A Philosophical Happy Hour on the moral, psychological, and cultural significance of fictitious entities in human life.
Cultural Role of Fictitious Entities
Fictitious entities, myths, and media entertainment saturates much of our cultural ethos and society today. Many references we use and employ, metaphors we construct, the subterranean moralizing messaging we find is more often than not, done through the use of recognized fictional examples. Fictional beings can be very ancient. One thinks of Homeric epics, Hesiod’s Theogony, or the plays of the great Greek tragedians. Oftentimes they are invoked to illustrate issues of fate, divine providence, social obligation, or founding myths. Other times, fictional entities are relatively recent, coming out of new media platforms, streaming shows, cinema, comics, etc.—and while not having as great a history and precedent—nevertheless saturate the discourse and engagement we have with one another.
Very often, much significance is placed upon these fictional media entities and much of the discourse we form around them is how best to interpret (or ideologically coopt) them in our respective worldviews. Most especially, the ubiquitous ‘culture war’ discourse that seems to occur every so often often gears towards and centers around the habits of interpretation of these forms of media.
Moral Significance of Fictitious Entities
But just what are these fictitious entities? And why do we place enormous significance and meaning upon their existence and the forms of interpretation we allow in discourse. In addition to this, why do we allow fictional aesthetics to play such a part in our aesthetic and emotional lives? Arguably, couldn’t we better focus on the company of people we know and for whom we care? The former seems a wasteful investment of the self, especially in contrast to the latter. St. Augustine of Hippo draws attention to this psychological drain in how the stage plays he experienced in his youth made him feel certain dispositions and emotions purely for the sake of enjoyment.
What is the reason now that a spectator desires to be made sad when he beholds doleful and tragical passages, which himself could not endure to suffer? Yet for all that he desires to feel a kind of passionate, yea, and his passion becomes his pleasure too. What is all this but a miserable madness? For every man is more affected with these actions, the less free he is from such affections.
St. Augustine’s Confessions, p.101-103. (W. Watt trans.).
Come Be Real with Us
The questions I wanted to ask: why do we place such significance upon the meaning of fictional entities in our cultural ethos? What habits do they instill and shape within ourselves? Is there ever come a point where the concern and interest we have becomes an unhealthy habit?