George Saunders: Animosity on social media is 'not entirely genuine'
The Booker Prize-winning writer talks about how social media fuels partisanship, the lessons of death and his new novel Vigil.
In general, people who read and write books work actively to increase their respect for and confidence in one another's basic goodness, says American writer George Saunders.
Reading social media posts, on the other hand, through which big media programmes people for partisan discussion, kind of does the opposite.
"[It's our] systems of communication that are making this animosity… I think that people are in some ways much more open and affectionate than the public discourse would lead us to believe," Saunders tells Saturday Morning.
Saunders, who says he has many friends and family who are Trump supporters and "good people", believes social media technology has created a "sphere of contention" which isn't reflected in his country's everyday public life.
"If you go to an American airport or a baseball game, people are very much the way they always were. But when we get into that sphere of partisan discussion, which we've sort of been programmed to do by big media, then all of a sudden, family members are fighting.
"Intuitively, I think we've all felt that. We can see the way that this sudden drop in reading is having a catastrophic effect on our culture and on our social norms."
George Saunders - life, death and what comes next
Reading a long-form book slows down time a little bit, Saunders says, so we can examine our own motives and projections.
Feeling "more fondness for things" is one benefit of finishing a good book, he says, but the biggest may be "increased alertness".
"Also, in a funny way, I think you're more confident in the reality of other people, which is kind of a superpower."
Because artificial intelligence can only do "a good simulation" of human expression, he doesn't fear that the technology will completely displace writers of literature.
"But I am really afraid that if the market gets saturated with AI writing, we might be less able to tell the difference, and that would be fatal."
George Saunders with his Booker Prize-winning novel Lincoln in the Bardo.
AFP / CHRIS J RATCLIFFE
Writing each of his own books, Saunders tries to hit "a new note of wildness".
After the 20-year period in which he feared that "all his hard-won career gains would go down the toilet" after the publication of his 2017 Booker Prize-winning Lincoln in the Bardo, he has come to see serious trepidation as a good sign.
"I'm like, 'Oh, my God, that's going to be a hard book,' you know, and that's when I know I should usually go ahead."
Over time, the Syracuse University professor has come to learn that the writing process is itself a kind of "growth tool" which requires a long time spent "in the zone where you're failing".
George Saunders new novel 'Vigil' was described as a "virtuoso achievement" by The Los Angeles Times.
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In his latest novel Vigil, Saunders explores his own obsession with death via a death doula who plummets to earth to usher an aged oil tycoon into the afterlife.
Twenty-five years ago, the writer had the "profound" experience of believing his own time had come during an in-flight emergency that resulted from a seagull flying into a plane engine.
Despite many years of meditation, Saunders, who is a practising Buddhist, felt "just like an animal" in his terror.
"I had the idea that in that moment, I'd be a portrait of amiable gratitude, singing 'Kumbaya' as we went down, but that was not it. In my head, it was just like, 'No, no, no, no, no…'
"Life was very rich after that for about four or five days. I was in bliss just to still be around, you know. The weird thing is, I found I couldn't live like that. It was a little too much. Within a week or two, I was full of it again and knew I was eternal."
