Do you ever read fiction you disagree with? I have, and sometimes I’ve enjoyed the story even when I disagreed with the character’s philosophy or goal. The author did such a good job of presenting the tale, and the character’s reasons for being that way, that I let myself fall into the story despite myself. Which is the mark of a master storyteller.

I was reading an unrelated essay at the Free Press about a professor who is left-of-center at a center-right college. And he loves it, because free debate is strongly encouraged. Students are polite and respectful, because faculty encourage polite, respectful disagreement. There are lots of opinions and ideas batted about, and while people might not change their minds, they learn more and have to engage in “the other side’s” ideas. It reminded me of a nature program I watched a few weeks ago, with David Attenborough. It was a “night in the natural history museum,” and for once he didn’t preach, just had fun with beasts coming to life. How refreshing! He had a ball*, and so did the rest of us.

So I read authors I might disagree with, if the writing is good. Ditto historians and others I disagree with, because it is neat and valuable to learn how other people interpret evidence and see the world. That is, if the writing is good. I don’t have time for screeds and “sermons with character names, in spaaaaace!!!” I suspect that’s true for a lot of readers. There are so many books out there, and non-book entertainments, that compete for eyes and dollars (and Pounds, and Rupees, and Ringits, and …) that if it doesn’t grab the reader, well, no one will buy the next one.

Several authors, perhaps most notably H. G. Wells, have been criticized as having sold their birthright “for a pot of message.” In other words, the authors had great talent, or fantastic ideas, but so loaded the story with sermon that the story broke, ruining both sermon and story. I’ve encountered that in history, where the author spoiled a fantastic work with heavy-handed sermonizing, usually on the Cause-Of-The-Week at the time it was written. I’ve tried to avoid that, to the point that I discovered a story idea had nothing, zip, nada to hold it up but the Message. That story resides in my snippets file, and will not be finished or see the light of day. Perhaps Thomas Sowell could do it justice. I can’t.

By all means have a point to your story. Have a free-market hero, or a proto-feminist, or a trad-wife, or a libertarian, go for it. Just don’t sacrifice entertainment for sermon, please!

*He looked like a kid in a candy shop, and I wonder if this was a sort of dream-come-true for him.