SOURCE: "Antibourgeois Anger: Notes on Fiction as a Guide to a Political Sentiment," in South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 3, Summer, 1983, pp. 235-45.

In the following essay, Hanson attempts to locate the difference between genuine "social conscience" and "political sentiment" as they are expressed in twentieth-century novels.

Fiction and Political Sentiment

The political objectivity of fiction compared with that of social science is remarkable. The political economist or social philosopher speaks almost always in a single voice and continues to feign a detached and judicial tone even as he moves from evidence to (contentious) interpretation. He may do the decent thing and signpost his transitions from "is" to "ought." He will probably present, in the course of his argument, points of view opposed to his own. Nonetheless, his own preferences almost invariably become apparent—and usually sooner rather than later. Most social philosophizing is therefore a monologue without drama...