The Merits of Mark Twain

There's an excellent essay ["The Privilege of the Grave"] in the current issue of The New Yorker that was written by Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens; 1835 - 1910) in 1905. Unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber to read the full (2 page) essay online, but I would recommend that you go out and purchase the magazine anyways. It's the Winter Fiction issue, and it includes short fiction from Roberto Bolano, Colson Whitehead, Donald Antrim, and Alice Munro.

Aside from all that literary greatness, the most deserving of praise is Twain's essay. It's subject matter deals with the deprivation of actual free speech. His argument is that man never actually has a 'full' right to speech, given that there are external factors that weigh in on his choice of speaking an opinion or thought. Political parties, organizations, groups of friends and family, these are all (ostensible) judgment factors that we let prevent us from voicing a true opinion. It's a 'popular opinion' mentality.

"A natural result of these conditions is, that we consciously or unconsciously pay more attention to tuning our opinion to our neighbor's pitch and preserving his approval than we do to examining the opinions searchingly and seeing to it that they are right and sound."

Just look at all the politics that played out the past two years in this country. Obama versus McCain. I'm almost positive that President-elect Obama truly believes that gay Americans should have the right to marry, and have equal rights as their hetero counterparts. However, it would be political suicide, out of step with "popular opinion", and an extreme break from democratic party lines, to say, "yes, I think gay marriage is right and lawful." This is exactly what Twain spoke about 103 years ago.

This post's title implies what I am trying to say here. "The Merits of..." Any written work that holds true through the tests of time and progress are deserving of literary merit. Twain wrote something 103 years ago that holds true to this day. Well done Mr. Twain...well done.