When Writers Agree on Something, We Gotta Take Note

 

Writers occupy a strange and powerful position in human history. They invent gods, map empires, define moral codes, and give language to ideas that outlive generations. At the same time, they are among the first people silenced, imprisoned, or killed when authoritarian power takes hold. That paradox is not accidental. It reveals something fundamental about why writing matters, why it is dangerous to tyrants, and why collective agreement among writers deserves attention.

To understand this, we have to begin with a simple truth: writers create meaning before institutions do. Religions are not born as bureaucracies. Empires do not begin as administrative systems. They begin as stories. A sacred text. A founding myth. A heroic narrative about destiny, order, and belonging. Before there are laws, there are words. Before there is authority, there is belief.

Writers give shape to the invisible. They articulate values, fears, hopes, and explanations for suffering. A religion is not only a set of rituals; it is a story about why the world is the way it is and how one ought to live within it. An empire is not only an army; it is a narrative about legitimacy, superiority, and inevitability. Writers supply the language that allows people to imagine these structures as natural rather than constructed.

That imaginative power is precisely why writers are dangerous.

Authoritarian regimes do not fear weapons first. They fear alternative explanations of reality. Fascism depends on a single sanctioned story: who is good, who is evil, who belongs, who must be erased, and why obedience is virtue. Writers threaten this by doing what writers always do - asking questions, exploring contradictions, and exposing complexity. Even when they are not overtly political, their work undermines absolutism by reminding readers that the world is not simple, not singular, and not owned by any one voice.

This is why, historically, writers are among the first targets of fascist regimes. Journalists are silenced. Poets are exiled. Novelists are imprisoned. Playwrights disappear. Book burnings are not symbolic gestures; they are strategic acts. Destroy the stories and you weaken the imagination. Weaken the imagination and resistance becomes harder to conceive.

Fascism requires obedience without nuance. Writing thrives on nuance.

It is no coincidence that dictators demand “order” and “purity” while writers dwell in ambiguity, moral uncertainty, and human contradiction. A writer who shows the inner life of an enemy already disrupts propaganda. A writer who depicts suffering honestly already challenges official narratives. Even silence can be subversive if it refuses to repeat the sanctioned lie.

Because of this, writers often become early warning systems for social decay. They sense shifts in language, the erosion of truth, the normalisation of cruelty, long before these things are fully visible in law or policy. Writers notice when words are being hollowed out, when slogans replace thought, when complexity is mocked as weakness. Their sensitivity is not fragility; it is awareness.

This brings us to the second part of the idea: when writers come together and agree on something, we have to listen.

Writers are not a monolith. They argue constantly. They disagree about politics, aesthetics, morality, and meaning. They come from different cultures, classes, and ideologies. Consensus among writers is rare precisely because independent thought is the core of the vocation. So when broad agreement emerges among them, it is not trivial. It usually signals that something fundamental is at stake.

When writers collectively warn about censorship, it is not because their egos are bruised. It is because they recognise a familiar pattern. When writers protest the suppression of speech, it is not abstract principle; it is lived historical knowledge. They know how quickly “acceptable” restrictions become enforced silence. They know that the first banned book is never the last.

Listening to writers does not mean treating them as infallible authorities. Writers are human. They are biased, emotional, sometimes wrong. But their value lies not in omniscience, but in pattern recognition. They study human behaviour across time. They understand how stories shape belief and how belief shapes action. They know that once a society agrees that certain ideas must not be expressed, it has already conceded the most dangerous ground.

There is also a deeper reason we should listen: writers remind us that power is never purely external. Fascism does not only arrive in uniforms and laws. It arrives in language. In euphemisms. In dehumanising metaphors. In stories that justify cruelty as necessity. Writers are trained to hear these shifts. They understand how easily language can be weaponised, and how difficult it is to reclaim once corrupted.

In that sense, writers are not merely commentators on freedom; they are participants in its maintenance. Their work keeps the imaginative space open. It insists that alternative futures are possible. It preserves the idea that no system, no empire, no ideology is eternal or beyond critique.

Writers create religions and empires because they understand the power of narrative. They are the first victims of fascist regimes because that same understanding makes them dangerous. And when they come together to say, collectively, “This matters,” it is worth paying attention.

Not because writers are special, but because history keeps proving them right.