book on the "Radical Enlightenment" in the latest edition of the Times Literary Supplement - read that and it should convince you that *some* writers have a great influence. Specifically Diderot and d'Holbach, in this case... considered as inspiration for French revolution.

[Declan]

The only thing a writer can change is the only thing any of us can change: the man in the mirror, as Michael Jackson himself told us.

[cafolini]

I don't think a writer can do it any longer in USA. The number of variables is staggering in the process.
Influence someone? Yes. Run a campaign? Yes. But changing a trend today is like asking a river to fill a sea.

[IntravenousJava]

All great writers are influential, but most of them only posthumously, because ideas that are ahead of their time are precisely that. As Macchiavelli aptly perceived some years ago, "anyone who would take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things will have as enemies all those who have done well under the old order, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."

[Desolation]

A writer can touch the heart, mind, and soul of a human being in a way that no politician ever could.

To me, that is really important. Who knows what that individual will do or what they will become? Maybe they'll move nations, or maybe they'll just learn to treat others kindly. In that way, a writer can be just as influential, ultimately.