15. How to Tell the Difference Between Bias & Worldview and Agenda & Theme

EPISODE DESCRIPTION:     

In Episode 15 of The Mission, Zena Dell Lowe clarifies a few of the issues raised in episodes 13 and 14 of this podcast.  Namely, what's the difference between bias and worldview, and what's the difference between agenda and theme? All of these terms are explored and explained to help the storyteller move forward without confusion. 

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SPECIAL THANKS

The Mission with Zena Dell Lowe would like to thank composer Carla Patullo for the original music she graciously permits us to use in the intro and outro of this podcast. To find out more about this amazing talent, go to  www.carlapatullo.com

Transcript

Ep 15 Transcript_Bias Worldview Agenda and Theme

Tue, 10/13 9:34PM • 14:38

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

theme, worldview, podcast, story, agenda, artist, bias, idea, writer, characters, lecture, discover, flannery o'connor, discussing, work, difference, forcing, talking, truth, fact

SPEAKERS

Zena Dell Lowe

Zena Dell Lowe  00:04

INTRO: Hello, and welcome to the Mission with Zena Dell Lowe, a podcast for artists and storytellers about changing the world for the better through story. 

Zena Dell Lowe  00:07

TOPIC INTRODUCTION: First of all, welcome to Episode 15 of this podcast, which is being recorded for the very first time in Los Angeles, California, where I moved just a week ago from Montana. Two weeks ago it was my birthday, so it's been a very exciting time here in my life and the life of Lulu, my little dog who is still sitting beside me on the couch and snoring like crazy. We are glad to be back, and we're glad to be here with you. We're glad to be with you today. So, in episodes 13 and 14 of this podcast, I laid out a number of ways in which an artist might inadvertently undermine the integrity of their story. However, those episodes raised a number of issues that are important for us to consider today, because it could be confusing if we don't actually identify and explain some of the words that we're talking about in this podcast. There are basically four terms that I believe need to be defined and delineated, namely: what's the difference between having a bias and having a worldview? Or for that matter, what's the difference between having an agenda and having a theme? Now, these are very important terms to be explored and explained. Why? Well, from the beginning of this podcast, I have been arguing that every artist has a worldview. And that is true. Every single person on this planet has a worldview that they approach reality with. A worldview is a particular philosophy of life, or, perhaps better, a particular way in which you see the world that you believe defines reality. In other words, a worldview is how we determine what, in fact, is true. What is reality? And every writer, every artist, every person has a worldview. Therefore, every piece of art has been composed from the point of view of a particular worldview. 

Zena Dell Lowe  02:38

PRESENTATION: Well, that begs the question: how, then, can we have a worldview which we must have and cannot help but to have, and not be biased? How does that even work? Well, let's define bias for a moment. As we talked about in Episode 13, a bias is when you have a prejudice in favor of or against a thing or a person or a group or an idea, but it's usually in a way that is considered to be unfair. A bias is different from worldview. The work is biased if you ignore or leave out certain types of information that might challenge your worldview. You're not giving other ideas a fair shake. You are dead set on that thing to the exclusion of any contrary evidence. There's a really great Flannery O'Connor quote that I'd like to bring up here. Now, Flannery O'Connor is a Christian writer. However, she writes for the mainstream. I mean, her stuff is incredible. And if you've never read Flannery O'Connor, I highly recommend her. And what she says is, "The Christian writer does not decide what is good for the world and then proceeds to deliver it. Like a very doubtful Jacob, she enters into the struggle and wonders if she will come out at all." Now, what does that mean? Well, it means that when you have a worldview, you don't just decide that you're going to spoon-feed people lessons and you're going to cram and force your truth down their throats. When you have a worldview, you still have to keep an open mind. You have to allow your worldview to be challenged by the evidence of what your characters are doing. You are always evaluating and looking for the truth. You are open, so you don't just decide what is good for the world and then proceed to deliver it. Like a very doubtful Jacob, you enter into the struggle. You wrestle with these truths and you wonder if you will come out at all. You wonder how it's going to shake out. You are letting go of your agenda. You are letting go of what you believe to be true, and you're allowing it to be challenged by the characters, by the evidence, by everything else that's in there without letting go of your convictions. You know, there's a way to do this where you're not letting go of your convictions, you're just being open-minded, which is the opposite of dogmatism, which I believe writers need to be. 

Zena Dell Lowe  05:19

But how do we unpack this? What does this look like on a practical basis, especially when we go down to the next step in the ladder, which is theme, right? So, one of the things that we talked about in the former podcasts is, it undermines the credibility of your work when you approach the work with an agenda. And yet, is agenda not the same as theme? The truth of the matter is that every story must have a theme, and a theme is a specific idea that's being explored. However, a theme is not an agenda. So, what is the difference? What is the difference between agenda and theme? Well, I want to describe theme as the underlying meaning of a literary work. It's a subject or an issue for which you have a specific and distinctive concern. It's an important idea that runs through your work as an artist. It's an idea. The importance of theme and narrative is unparalleled. In fact, without theme, there really is no good story. The theme is the underlying idea that you're hanging your hat on. It's the main thing that the author is trying to convey to an audience. So, a story without major ideas for the reader to experience and think through and learn from is no story at all. A story, by its very nature, must have a theme. Sometimes it has many themes or minor themes all throughout. Themes are the ideas that book clubs are made of. Themes are the ideas that make poets, playwrights, literature students, film enthusiasts, filmmakers. Creative writers mull over in depth what the theme is for their project. It is the meaning behind the entire story. It is the deeper reasons that the story has been written and shared. Without the theme, there is nothing worth discussing. There is nothing that has been transferred from the artist to the audience. The great artists of history, their work is infused with themes, ideas that are meant to cause us to think, to feel, to ruminate, to ponder, to pontificate. 

Zena Dell Lowe  07:55

So, how does that differ from agenda? Well, an agenda is a list, a plan, an outline of things to be done, matters to be acted on or voted upon. But agenda usually has a connotation of something that's being done in secret, a secret reason for doing something, a secret aim, something that's sinister or subversive or sneaky and manipulative. That doesn't, however, help us to understand what the difference is, because the truth is, when we're writing or creating art, we're usually trying to bury our theme a little bit. We're trying to not make it on the nose, as we say in the business, where it's so obvious as the nose on your face. We want to make our audience work for it a bit. So, again I ask, how do you understand the difference? Well, here's how I look at it. I look at one as a discussion and the other as a lecture, just like in real life. Think about real life. There's a difference between people talking at you versus people talking with you. If I'm in a political discussion with somebody at some sort of dinner party, or what have you, I can tell those people that are genuinely interested in an alternative point of view and they would even maybe be willing to modify their position, even though they have a strong point of view. They actually have reasoned through it, they've come to a conclusion, and yet they're still willing to have a discussion and to hear what the counterarguments might be for their position. They're open-minded. They're willing to give something a fair shake. They're willing to be honest about their position and about the data that they're encountering about their position. 

Zena Dell Lowe  09:58

One is a discussion. The other is a lecture. There is nothing worse than somebody talking at you, somebody who is not interested in discussing an idea with you, they're just preaching to you, they are stuffing it down your throat. To me, that is the difference. I had a student recently who, as we talked about her story, wasn't sure yet how it would end. That's good, because she wasn't sure, first of all, what the characters would do, but second of all, what she wanted to say. She wasn't sure what she was trying to say through her story. Now, when I say, "what she wanted to say," that is theme, because a story needs to say something. And she wasn't sure yet what she wanted to say, so she needed to figure out what the characters would do, and she figured she would find her theme as the story evolved, and she's right. Conversely, the approach would be that she has something to say and now the characters are trapped by that agenda. My student knew that she would say something on the particular topic being discussed, but she just wasn't exactly sure what that would be yet. She was going to discover it through the course of the telling. In fact, there's a quote by J.K. Rowling where she says, "Sometimes I know what I believe, because of what I write." Now, to some people, that doesn't make any sense, but to me, that makes a great deal of sense, because that's a person who didn't enter into the story with a bias and try to force the story to fit a preconceived idea. She discovered it. She let the characters tell her what the story was really about. And to me, that's the big difference: discovering it versus forcing it. If we're forcing it, we're probably in an agenda. If we're discovering it, we're probably writing a theme. 

Zena Dell Lowe  12:07

RECAP: So, again, the overarching goal today was to clarify some of the issues raised in episodes 13 and 14. Issue one: what's the difference between bias and worldview? Bias is prejudice in favor of one thing over and against another, usually in a way considered to be unfair, whereas worldview is your particular conception of the world, the way you view reality. The work is biased if you ignore or leave out certain types of information that might challenge your worldview. [Lulu, you're driving me bonkers, baby.] Number two: what is the difference between agenda and theme? Theme is the underlying idea that an artist is trying to convey to their audience. So, a story, by its very nature, must have a theme. An agenda, on the other hand, is when you have a secret aim or reason for doing something. It is something that you are forcing on your audience. It is a lecture, a talking to people rather than a discussion or a discovery. We need to discuss and discover, not lecture and cram. 

Zena Dell Lowe  13:33

CALL TO ACTION: I hope that this podcast has been helpful in clarifying what I believe to be some pretty complicated and complex issues. If you have other questions that this episode raised, please do let me know. You can actually go to my website: www.missionranchfilms.com, and on the side of each page, you will see something that says "podcast voicemail." If you click on that, you will be able to leave me a voicemail message right there on my site and ask anything that you want. You can also send me an email at zena@missionranchfilms.com.

Zena Dell Lowe  14:16

OUTRO: Until then, you have been listening to the Mission with Zena Dell Lowe. May you go forth inspired to change the world for the better through story.