Read the excerpt from william faulkner's nobel prize acceptance speech. our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. there are no longer problems of the spirit. there is only the question: when will i be blown up? because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. according to faulkner, what is the biggest problem preventing young writers from producing “good writing”? his generation is too preoccupied by the material world to concentrate on the spiritual aspect of life. the cold war has become more important to civilization than literature, art, music, and other spiritual endeavors. young writers live in physical fear and therefore are prevented from concentrating on matters of the spirit. the possibility of nuclear warfare is robbing young writers of the desire to write good fiction and poetry.