My Response to the WSJ: Ars Gratia Artis

For those of you who were not on the twitters this weekend, a quick recap:  Some bluenose wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal tut-tutting about YA literature and how dark it is, and isn't this horrible, there's swearing in those books, and people write about unpleasantness. Won't someone think of the children?  

I got a kick out of the article. (Which I'm intentionally not linking to--I'll explain) I figure any time you can piss off someone like this, you're doing something right. I guess I feel if the art you're making is worth a damn, someone's going to dislike it.  I'm thrilled and proud to be working in a genre that causes out-of-touch puritans to get the vapors.

But it seems that many of my colleagues in the YA fiction arena weren't so tickled by the disapproval of a humorless prude. They rose up as one and began composing blog responses and got a hashtag trending on twitter: #yasaves. Most of the tweets illustrated ways in which YA fiction has touched people. Many were quite moving.  It is very gratifying to know the work we do can touch people's lives.  And yet, I still think this defense cedes important ground to people like the author of the Wall Street Journal article.

Because once you start insisting that your art is useful, you've agreed to the idea that art needs to be useful in order to be valuable. I think this tacit agreement that art needs a pragmatic purpose leaves you open for many more attacks. 

And, furthermore, once you start arguing that something intended for teenagers is good for them, you're likely to alienate your core audience. Teens are, in general, not known to flock to stuff labeled as good for them.

Also, when you link to an article you disagree with, you amplify its effect. The Wall Street Journal is important in the worlds of business and technology and completely irrelevant to any other aspect of our culture.  I don't know a single person who's ever so much as referred to a movie review in that publication, much less an article about books. I never would have read this article if some well-meaning YA author hadn't linked to it. 

Here's my response: art is its own justification. Art is not utilitarian.  If you want something utilitarian, go buy a shed. We needn't insist that our art serves an important purpose. Art is valuable because it's art. If you don't like it, watch, read, or listen to something else. Or, as Kurt Vonnegut memorably said in a work of art that I enjoyed as a teen: "go take a flying fuck at a rolling donut! Go take a flying fuck at the moooooooooon!"