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/lit/ - Literature

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637474 No.637474 [Reply] [Original]

What I am saying is fiction isn't meant to be educational. I understand finding cleaver ways to teach kids through stories. However as adults we shouldn't be learning important lessons from imaginary happenings.

>> No.637476 [SPOILER] 
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637476

>> No.637475

>However as adults we shouldn't be learning important lessons from imaginary happenings.
>lolitrollu

>> No.637477

HAHA, I was JUST about to make this topic. Someone over on /tv/ just said what the OP posted, and I'm so stunned that I don't even know how to respond.

>> No.637478

Why not?

>> No.637485

>>637474
explainthisbullshit.png

>> No.637486
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637486

Everything about this post saddens me greatly.

No wonder everyone thinks the USA is full of retards.

>> No.637487
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637487

>>637474
>However as adults we shouldn't be learning important lessons from imaginary happenings.

>> No.637489

>>637486

where the fuck did usa come into this?

>> No.637491

>>637489
The assumption that the OP, or whoever said it, is from the USA...

>> No.637495

>>>/tv/8987543

We were having a discussion about The Road, and then it erupted into shenanigans.

>> No.637496

>However as adults we shouldn't be learning important lessons from imaginary happenings.

Looks like religion is your real enemy.

>> No.637500

From the same person:

>What lesson in life you could learn from a story that you couldn't learn 100% more if you tried to learn from your own life?

>> No.637503

Is this the American version of Karl Pilkington?

>> No.637505
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637505

>>637496

>> No.637508

calm... now... i'm going to get some whiskey and my fucking pipe and calm now... now...

>> No.637510

everything we know is a crafted fiction, and history one of the clumsiest of them

everything is imaginary

>> No.637511
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637511

>>637474

> implying novels are just adult versions of Aesop's fables.

books that want to teach you a moral lesson are usually juvenile and moralistic pieces of trash.

fiction can explore questions and present new angles on problems, they don't necessarily care to teach you a lesson, OP's argument misses the point.

For example, look at Brothers Karamazov, they explore the implications of God's existence, if he doesn't exist everything is permitted. That is an interesting idea, but is it valid? It seems that it isn't. Look at extremists their will, apropos God's will, turns that idea on it's head. If God exists, then everything is permitted, all you have to do is submit that God's will = your will. Etc.

Good fiction doesn't just teach you a lesson or solve a problem, it explores how we frame questions, and how we approach problems, and tries to get us to ask the right questions, much like philosophy.

>> No.637517

>we shouldn't be learning important lessons from imaginary happenings.
True.

>> No.637520

>people feeding the troll
No.

>> No.637536

>>637511
I have a re-occuring fantasy of making Chloe Vevrier grovel and cry like a cow. Look at those udders.

>> No.637538

Good literature presents ideas and motifs in a subtle way that sneaks up on you until you realize: "Oh shit, this is kind of true". Bad literature tells you what the author believes and give the reader enough credit to form his own ideas or opinions.


Fiction is educational because it not only gives us perspective, but presents its idea's in a ideal environment to prove the author's motifs. If the settings and characters are believable, chances are we will agree with the motif.

>> No.637544

>>637520
Like I said, it was a genuine post by someone over in /tv/. It was hilarious.

>> No.637551

>>637511
I am the guy from the tv thread. I didn't post this here. Someone else did

>fiction can explore questions and present new angles on problems, they don't necessarily care to teach you a lesson

However I think that the best way to learn how to deal with new problems is to simply try to work your own way through them. When you get stuck ask for help or inspiration, nothing wrong with that. Even if you fail its not a lesson lost, that is just another lesson taught. I just think people spend too much time mulling over what someone else has to say about life, culture, or spirituality to go out and experience it themselves and for their own opinion on it.

I don't really care if that makes me sound like a fool to a bunch of people I will never meet. I like how I live.

>> No.637558

>>637551
*form their own

Sorry some of the keys don't work too well on my keyboard.

>> No.637567

>>637551
there no substitute for experience

however some authors have spent their whole lives wrestling with a particular problem and experiencing it and gone deeper into that subject than I ever will
they can be learned from

part of the nature of passed down knowledge is that we can build on things, and try to progress
if progress even still exists

>> No.637573

>>637551
The whole point of fiction is to make us think of situations that generally won't ever happen in real life. That's sort of why people write stories or make movies - to give us a glimpse of something beyond the life we already have. Who the hell wants to watch a movie about something they already do every day, when it offers nothing more than their own experience?

I'd love to experience for myself an alien invasion, or be part of an elite military force tasked with taking out some sort of terrifying criminal mastermind. But you know what? That isn't going to happen to me, or you, or anyone else here. That's why I read fictional stories to get an idea what some of these are like. And you're saying it's a problem if some of them actually represent problems that may have allegory to real life experiences?

FOR SHAME

>> No.637576

>>637551
>>637558

It's the communication of well-formed and intelligent opinions based on life experience which makes good literature so valuable.

You seem to be operating under the impression that purely personal beliefs which are not negotiable, communicable or subject to critical analysis are somehow worth more than those that are.

>> No.637581

>>637567
Well no doubt authors have more experience than many readers. I still think any wisdom they have to offer should only guide when you hit a dead end. If you keep running to other peoples opinions before you take one step forward you will get stuck in a rut of never making your own decisions.

>> No.637593

>>637581
So let's put this into a hypothetical example.

You read a book about slavery, a fictional account of a man who struggles to belong in a society where slavery is considered normal and no one has any ethical or moral problems with slavery and the suffering of what they consider "subhumans." The character in the story doesn't necessarily believe that, and ends up siding with the slaves to free them.

Are you saying there's absolutely nothing to be gained by reading this book aside from the pleasure of having read it? That the only way to have an opinion on slavery is to become a slaveowner yourself?

>> No.637636

>>637593
So basically he is questioning the morality of the culture around him. The lines of humanity blurred due to a length of time in which one party is treated subhuman that results in the idea being so ingrained its accepted as fact.

I get where you are going with this, a moral issue that is not common in civilized society today. However you can draw from things happening around you that have the same basic problem. Many people struggle with a moral code put upon them by others. So it wouldn't be unthinkable that a person you know has dealt with this issue, even if its not as powerful as fighting an entire culture on an issue as big as slavery but in my opinion it's the small things that give the most encouragement. Because you know that small thing can be done, and has been done. I think I am going into rabbit trails now.

Anyway I said before in the other thread that I use movies/books to escape my life. I never said I didn't like to live in whatever I am watching/reading while it is in front of me. I would never know what its like to be a slave owner/master, or part of an alien invasion, or be part of an elite military force tasked with taking out some sort of terrifying criminal mastermind. I do however live that while I am away from my life. If I really wanted to know what it was like to be a slave or a slave master I would head straight for the nonfiction aisle and get all the books I could about slavery and soak up everything in them. I could name one person right off the bat that I am sure would have extensive experience with trying to change the social outlook on slaves and worked to set them free. I think you know who I am talking about. Simply reading his accounts would benefit me far more than a fictional tail I believe.

Sorry if I sound scatterbrained.

>> No.637652

>>637636
> If I really wanted to know what it was like to be a slave or a slave master I would head straight for the nonfiction aisle and get all the books I could about slavery and soak up everything in them. I could name one person right off the bat that I am sure would have extensive experience with trying to change the social outlook on slaves and worked to set them free. I think you know who I am talking about. Simply reading his accounts would benefit me far more than a fictional tail I believe.

That's exactly my point! You got the idea to do that from a fictional accounting of it. You found a topic that interested you, something that made you want more, and you went go learn more about it. Would you have done that without the inspiration provided by a fictional story on the same topic?

I'm not saying that fictional accounts have to be educational, or even that they always are. I am saying that sometimes, the best fiction opens our eyes up to something we didn't really think about before, and it makes us think more about it. That's all.

Sometimes that thinking inspires us to do something more with it than just say, "Huh, that was interesting," put it back on the shelf, and walk away from it.

>> No.637685

>>637652
I understand what you are saying. I don't disagree a story can open an opportunity to become educated. However I was more focusing on stories written to make a statement rather than to entertain and cause chain reaction of knowledge. Say a writer doesn't like the Iraq war, so he rights a story about the war and the entire point of the book is to tell people how the war is evil without actually saying those exact words. Instead he could have written about the war without the purpose of driving his ideals into peoples heads and left them to research and build an opinion on their own. That is what I don't like, that is what frustrates me when I see happen to folks around me. People get lead by the nose on subjects the writer may not know everything about and call themselves enlightened. Why? "Because he said so."

>> No.637707

>as adults we shouldn't be learning important lessons from imaginary happenings.

We shouldn't, but that doesn't mean that 99% of adults live increasingly sedentary lifestyles, and those who do get off their ass are probably far from being able to articulate philosophies or lessons into their every day life. If everyone on Earth was smart, we wouldn't need authors to explain things to them.

>> No.637717

To the OP:

Rasselas
Pamela

Adults were meant to learn important lessons from both. Of course, at the time they thought repetition was key, a practice no longer necessary because of our greatly advanced brains.

>> No.637748
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637748

o rly

I would like to know what differentiates the way a child learns from a book and the way an adult learns from one, and the difference between learning from nonfiction and learning from fiction. You're still reading something new, and analyzing it as you take it in.

What changes between adulthood and childhood, and when exactly does this change occur?