Warning: The following contains an unpopular theological belief. I don’t want to get into a big theological debate here, so please keep the discussion to Kreeft’s thesis and not his example.
Peter Kreeft:
“Theories lie more readily than stories. That is why our psychologists tell us we are good but our novelists tell us we are evil.” ~ A Turn of the Clock
Warning: The following quotation is by Ursula K. Le Guin. Extended exposure to Le Guin – as with Tolkien, MacDonald, and many others – may result in believing things that could cause you to be labeled a “geek.” Though, if you’re reading and commenting on this site, you’re already there.
Ursula K. Le Guin:
“For fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it is true. Children know that. Adults know it, too, and that is precisely why many of them are afraid of fantasy. They know that its truth challenges, even threatens, all that is false, all that is phony, unnecessary, and trivial in the life they have let themselves be forced into living. They are afraid of dragons because they are afraid of freedom…. Children know perfectly well that unicorns aren’t real, but they also know that books about unicorns, if they are good books, are true books.” ~ Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction, rev. ed. New York: Harper Collins, 1989.
Perelandra on 
Jeremy on 
revgeorge on 
Arabella Figg on 
Tom on 
Loading ...
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
Nothing controversial or unpopular here. Perhaps because I agree with what is being quoted.
I think Le Guin touches on an especially good point, that adults are perhaps afraid of fantasy. I can guess why some Christians would be afraid of fantasy. That if children realize or believe that unicorns are not real nor the Tooth Fairy nor Santa Claus that they will also come to believe that Jesus is not real either. And so they seek to protect Jesus from this by trying to stifle any sort of imagination or any sort of fantasy by saying only Jesus is real & so you can’t read books about dragons or fairies or Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny because they’re not true or real; only Jesus is true & real.
Not realizing, of course, Tolkien’s argument & thesis that our literature & stories & myths echo the one true Myth. And that they are true in the same way that Kreeft & Le Guin postulate.
I just read a book by Dr. Kreeft called “The Philosophy of Tolkien: The Worldview Behind The Lord of the Rings”. It was very good.
There’s a good lecture by Kreeft on Tolkien at iTunes U, as well. Kreeft is excellent.
It took me a while to spot the unpopular theological belief! I have no arguments with it.
All the books we were made to read in High School English bear the truth of Kreeft’s example: Lord of the Flies, The Chocolate War, etc, etc.
And all the theories of personality I studied at university failed because they couldn’t or wouldn’t take this fact into account.
The people I know who are against fantasy are against freedom in that they see the world in an either/or way. They are very uncomfortable with nuance or ambiguity. You are either right or wrong. And since they have decided that fantasy is wrong I must be wrong if I read it. A pastor friend of mine who thinks this way told me he would not be comfortable with his teenage daughters coming to my church because I read Harry Potter. He’s fearful of the influence I might have (or the influence I might be under!).
Kreeft is ‘the man.’ Love his work. Maybe I’m missing something here, but what is the unpopular theological belief in the quote?
The irony is, had I not brought attention to it, it probably wouldn’t have come up
The unpopular belief is that “we are evil,” not good.
Let me see if I understand what you’re saying Travis: is it that fiction gets at the truth about humanity better than theories? By theories, do you mean scientific theories? Theories based on hypothesis testing, observation, sampling and empirical findings?
I don’t mean to get tangled up in the example Kreeft uses (although I would dearly love to!) but the nature of the example suggests that you are talking about the nature of humanity, and good and evil. Not the usual domain of science or scientific theories or analysis. Thus psychologists do not tell us whether mankind is good or evil. They do sometimes attempt to tell us why people behave well or badly (try Four Roots of Evil by Baumeister and Vohs in the book The Social Psychology of Good and Evil).
If I do understand you correctly, then I would suggest an alternative: fiction allows us to understand human nature in a different way than scientific theories – and the empirical method they are based on – do. One way is subjective, the other objective. One is experiential, the other based on systematic observation and replication. One is artistic and aesthetic, the other is dry and precise.
As for LeGuin, she seems to be arguing for a higher kind of truth which goes beyond what is factual and which can be found in fantasy. If she – or anyone else – finds ultimate meaning in fantasy, more power to her. I am made uneasy, however, by the assumption that she herself can make the distinction between “the truth” on the one hand, and all that is “false, phony, unnecessary and trivial” in the lives of other people. It sounds very much like she’s saying she knows what is best – or knows where it can be found. And of all the types of people I fear, those who make that particular claim are the ones I fear the most.
Well, then, you’d have to fear me, Rocker, because I firmly believe that I know where Truth can be & is found.
Besides, I’m not sure you can get all that assumption out of Le Guin from just the short quotation we had. She’s making a generalization in this regard & it seems to be a truism of a sort. Especially that adults fear fantasy because they fear imagination & where imagination might take children, namely, out of their control.
Red Rocker, I’d have to go pull that Kreeft book out of the library to find whether he was talking about all fiction or fantastic fiction when he used the word “stories.” I’m of the opinion, with Chesterton, and with Clyde S. Kilby whom I’ve quoted recently, that mythic thinking goes beyond rational and empirical data and provides deeper and more satisfying truth than the scientists can possibly give, since science is concerned with the physical world. Pertaining to “realistic fiction,” I’d agree with your alternative. Pertaining to myth, I’d put myth at a higher level than science (though I don’t ultimately think the two need disagree with one another; just one includes and goes further than the other).
I’m inclined to think that Kreeft is referring to psychologists in particular, not strictly to scientific theories, and to the current importance of “self-esteem” in pop psychology.
Getting to your fear about the Le Guin quote, we’d have to get into a rather lengthy debate about the ability to know things (you’ve never sounded more postmodern, by the way, than your response to the Le Guin quote, and perhaps never more modern than in your response to the Kreeft quote, which I find fascinating and something that I find myself doing – sounding postmodern in one breath and modern in the next). Not a discussion I can jump into tonight, but since I’ve opened the question with that quote, and with the quotes on myth of late, the discussion is fair game here.
Still, I’d note that for a couple years, you’ve been visiting and participating in this website, whose proprietor thinks there is a reliable source which can discern what is “the truth” and what is “phony,” and you haven’t seemed too afraid. Perhaps it’s all in the presentation? Or in the accompanying attitude? Or that we don’t really get into that discussion here?
As I was just about to write in response to revgeorge, it is all about attitude. As in, an attitude of not trying to force one’s own understanding of the truth on someone else. Or presuming to know what is best for someone else. Tolerance. Acceptance. Respect. As I’ve said before (a long time ago, pre-Deathly Hallows, when things used to get hot and heavy here) one of the things I admire most about this site is its tone, which is all those things. So I can visit here and feel safe and amongst kindred spirits.
Interesting that you mention the pop-psychology idea about the importance of self-esteem. Baumeister (whom I referenced above) has actually done a lot of research debunking that particular idea. It turns out that high self-esteem, in the form of narcissism, is clearly linked to violence and aggression. In fact, it is one of the “four roots of evil” that he and Vohs write about in their chapter. Low self-esteem, on the other hand, makes for better behaviour towards others. Who knew?
Postmodern? Me? I don’t really think so (although I remain fuzzy on the exact definition). If by postmodern you mean that I don’t think the truth is knowable, that isn’t exactly true. It’s just that I tend to side with Dumbledore on this one. I’ve lent out my copy of Beedle: does anyone remember what he said about the truth in his annotated copy?