The importance of making sh*t up
Fact is, “facts” are a poor tool for progress.
Polish filmmaking great Krzysztof Kieślowski, who began his career as a documentary filmmaker before switching over to films, said this about his reason for doing so — [fiction is better equipped to portray the truth about everyday realities.]
It was in first or second year of college that I came across this quote and I couldn’t wrap my head around it. Until then, I viewed stories (thanks in no small measure to our education system) as little more than an exercise in making sh*t up. It can be enjoyable, sure, emotionally provocative, too, but in the end nothing more than a means to escape reality. Indian cinema, Bollywood, I speak of thee in particular, also popularised the idea by peddling escapist fantasies almost exclusively. With some intelligentsia even terming any attempt to do otherwise as elitist and pseudo-intellectual, denying common folk the chance to escape the drudgery that is their daily lives. And that was all the role of fiction in society, I learned.
So, little surprise that I believed “facts” to be the very foundation of all things intelligent and non-frivolous. Moreover, capturing facts in its minutest and precise detail, I believed, was the only thing paramount in finding and speaking the truth.
But as is often the case in life, a little living is all it takes to understand the fallacy of many firmly held ideas of youth. This was no exception. Firstly, the biggest problem lies, I realised, in defining the very idea of “truth” or if used interchangeably, “fact” as well.
At the very minimum, truth has 3 versions — what she said, what he said, and the truth.
A cursory scan of documented facts from around the world, i.e. “history”, taught as an objective science no less, is enough to make the case in point. And it can be captured by the simplest and the most powerful of observations regarding it.
History, without exception, is written by the victor.
Did the great battles of yore happen exactly the way it has been recorded? The answer almost always is, even with the slightest of education and objectivity, a resounding no. Yet, it is taught as such.
Nonetheless, there is a strong case for doing so. At least in the early years of schooling. Simply put, the reason is this.
The “absolute” is an immeasurably easier concept to grasp. The concept of “relative” is decidedly not.
This is why machines can be spoken to only in “0's” and “1's”. Another reason why we don’t have to fear AI taking over the world anytime soon. It’s because interpreting things as “black” or “white”, without any shade in between, is quite frankly, the lowest form of intelligence there is. But the early years of schooling is also the early years of intellect. So, a primary education model that is premised on the idea of “facts” alone, is a tenable one.
The trouble arises when this becomes the foundation of reasoning even for the adult mind, worse, for scholarly treatise. To truly understand any subject, a binary analysis of its so called “facts” is extremely poor science. In fact, the more scientific depth a study requires, the more imaginative the enquiry needs to be. Take a subject often considered to be the polar opposite of “fiction” — physics. Be it enquiry about the endlessly large universe, or into the ridiculously small quantum particles, they are at their very core, anti-fact. From dark matter to quantum entanglement, nothing makes “factual” sense.
We indeed had it right when we deemed people such as Issac Newton, philosophers instead of scientists.
And while there is undeniable value in standing on the shoulders of giants, it is the most fascinating, utterly unapologetic, yarn that we spin standing atop, that will truly propel us into a better future.
It always has.
