Well it
is an interesting discussion. It reminds me of the controversy over William Styron’s
The Confessions of Nat Turner, which won a Pulitzer and was published in 1967.
At the logical limit of the group identity argument, no one should try to publish a book like Styron’s except someone who was a black slave in Virginia in the early 1800s. That seems absurd; it makes historical fiction impossible. Toni Morrison should not have published
Beloved, because Toni Morrison was not herself a slave, nor did she have a daughter, much less… Annie Proulx should not have written "Brokeback Mountain" because Annie Proulx is neither a male homosexual nor a cowboy.
I think the strict group identity argument finally rests on the denial that there is such a thing as
human nature. I affirm that there is such a thing, and that we all partake of it, even if I can’t define it with mathematical rigor. I believe with Mark in the miraculous human capacity for imagination and empathy, which lives in literature at its best. We need more of it.
My buck fiddy.