Wednesday, January 13, 2010

the preacher

Economists refer to human beings as "rational maximizers," meaning they make the choices they do because the trade-offs involved provide them with more than what they're giving up.

Even insane people, whose behavior appears to be irrational, make cost-benefit calculations -- however skewed their reasoning may be -- before doing their crazy stuff.

This is what I don't like about "preachy" YA: the characters (usually the good guys, but frequently the bad guys, too) don't behave like human beings, and their motivations for doing the things they do -- whether altruistic or sinister, and frequently "selfless" -- simply do not fit into the category of rational human wants.

Read any preachy books lately? I sure have.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wish not approve on it. I assume nice post. Specially the title-deed attracted me to be familiar with the whole story.

Brian James said...

Important to keep in mind that preachy isn't always the necessarily intended goal...it could just be bad writing.