BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN

We live in a world where literature still matters. Yet, it grows harder to value works that challenge society’s beliefs. Politics and literature have become entangled. The struggle between individual creativity and societal demands is sharper than ever. Criticism, honest and open, is rare in this climate of fear of authority and of offending.

Today, people feel less free to speak their minds. Cultural and social pressures tighten their grip. In talk of literature, we forget the old creed: truth and honesty in art. Modern writing, born from personal truths, now bends under the weight of conformity.

Freedom’s enemies are loud. Marxists, peddling critical theory and their rainbow ideologies. Intersectional bigots and those checking privilege. Political Islamists with their fingers in the pie. Globalists who crush dissent while posturing as saviours. They all demand allegiance and stifle dissent.

Authoritarianism thrives, not just in history but now. It spreads through centralised economies, wokeness and rigid ideologies. Once, people believed collectivism would free the mind for art. The truth proved darker. Control of language and culture stifles expression. Dictatorships and cancellers don’t just censor; they force people to think as they’re told.

Today we live in the days of de-banking and cancelling. Even mention the Raj and one gets blamed for the sins of one’s great great grandfathers as if they occurred last month.

Can literature survive such times? It’s hard. When conformity rules, creativity shrinks. The old certainties of faith and tradition allowed space for art. Today’s constricting puritanism demands constant loyalty and fast shifts in belief. Artists feel the strain. Comedians, once free to take risks, now tiptoe around the truth. We live in a world built on eggshells and creativity suffers as a result. Freedoms dwindle. Real or imagined, writers sense the presence of the censor and live in dread of the hordes of self-appointed social media thought police.

This is a great shame. A shortsighted error. After all, history is replete with examples we should take care not to repeat.

Real art comes from the soul. Writers can parrot the slogans, but their best work won’t come from fear. Under pressure, the creative spirit falters. Rules against free speech mean a slow death for literature as we know it.

In some places, the flame still burns. Parts of Western Europe, the Americas, and rising economies keep art alive. But global power structures threaten to snuff it out. To save literature, we must fight for free thought.

Both left and right must stand together. Freedom of speech is the torch that has lit the way for every age of progress; without it, we stumble in darkness, blind to truth and bound from creating the future; we lose the words that define us and the stories that inspire us. To save literature is to save ourselves.

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Dominic Wightman is the Editor of Country Squire Magazine and the author of Dear Townies, Arcadia and Truth among other books including ‘Conservatism’ which publishes this month.