“Alternative facts” entered the lexicon over the weekend and now everyone is talking about whether we are in a post truth world. I keep thinking of our friends, Pete and Shelley, and their preference for fiction over non. After every visit we go home with a list of books, mostly ones on loan from the library. Some of which, Sinclair Lewis’s “It Can’t Happen Here” and David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest,” pretty much layout our current non-fiction state. I get the feeling they think our obsession with current events is silly because fiction so much broader. But if the context for understanding fiction is reality based where would fiction be without non-fiction. And with “alternative facts” and “post-truth” that context goes out the window. Might as well merge those two departments in the library.
3 Comments
Fiction and nonfiction are both reality based. I think the measuring stick for both is truth, not reality.
they merged those sections together years ago into one called science fiction. apparently we are now there as Trumps’ inaugural address was described as dystopian. Maybe our timeline split when Trump was elected and we are living in what was described in Superman comics as “bizarro” world. Mosdef
There is no reality. However, as Rich Stim says, there is truth. He will be defeated in the end.