wolveria: I don’t engage with the “fiction affects reality” argument, because it’s a red herring….
I don’t engage with the “fiction affects reality” argument, because it’s a red herring. It’s focusing on the wrong thing.
Fiction doesn’t affect reality, fiction affects people. That’s the point of art. It’s supposed to create an effect, make you feel something. If you’re afraid how fiction will make people feel, then you’re not afraid of fiction. You’re afraid of people having the power to possibly cause harm.
It’s a lot more sanitized to say “this fiction is bad because it affects reality” and not the more truer version of “this fiction is bad because it might make people feel things I’m afraid of.”
And we know that can lead to some dark things fairly quickly, the desire to preemptively persecute people based on their potential for harm, rather than any harm they’ve actually done. This reaction is based on fear of the unknown, and you can’t win an argument against the irrationality of fear.
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