Point to ponder

[avevale_intelligencer]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that no-one will ever be in need of a writer.

Discuss, taking care to distinguish between "need" as we might externally perceive it from our civilised standpoint, and need as it would appear to people whose primary concern is survival.

Comments

[batyatoon]

Um ... before I pick this one up, I want to know just what we mean when we say "people whose primary concern is survival". Everybody's primary concern is survival.

I also want to know if we are defining "writer" as "one who can read and write" or "one who is skillful with words" or both.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I'm talking about "writer" as meaning "creator of written fictions." I can see a possible need for scribes, or for technical/legal/etc writers. I'm talking about what I do.

And yes, everybody's primary concern is survival, but we've created a support network in parts of this planet where, for quite large sections of the populace, it isn't their only or constantly predominant concern. And the point I was trying to encapsulate in the statement above is that it's only in that kind of hothouse climate that writers of fictions have any place.

[batyatoon]

I would disagree pretty strongly if you hadn't specified "written".

As your definition stands, though, you're probably right -- mostly because you only need a relatively brief respite in the struggle for survival to tell or hear a story, but you need serious leisure time to develop mass literacy.

We've needed storytellers for pretty much as long as we've been human. But writers are only of any use to us if we can read.