Phil Craggs
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The Uses of Fiction
I'm posting this here because it covers various writing catergories.
Last year I spent half a lesson with a class discussing why exactly we as a species value fiction (of whatever sort - prose, drama, narrative poetry, etc) so much (Tina and Peter might remember it). There was an article in yesterday's Guardian in which David Edgar actually backed up a lot of what was said in that class, by arguing that it helps to construct 3 main elements of 'humanness', and I wonder what you think of them;
1) 'Our ability to imagine other worlds and other times though stories told either from or about them.'
2) 'Our capacity to plan, which relies on the ability to imagine a series of actions and their consequences and, on the basis of that speculation, to choose between them.'
3) 'Fiction teaches us to empathise.'
Of those, I'd argue the third is the most important. Edgar's example is the criticism he took for a play which featured Hitler as a character - he was criticised for 'humanising' Hitler. But Hitler *was* human - a terrible human certainly, but human none the less. If we ignore this, we can't fight people like him in the future because we won't admit to ourselves what we're fighting.
Other examples of course are that it's much more difficult to justify hurtful behaviour (of whatever seriousness) if you can put yourself in the position of the person hurt - and fiction forces you to step outside of your yourself and see other points of view.
So, if forced to choose one thing that gives fiction its value, I'd say it's role in encouraging empathy. What do you think? Why have we told stories for thousands of years? What are their value?
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10/23/2005, 9:20 pm
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Edge44
3rd year Batmanian
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Re: The Uses of Fiction
quote:
Phil Craggs wrote:
Of those, I'd argue the third is the most important. Edgar's example is the criticism he took for a play which featured Hitler as a character - he was criticised for 'humanising' Hitler. But Hitler *was* human - a terrible human certainly, but human none the less. If we ignore this, we can't fight people like him in the future because we won't admit to ourselves what we're fighting.
Other examples of course are that it's much more difficult to justify hurtful behaviour (of whatever seriousness) if you can put yourself in the position of the person hurt - and fiction forces you to step outside of your yourself and see other points of view.
So, if forced to choose one thing that gives fiction its value, I'd say it's role in encouraging empathy. What do you think? Why have we told stories for thousands of years? What are their value?
I totally agree. There is a voyeuristic element to it, I think... the fact that we are, no matter how much some may disagree, all voyeurs; it's our nature, and we love peeking into the lives of other humans, even fictional ones. I think this is because fiction, for the most part, is a window into the human condition, and we read it and watch it and even write it in order to discover and understand that condition better. After all, most of us want to be better people, don't we?
You also make a good point about stepping outside of yourself to see other points of view. Without the 'window' of fiction, it's difficult for people to do this, and that's the beauty of fiction, and is, I believe, the heart that drives its existence.
So therefore, the value of fiction, I think, is the insight into the human condition. Stories, at least the good ones, teach us what it is to be human...
By the way, speaking of 'humanising' Hitler, have you seen DOWNFALL...
---
"Everything's relative..."
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10/23/2005, 10:12 pm
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