Is it necessary for a writer to write about the social/political issues of their time?

The idea that it’s necessary for any writer to have to write on a certain topic or about certain ideals is ridiculous. It’s just as ridiculous as believing that someone can write something that isn’t steeped in the social/political issues of their day. There’s no feasible way to cut out those influences whether you write a science fiction novel set a thousand years in the future, or a biopic on Shakespeare. Every current belief is going to inform your story in a meaningful way, even if you aren’t directly challenging or upholding the status quo. Now, the idea that you have to write about certain things or in a specific way in order to get published is unfortunately very much a reality. But that’s a different question really. What is clear is that even if you write the most squeaky clean, publisher friendly, non ideological challenging text that you can, it is still very much a part of the time period’s cultural fabric. 

Emily Dickinson may have written about the American Civil War, her poetry often can be read to suggest that she did, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. That’s not to dismiss the work of critics such as Tyler Hoffman, I think that their work is extremely valuable. Instead I simply mean that knowing whether a writer consciously wrote about something shouldn’t restricted a reading of their work. No text stands alone, but is instead intertwined with all other documents from its time period, and those before, creating a complex whole that’s full of competing ideologies.