This is a perennial problem. The difficulty is that educated people end up 'talking for' victims of social existence, so that they become victims of 'attention' in addition to being victims of social existence, wrapped in the 'entire theoretical framework' which others have provided. They themselves know only the language of violence and despair, and have little confidence even in that. Power elites lose interest in the poor and dispossessed immediately they are elected. The remedy can only be to hold those in power to account, continuously, through the ballot box and rigorous, ongoing public engagement. Better public services, improved education, less self-indulgence. The alternative is revolution, which again victimizes the oppressed.

It is true that victims of social existence should be brought to the fore of social and literary discourse however in many countries the political leaders have taken it upon themselves to use these people as a ladder for their political rising. In Zambia, the educated people have joined hands with the politicians to malign this disadvantaged group and as literature scholars I feel there is need to chat a new direction in the literary discourse of such groups of people.

Indeed, flipview society (mainstream society) gets it wrong if it continues to undermine flipside society (victims of social existence). Despite the fact that international bodies like the UN and so many others make it known that they want to confront social ills that devalue or undermine human dignity and comfort, many individuals who constitute membership of those bodies and their allies bring in political and other considerations into their activities which impede the realization of those visions. And so, for instance, the widely hailed MDGs could not do enough and have become SDGs and yet the problems are still there. SDGs might become something else yet. Furthermore, bringing victims of social existence to the fore of social discourse where it rightly belongs alongside mainstream society is not really about raising money to buy and handout blankets, medicines and food to disadvantaged people but should be more about confronting and rectifying those social structures and dynamics that make them disadvantaged people in the first place. In this, literature has a role to play (which it has been doing in some ways) and an important one. Literature has to call the system to order for it is time for system upgrade. Educated people should step up some more.

This is the concern of Migritude Literature and Diasporic Literature. Migritude writers like Sami Tchaq, Tierno Monenembo,Kosi Efoui,Daniel Biyaoula, Alain Mabanckou to mention but a few, and Diasporic writers like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Uzodinma Iweala, in their works, make apt and pathetic descriptions of the deplorable conditions of life of the socially disadvantaged individuals, the so-called victims of social existence or the flipside society. It is usually a two-edged sword kind of attack from such writers because, on the one hand, they use the true realism of their literary output to debunk the erroneous concept of a West that is a paradise in the imaginary view of young Africans, in their dream world and aspirations; and on the other, to condemn the racism and other forms of discrimination meted out to the African immigrants in the West. These writers are mostly humanists fighting to improve the lot of the flipside society while inciting the flipview society to come up with constructive and lasting solutions to victimisation and new forms of enslavement of others. Even within African states, such situations flipside/flipview societies arise as in Libya with immigrants from other African nations; in Nigeria and Cameroon ,for example, with internally displaced people housed in camps following violent attacks from Boko haram and Fulani Cattle herdsmen.

Migration is a reality in today's world and the matter of periodic waves of refugees and economic migrants that surge towards other countries keeps this reality one of the top concerns of modern society. As a problem though, not even the recent (non-legal) Global Compact for Migration approved on 19 December 2018 by 164 nations under the auspices of the United Nations has provided a confortable and sustainable solution. Indeed, all literature that explore this area of social dynamics have so much to contribute to modern social dynamics since they help uncover the divisions and inequalities that exist in the world along the lines of race, economic backgrounds, religion and ideologies. However, not all such literature qualify as flipside literature even though flipside criticism can be effectively done on them including bourgeois literature.

As established in the essay, "John Munonye’s A Dancer of Fortune and Wole Soyinka’s The Beatification of Area Boy: A Comparative Flipside Criticism"

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327720330_John_Munonye%27s_A_Dancer_of_Fortune_and_Wole_Soyinka%27s_The_Beatification_of_Area_Boy_A_Comparative_Flipside_Criticism?_iepl%5BviewId%5D=V3RvhEqmfJJU1qTuxK2nx41o&_iepl%5Bcontexts%5D%5B0%5D=projectUpdatesLog&_iepl%5BtargetEntityId%5D=PB%3A327720330&_iepl%5BinteractionType%5D=publicationTitle

"On the contrary, flipside literary theory explores how works of literature depict victims of social existence and is solely and comprehensively interested in whether a plot constitutes a victim of social existence its protagonist or rather gives that role to a flipview character; whether this protagonist causes significant transformations in society (for instance, the rise or fall of important individuals, groups, or social processes) while still a member of flipside society (in the ideal situation) rather than developed to flipview society (which underscores the point that marginalized people also matter and disregarding them impacts society negatively); and whether the disposition of the protagonist (and some other characters) towards other victims of social existence is favourable and empowering, favourable and disempowering, unfavourable and empowering or unfavourable and disempowering.

While flipside criticism can be done on any literary work to see whether it contains all, some or none of the three determinant features aforementioned, a work must contain all three determinant features to qualify as a flipside work. It is not a flipside work if it contains only one or two of them. In addition, and on a significant note, while flipside criticism uncovers whether a protagonist is a flipside or flipview character and the nature of the protagonist’s disposition towards victims of social existence, a work must have a flipside character as the protagonist and the protagonist’s disposition towards victims of social existence must be favourable and empowering (which falls in line with the global objective to treat disadvantaged people favourably and empower them too) to qualify as a flipside work" (p. 112)

Indeed, there are many works of literature that include victims of social existence in their plots but not all of them qualify as flipside works.

There is no question that victims of all variety - social, political, racial, tribal and diasporic - will have to be paid attention because fiction gives them a sense of immediacy and emotional content that no other study offers. Theirs is a story that needs to be told. If you provide a methodological platform to format such criticism, like flipside criticism, it is to be welcomed. While the critic empathises with such protagonists, his concern must be directed as much towards the social issue as the way it has been fictionalised.

I think some writers did bring charcters who are social victims of their social or cultural envirnoment just like Hester Prynn in Hawthorn's The Scarlet Letter. Also, most of the writers who suffer from racism and extermism present charcters as the main ones just like Maya Angelou's Beloved.

I wonder why the response to this vital question on ResearchGate has been so spare? I would have thought it might have attracted way more attention. Any idea why?

'To fight for a cause', 'to defend the rights of the underdog'- all these have become unfashionable in the postmodern age, in which people are no longer interested in investing time and emotion over lost causes. How is it going to increase the citation or impact factor?

Just as I recently pointed out in response to a point Muthana Makki Mohammedali made:

Theories are very important conceptual tools. They help us identify, organize, analyze and even predict facts or reality we encounter which might make little or no meaning to us without those theories. In this regard, flipside literary theory is a useful theoretical framework that helps us identify literature that fits within this framework, organize them in ways that make a distinction between works that deserve flipside literary criticism and those that truly qualify as flipside works, analyze literary features constituted in plots in this regard, and predict future texts in this regard too.

Flipside literary theory is a novelty, a new contribution in the history of literary theory not because there have been no works that depict "victims of social existence" (a neologism) - there are actually hundreds of thousands of such works in parts of the world, as Marwah G. Mohammed indicates - but for providing a concept or theoretical framework, namely, "flipside literary theory" (a neologism) under which all these works can be grouped together for analysis. Furthermore, it sets down the criteria under which a work can qualify as a flipside work even as all works can be subjected to flipside literary criticism.

It is important to get this distinction. In this regard, I will here recall that as I clearly established in the essay, "John Munonye’s A Dancer of Fortune and Wole Soyinka’s The Beatification of Area Boy: A Comparative Flipside Criticism"

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327720330_John_Munonye%27s_A_Dancer_of_Fortune_and_Wole_Soyinka%27s_The_Beatification_of_Area_Boy_A_Comparative_Flipside_Criticism?_iepl%5BviewId%5D=V3RvhEqmfJJU1qTuxK2nx41o&_iepl%5Bcontexts%5D%5B0%5D=projectUpdatesLog&_iepl%5BtargetEntityId%5D=PB%3A327720330&_iepl%5BinteractionType%5D=publicationTitle

"flipside literary theory explores how works of literature depict victims of social existence and is solely and comprehensively interested in whether a plot constitutes a victim of social existence its protagonist or rather gives that role to a flipview character; whether this protagonist causes significant transformations in society (for instance, the rise or fall of important individuals, groups, or social processes) while still a member of flipside society (in the ideal situation) rather than developed to flipview society (which underscores the point that marginalized people also matter and disregarding them impacts society negatively); and whether the disposition of the protagonist (and some other characters) towards other victims of social existence is favourable and empowering, favourable and disempowering, unfavourable and empowering or unfavourable and disempowering.

While flipside criticism can be done on any literary work to see whether it contains all, some or none of the three determinant features aforementioned, a work must contain all three determinant features to qualify as a flipside work. It is not a flipside work if it contains only one or two of them. In addition, and on a significant note, while flipside criticism uncovers whether a protagonist is a flipside or flipview character and the nature of the protagonist’s disposition towards victims of social existence, a work must have a flipside character as the protagonist and the protagonist’s disposition towards victims of social existence must be favourable and empowering (which falls in line with the global objective to treat disadvantaged people favourably and empower them too) to qualify as a flipside work" (p. 112)

Flipside literary theory is indeed an important and relevant conceptual tool in literature.

It is also important to note that besides the field of literature, flipside theory finds application in the fields of politics, economics, theology, ethics, international relations, military and family. This is why it is a project because at this point I look forward to collaborating with scholars who are deeply interested in bringing to the fore "victims of social existence" in each of these fields of life and study much more than have been done in the past.

Indeed, flipside theory deserves to attract "way more attention," as Laurence Wright indicates.

In medieval letters, we have the "chanson de toile", placed in mouth of women workersthat expressed the hard conditions of life. It is a litterairy topic or a social contestation? Another gender interessant is the "Congé" or "Farewell", where a leper, one old and sick man renounces to worls, friends, society.

This question goes all the way back (and perhaps beyond!) to Aristotle's _Rhetorike_. Part of what the rhetorician knows is that the more different a person in audience is from speaker the less likely that person is to be emotionally moved by the examples and pleas given by that speaker. Pretty cold-blooded but accurate. Example: "How can somebody not care if --- is happening in ---country?"

So to get over this major obstacle, Ari made up a whole catalogue of 'ethymemes' to set before each different stratified group in the polis (Greek city). Today's equivalents are data analytics.

Literature that grabs the heart strings of the largest group must heed these insights about what moves people who may be far different from oneself, one's home base.

Keep self-testing: That makes sense to me but how about in Tokyo, would they get it?

Or

That's how we feel in Oslo, Norway, but how about in Buenos Aires?

Or

I think that's obvious but I should check with my grandmother.

These are ways to move from WRITER-based writing (assuming the audience is just like me) to READER-based writing.

Make sense? (We rhetoric folks aim to please--literally.)