Opinion | Why Fiction Trumps Truth - The New York Times - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...why-fiction-trumps-truth.html
truth fiction power politics history scholars fanaticism culture
![](/images/link.gif)
-
sticking with the truth is the best strategy for gaining power. Unfortunately, this is just a comforting myth
-
In fact, truth and power have a far more complicated relationship, because in human society, power means two very different things.
-
On the one hand, power means having the ability to manipulate objective realities: to hunt animals, to construct bridges, to cure diseases, to build atom bombs. This kind of power is closely tied to truth.
- ...12 more annotations...
-
On the other hand, power also means having the ability to manipulate human beliefs, thereby getting lots of people to cooperate effectively.
-
large-scale cooperation depends on believing common stories. But these stories need not be true. You can unite millions of people by making them believe in completely fictional stories about God, about race or about economics.
-
The dual nature of power and truth results in the curious fact that we humans know many more truths than any other animal, but we also believe in much more nonsense
-
When it comes to uniting people around a common story, fiction actually enjoys three inherent advantages over the truth. First, whereas the truth is universal, fictions tend to be local. Consequently if we want to distinguish our tribe from foreigners, a fictional story will serve as a far better identity marker
-
The second huge advantage of fiction over truth has to do with the handicap principle, which says that reliable signals must be costly to the signaler
-
If political loyalty is signaled by believing a true story, anyone can fake it. But believing ridiculous and outlandish stories exacts greater cost, and is therefore a better signal of loyalty.
-
Third, and most important, the truth is often painful and disturbing. Hence if you stick to unalloyed reality, few people will follow you
-
What’s true of the Nazis is true of many other fanatical groups in history. It is sobering to realize that the Scientific Revolution began in the most fanatical culture in the world. Europe in the days of Columbus, Copernicus and Newton had one of the highest concentrations of religious extremists in history, and the lowest level of tolerance.
-
The ability to compartmentalize rationality probably has a lot to do with the structure of our brain. Different parts of the brain are responsible for different modes of thinking. Humans can subconsciously deactivate and reactivate those parts of the brain that are crucial for skeptical thinking
-
Even if we need to pay some price for deactivating our rational faculties, the advantages of increased social cohesion are often so big that fictional stories routinely triumph over the truth in human history.
-
The most powerful scholarly establishments in history — whether of Christian priests, Confucian mandarins or Communist ideologues — placed unity above truth. That’s why they were so powerful.