making the case for reading fiction

We all teach kids lessons using the age old "once upon a time". Using mythology to teach morality or using examples to teach math, are further examples of how story telling shapes our thinking and our biases. The veracity of the story is not material to the process of learning. We would be poorer if we judged stories on that basis.  

When you read fiction what you are reading and visualizing is something larger than the immediate images that hit you. When you watch the animation movie "cars" you see the character behind each car. You relate to their emotions and their "human" nature. You dont come out of the theater saying - man cars dont talk, what a bogus movie.Fiction helps to make the lesson interesting. Stories by being set in different times and locales educates us about how varied the the world looks when viewed at different points in space-time. One could make a case that maybe reading about true stories i.e. real life occurrences can just as enlightening. I would argue that an interesting story - well told could have a much more amplified response from your system. 

 

So much of art is a reflection of worldly life, but we are touched by art in a way that reality does not. Of course we take this emotion back to our daily lives. Can we ever express in words what music can express. I think writing is also an art form. Authors of fictional stories are masters of an art that can evoke fantastic responses in us. Fiction authors also try to explore deep themes intentionally, and  take you to  the most interesting place on earth - inside the head of humans. They understand the human condition and beyond that are able to follow thought experiments on this complicated model. Human thoughts, emotions, feelings and the resulting actions and words are very complicated to explain in a technically precise manner. It can be understood by examples though. This understanding of the human condition can lead to a broader understanding of how the world works. The authors do a what-if analysis for us and express it in words that would evoke deep responses from us. Lets say you meet a person from an unfamiliar background - you could have read about them and their problems in maybe an autobiography. The fiction writer could just amplify this image for you by contrasting this life with a life in a fortunate situation by simply making the character travel to a different country. Through the eyes of this character you can then better understand what exactly it is that they "feel". 

caliguli

Images from caligula are still making rounds underneath my scalp - bouncing of my visual areas. I am thinking a lot of Indian kings must have led this lifestyle as well, wouldn't they ?

No aid for AIDS

The last decade has been what some doctors call a "golden window" for treatment. Drugs that once cost $12,000 a year fell to less than $100, and the world was willing to pay.In Uganda, where fewer than 10,000 were on drugs a decade ago, nearly 200,000 now are, largely as a result of American generosity. But the golden window is closing. Uganda is the first country where major clinics routinely turn people away, but it will not be the last. In Kenya next door, grants to keep 200,000 on drugs will expire soon. An American-run program in Mozambique has been told to stop opening clinics. There have been drug shortages in Nigeria and Swaziland. Tanzania and Botswana are trimming treatment slots, according to a report by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders.

The collapse was set off by the global recession's effect on donors, and by a growing sense that more lives would be saved by fighting other, cheaper diseases. Even as the number of people infected by AIDS grows by a million a year, money for treatment has stopped growing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/world/africa/10aids.html?src=sch&pagewanted=all

Gulf Coast oil spill fought with . . . human hair? | al.com

Two local women have a plan to save the coastline by building booms with human hair scraps to absorb the oil from the BP spill.

Liz Ann Howard-Alvarez of Mobile and Amanda Bacon of Point Clear have created a grass-roots effort to build oil-absorbent barriers filled with hair, either human or animal, as long as it's clean, they said.

"These booms can be used by local residents to shore up and protect their property," Bacon said.
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/05/gulf_coast_oil_spill_fought_wi.html

A Toxic Fix to a Toxic Problem - Science and Tech - The Atlantic

As the Gulf Coast's ruptured oil well leaks anywhere from 5,000 to 60,000 barrels of crude a day, responders are relying heavily on toxic oil dispersants.

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/05/a-toxic-fix-to-a-toxic-problem/56203/