Eric Luttrell | Narrative is not reality @ericluttrell | Uploaded January 2017 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
We tend to think of narrative as deliberate, artistic way of redescribing something real or imagined. However, psychologists have consistently found that all of our thinking--even thoughts that we think of as literally true--are more narrative than reality. That's not to say that they are false, just that they ignore some facts, select others, overgeneralize these facts, and weave them together with preconceived assumptions rather than direct observation. While these narratives are more salient and memorable than pure facts, they can easily deceive us into thinking that our preconceptions come from the world rather than from our own imaginations. This is a phenomenon that economist Nassim Taleb calls "the narrative fallacy." One way that fictional narratives can help us overcome the narrative fallacy is by showing us how strange familiar situations can look if our prejudices and stereotypes are taken away.
We tend to think of narrative as deliberate, artistic way of redescribing something real or imagined. However, psychologists have consistently found that all of our thinking--even thoughts that we think of as literally true--are more narrative than reality. That's not to say that they are false, just that they ignore some facts, select others, overgeneralize these facts, and weave them together with preconceived assumptions rather than direct observation. While these narratives are more salient and memorable than pure facts, they can easily deceive us into thinking that our preconceptions come from the world rather than from our own imaginations. This is a phenomenon that economist Nassim Taleb calls "the narrative fallacy." One way that fictional narratives can help us overcome the narrative fallacy is by showing us how strange familiar situations can look if our prejudices and stereotypes are taken away.
