Ben Wildsmith

3 Questions

Question One

The Witness’s Burden Ben, you often occupy the “gallery” in your writing, watching the “performative circus” below. Is the “resigned calm” you describe a genuine arrival at peace, or is it the only functional way to stay “awake and capable” without being overwhelmed by the “horrors” of what you are witnessing? Has the role of the Observer become your primary defence against the “trauma of severance”?

I think this mode has a lot to do with the way political messaging has altered over the last few years. As this has become more effectively manipulative, and algorithms are affected by capital at the top and bot activity at the bottom, it has become as important to interrogate why a topic appears current as to engage with the issue itself. For instance, there might be a current debate about the effect of immigration on healthcare or infrastructure. The political discussion of this is centring a related issue, immigration, at the expense of the substantive debate around public services. I frequently feel that my role is to expose dishonest framing and undermine attempts to drag every issue on to emotive territory where politicians can evade detailed scrutiny and promote their USP. Doing that requires a refusal to engage on the granular level unless a topic is being debated in good faith. It’s tiresome, to be honest, and removes the writing to the vantage point you describe, but the current practice of politics involves triggering contrary opinion to reinforce the prejudices being peddled by either side of a contrived binary paradigm. I try as hard as I can not to be used in that way but it’s becoming very difficult as politicians suggest progressively more outrageous ideas to provoke a reaction. On this particular question, I don’t think my positioning is a product of psychology so much as it is environment.

Question Two

The Currency of the “Fierce” You use the word “Fierce” as a yardstick for almost everything. In a world you perceive as a “slurry” of fake news and performative politics, has “Fierceness” become your only reliable metric for Truth? Does a voice or an institution have to be “unreconstructed” or even “knackered” for you to trust that it is real?

I had no idea that I relied on this word so often, and it’s made me smile to see that I do. Yes, I very much yearn for the authentic in all things and am frustrated by so much of working life being reduced to exchanges of platitudes. I believe that emotion is valid component of our opinions which is to be respected as the product of lived experience, rather than manipulated. The fixation on ‘gaffes’ by much of the political media reflects a wider trend in society, that our professional personae should be infallible and detached from our characters as human beings. Watching the unconscious personal charm of politicians being drilled out of them by media training is profoundly depressing for me. I first became aware of it when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister and observed him striving to erase his tetchy but decent and concerned personality in favour of a facsimile of his predecessor: glib and inauthentically passionate. The trend towards uniformity in the built environment, culture, politics, language, body image etc. is at odds with everything I enjoy and respect in life.

Question Three

The Architecture of Severance Your writing is haunted by “Severance”—from partners, from friends, and from heritage. Is the act of writing your way of “Time Binding”? Are you trying to stitch the dignity of the past onto a present that you perceive as a series of inevitable wounds? Is the text, in effect, a “childhood blanket” for the soul?

Having mounted a defence of my practice in the first two questions, I’ll ‘fess up in response to this one. I’ve recently published a memoir, ‘Whose Song to Sing?’, in which I contemplate the effects of being adopted and subsequently living in a violent and unhappy home environment. I was discomfited, but unsurprised, to see that an analysis of my writing uncovered ways in which these experiences have leant into my expression, even on seemingly unrelated topics. It might well be that writing, for me, is an attempt to assert validity – I’m absolutely concerned that people enjoy what I produce and am sickeningly hungry for evidence that they have. It also represents an opportunity to control contending forces around me and force conclusions out of them. Having grown up without much stability that’s a comforting process for me but also, I hope, a useful one for my readers. I rarely start writing with a conclusion in mind, instead I allow one to develop through the writing and often arrive at it somewhat surprised. It’s an attempt to create order from chaos on a bi-weekly schedule.

On the process:

I was rather shocked at how accurately the analysis pinpointed the psychological factors that run through my interests and, particularly, my language. It’s an exposing experience to realise how much of oneself is sitting there to be seen. I really had no idea. I’ve thought about this quite a lot over the last few weeks, wondering whether the ‘healing’ component of what I do is self-indulgent and something to excise. To have a great, mechanical consciousness uncover the commonplace psychological tics of a damaged child is humbling, I suppose.

Humility is a good thing, though, and I’ve gained a perspective on some driving factors in the writing that have probably been too prominent in its production. That’s a freeing acceptance from which I hope to grow.

In terms of the way the writing was examined, I think it perhaps would have benefited from a wider selection of work to look at. There were phrases to which it returned many times, as if they were emblematic of what I do, and this sometimes seemed like the reinforcement of a theory rather than an open inquiry.

This has been a revealing, interesting, and surprising experience. Thank you for including me.

His journalism is here:

https://nation.cymru/?s=ben+wildsmith

His books are here:

https://www.cambriabooks.co.uk/portfolio/ben-wildsmith/

Whose Song to Sing | UWP

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SPN

Thank you so much for your thoughtful and generous reply.

We were genuinely moved by the openness of your response, especially the way you reflected on the relationship between the writing, the language, and the deeper experiences that may sit beneath it.

Your point about the need for a wider selection of work was also very fair, and useful. It is a good reminder that this kind of analysis has to remain an open inquiry rather than simply reinforcing a theory.

We are very grateful that you engaged with the questions so seriously, and with such candour. Your reply made the whole process feel worthwhile.

With thanks again,

Willy & Bill

North West Bylines - Citizen Journalist

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