Fiction and Worldview

Will reading fiction give me a distorted image of the world?

short answer: yes.

This idea has bothered me a bit as well, given how much of my youth I spent reading. It wasn't fiction that concerned me, though, because you know straight out that thats a bunch of lies. What about non-fictions highly intermediated glimpse of the outside world? Every time I see something in the news that I know anything at all about, I dismiss the reporters as fools, yet a moment later I am required to once again place absolute trust in them. But as far as worrying about fiction goes, do the readers of genre fiction believe that the world has elves in it? No. So why should works with more literary merit have a different effect on the individual?

Bump

Yes. Just look at the kids who only understand the world through TV references.

brb burning all of my books
Fiction creates simplified pictures of reality which can be molded in all sorts of ways, either maliciously or not. Burning my non-fiction now too.

No such thing as an undistorted image of the world, but yes, fiction will alter your perception of things.

are you stupid? tell me, what is the universal, non-distorted view of the world?

hint: it doesn't exist.

Is my personal experience not more reflective of the world than the things read in a book?

things in a book, once read, become part of your personal experience

And a person's personal experience being made up of things that, by definition, did not happen does not bother you at all?

Fiction is a part of reality. Who gave you the fictitious idea that reality does not encompass all aspects of itself?

Reading gives you a deeper understanding of things than interacting with normies in the 'real world' which is 80% product placement and secondhand pop culture references anyways. Next time you watch TV, notice how characters are rewarded for expressing 'good feelings' while those expressing 'bad feelings' are redeemed through a hugs and kisses session. Pop culture is full of insidious emotional manipulation. Your experience of reality is probably so distorted you aren't even aware of how distorted it is. Books provide you with more tools to understand your day to day existence and navigate reality. You can't afford to reject these tools, it's a harsh world out there.

see
don't discount the realm of imagination, it is unironically as real as your interpersonal relationships

Don't worry, I would be avoiding pop culture too. That stuff is fictitious as well.

Like Don Quijote, maybe.

Everything is fiction, fggt.

>Every time I see something in the news that I know anything at all about, I dismiss the reporters as fools, yet a moment later I am required to once again place absolute trust in them.

the moment you are able to cognize any of your sensory perceptions, you take on a distorted view of the world. only in knowing nothing can we truly know.

Even science is a type of fiction. No one knows how to live authentically. Just read what you want and try to figure it all out for everyone's sake.

A lack of reality checks gives you a distorted image of the world.

You can't avoid it you scrub. You have to engage with it and overcome it. Or literally go live in a cave

I read pynchon, pkd and delillo in college and now I'm not a conspiracy theorist i'm pretty much paranoid all the time now. everyone is against you

Also, my dude. Maybe a good way to think about it would be to not separate reading fiction from other experiences. Accept that fiction often captures more truth than non fiction. And try to appreciate how much you impose yourself on your own perceptual experience - once you get this you'l see how there never was an unadulterated externality you were the passive observer of; from your birth you've been warping the world to fit you. Then you might want to read some fiction to help you develop more nuanced and complex lenses for engaging with experience.