The power of the divergent species

I recently submitted one of my screenplays to a writing competition. The competition came with this statement of intent.

This initiative is aimed at reflecting the diversity of all of the UK and we encourage talent currently under-represented in TV Drama to apply – including women, disabled talent, BAME talent, and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. With this in mind, please tell us about your unique voice and the diversity of thought that you will bring to the competition.

The application asked for my “diversity perspective”. I enjoy writing most when I am at the edge of my understanding, when I discover something, when a vague idea finds a form. I think that happened while writing this. I started with nothing but a cluster of notions, and writing gave that cluster a form. To be honest I’m not even sure if I answered the question. They probably only wanted a short paragraph. I ended up writing two pages of single spaced text. I submitted the following.

The question of unique voice and diversity of thought are really hard questions to answer. The pressures at play are dynamic and constantly shifting. When pitched against women, disabled, or black, Asian and ethnic minority talent, I am part of the over-represented demographic. I am white, British and heterosexual. I certainly haven’t felt the prejudices experienced by a black man, the sexism suffered by women, or the difficulties encountered by a person with disability. The thing is, I don’t feel privileged. I understand this feeling is relative. If I were forced to walk the path of a woman or a black man I would feel differently. I just don’t see myself reflected in the demographic of white heterosexual men. They have an education I never had. They have wealth I have never known. They have a sense of entitlement I have never enjoyed. In many ways they seem to me like a completely divergent species. If you pushed me to describe my background, I’d have to say it was, disadvantaged. I was born in the North East of England. My family tree is populated with a succession of miners who were poor. According to family lore, my paternal great-grandfather pushed a cart, loaded with his family and possessions, eastward across the Northumberland moors, looking for work. To escape the pits and the poverty my father joined the army. He uprooted his family, took us away from the North East, and moved us around the world for more than a decade. Despite this, and having lived in London since the late 1980’s, I still feel the weight of my North Eastern heritage. As the adage goes, you can move the boy out of the council estate, but you can’t get the council estate out of the boy. As flippant as that might sound, it holds kernel of truth. At the core of that kernel is a feeling that can only be described as doubt. The kind of doubt the divergent species seems untroubled by. He approaches the world with a confidence that comes from knowing his mistakes are temporary. Family wealth insulates him from his failures. This is perhaps one of the many reasons why those from disadvantaged backgrounds moderate their aspirations. They have no choice but to mitigate their failures or risk suffering the full consequences of their temerity. But family wealth is not just financial. In his book “Outlieres”, Malcolm Gladwell notes that wealthy parents adopt the active strategy of parenting that “foster and assess a child’s talents, opinions and skills”. While poorer parents adopt the more passive strategy of “accomplishment by natural growth”. The key point is that wealthy parents teach their children to negotiate a world in a way poor parents don’t. The advantages of wealth, in all its forms, give the divergent species a head start. The most pressing example I can give, from my own experience, is writing. I didn’t start writing seriously until I was in my early-thirties. It grew naturally from a frustration. I had worked myself into a cul-de-sac, and writing was a chance to take my career in a different direction. My family has suffered because of my temerity. We survive but do not prosper because I made the choice to risk everything and write. I have the feeling that if I were born to a wealthy family my aspiration would have been found, and nurtured. I would not have had to discover it for myself as part of “accomplishment by natural growth”. But my commitment to the craft of screenwriting is still no guarantee of success. The stories I tell still have to negotiate the institutions that favour a very specific worldview. The problem is, no matter how good my writing becomes, I do not share the divergent species worldview. In 1996 Andrew Marr interviewed Noam Chomsky about power and the media. The key exchange happens when Marr tries to push his view that the news media in this country has a “wide range of opinion” and speaks “truth to power”. Chomsky refutes the claim, instead arguing that through a programme of selection that starts in nursery school, individuals are selected for compliance, and dissenting voices are weeded out. The exchange ends with Chomsky telling Marr that if he didn’t share a very specific worldview he would never have been allowed to become a journalist at the top of his profession. “CARR-10-N” describes a worldview that is at odds with divergent species view on drugs. Drug users are routinely scapegoated as the cause of all the ills of society. Drugs are a threat to the social order. It can be stopped if we unite against this common enemy. We may have to exceed a few individual freedoms but this is a small price to pay to rid society of this scourge. I see the war on drugs as a war on a country’s population. Drugs are not about public health, it’s about public control. My unique voice, my worldview, is born from a disadvantaged background. My diversity of thought is deconstructive at its core. I have a way of thinking that is critical of, and hostile to, the power of the divergent species.