Today during this writer’s conference I was supposed to say something about the future of literature.
As a polite person that’s exactly what I did.
But thanks to a friend in New York with whom I had a lengthy discussion about this topic I added a few sentences about scratching your back: “Many things have already been said about the dangers from outside, let me say a few things about the dangers from inside.
The biggest threat to literature is the I-scratch-your-back, you-scratch-my-back culture, which leads to criticism as an extension of networking with other means, it kills serious discussion, it views politeness as a strategic asset, it confuses friendship with wrong judgment and it will at the end make us as corrupt as politics in Afghanistan.” Of course sometimes corruption is defensible, maybe even more than that.