#46: Why you should read fiction?
Imaginative literature is otherness, and as such alleviates loneliness
My friends have often criticised me for having scanty section of fiction in my library of books. And their argument does hold some water. I rarely read fiction. A large chunk of my readings include biographies, business, self-empowerment, history, sociology and economics. I am guilty of harboring a belief that fiction writing is a fanciful and futile part of literarure. I could not have been farther from the truth. But now I know the importance of fiction in life and that there’s no hierarchy in literature. There’s no good or bad literature.
As I started reading anthropology and more about the basis of religion, society and social organisation, I saw fiction playing a crucial role in uniting groups and bringing people together to cooperate towards achieving towering feats. It was a fictional belief in life after death leading upto pyramids. Some of the seminal religious books shaping our current public discourse are masterpieces of fiction, but they have been distorted over time.
If misinterpretation of fiction can cause disharmony, then reading and understanding it correctly can help to dissipate some of that negative energy. Developing an apetite for good fiction can help. I was listening to a podcast in which the host talks about a popular Kannada novel. It begins with the scene of a few small-town boys deciding on the inevitability of a large-scale revolution. Apparently, the motive for the revolution is to end the myriad ills plaguing their society. The amusing reality, though, gets uncovered later in the scene.
The boys’ repeated failures in enticing the girls in the town had frustrated them so much that they begin to seek comfort in the fantasy of revolution as a true panacea. The quest after girlfriends had mysteriously morphed into a zeal for social revolution!
One gets similar thoughts about the motives of “keyboard warriors” who write rage-filled comments on social media sites. These arm-chair “revolutionaries” typically ally themselves with a political group or an ideology. The alliance, however, is seldom the result of any studied understanding of the ideology; it is simply due to the influence of what the cognitive sciences call the bandwagon effect.
Bandwagon effect refers to the common human tendency of forming beliefs based on trendy opinions. The human mind has a natural penchant for trendy opinions because being on the side of large groups confers on it a sense of belonging and security. Loneliness and fear abate, at least fleetingly.
Once the bandwagon effect operates and beliefs get formed, the “likes” and “shares” on social media sites only reinforce them. In addition to promoting lazy habits of the mind, the illusive camaraderie birthed by these “likes” and “shares” functions as a balm for frustrated hearts. The keyboard warrior is thus left with scarcely any incentive to calmly appraise facts that are contrary to his beliefs. If intellectual laziness brings emotional comfort too, why care to become intellectually active?
Over four centuries ago, Francis Bacon cautioned against falling prey to this lazy habit of the human mind. Trendy opinions, he called “the idols of the marketplace”.
A worshipper of such idols is actually a victim of words that “plainly force and overrule the understanding, and throw all into confusion, and lead men away into numberless empty controversies and idle fancies”.
There is a time-honoured solution to the problems of loneliness and frustration that our keyboard warriors can employ: the noble company of classics and imaginative literature. Loneliness gets relieved when the the imaginative work pleasantly dislodges the reader from his small egotistic world and places him in the expansive realms of wider humanity. Frustration gets relieved when it gradually changes the reader’s outlook by providing him with a deeper appreciation of life and its common realities.
Reading fiction can help improve empathy and emotional intelligence. When we read about characters and their experiences, we are able to see the world from different perspectives and better understand the emotions and motivations of others.
Fiction can help improve cognitive skills. Reading fiction involves using our imagination and engaging with complex ideas, which can help improve our problem-solving and critical thinking skills.
Fiction can provide an escape from the stresses of everyday life. When we read a good book, we are able to lose ourselves in the story and escape from our own worries and concerns.
Fiction can introduce us to new ideas and cultures. Through reading fiction, we can learn about different cultures, historical periods, and ways of life that we may not be familiar with.
As Harold Bloom wrote, “Imaginative literature is otherness, and as such alleviates loneliness. We read not only because we cannot know enough people, but because friendship is so vulnerable, so likely to diminish or disappear, overcome by space, time, imperfect sympathies, and all the sorrows of familial and passional life.”
Will our angry warriors listen?
PS: I was astonished by a parallel between fiction and mathematics while reading a chapter on Aryabhata in Sunil Khilnani’s brilliant book ‘Incarnations’. Just if Aryabhata would have used little bit of fiction, he would have doged obscurity and didn’t have to wait for ISRO to name its first satellite after him to get due credit for his genius. I am too sleepy to write about it and my fatigued mind won’t be able to do justice to that story. So, perhaps, some other time.
Good night!