From: mss2@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Unbe Awakens
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 02:02:21 GMT

In article <Dec17.214029.51006@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Alan Smith) writes:
>In article <1gon3eINN2cl@gap.caltech.edu> lydick@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU writes:
>>In article <1992Dec10.045406.27625@midway.uchicago.edu>, mss2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer) writes:
>>=	"Of course religion has nothing to do with morality to a
>>=nonreligious person-- fiction cannot provide a basis for morals, and

>"Oh yes it can.  A good many people base their morals offa 'stranger
>in a strange land.'  Not only is that overtly ficticious, it was never
>billed as a guide to morals.  There are schools of thought that one of
>the functions of mythology - any mythology is to provide a basis for 
>morals."  Big Al looks down.

	"But myths have power precisely insofar as they illustrate
perceived truths in a way which mere factual reporting doesn't.
People who base their morals on _Stranger_ don't (for the most part)
believe that there are enlightened Martians with powers-- but they may
believe that sharing love more widely would make for better, happier
people.  By definition, the things people believe aren't fiction,
though moral themes can be _portrayed_ in fiction.  I don't have to
believe in Odin to see the valor the Aesir display in the face of
doom, nor do I have to believe in hobbits to reckon with the magnitude
of Frodo Baggins' sacrifice.  But I have to believe that valor and
sacrifice are admirable.  Those are the realities (or at least
presumed realities) that make myth.  To say that a work of fiction
influenced one's morals is to say that something within it wasn't
fiction-- or, since that's a clumsy way to use the word, to say that
something in that story was _true_.  Not the people and the places and
the events, but the whys and the wherefores.  There's an Orson Scott
Card essay that I like which expresses something like what I'm trying
to say:

	`All storytelling contains elements of the particular, the
epic, and the mythic.  Fiction and scripture are both uniquely suited
to telling mythic tales, however, because by definition fiction is
_not_ tied to particular people in the real world, and by definition
scripture is perceived by its believers to be the universal truth
rather than being merely and particularly true, the way history is
usually received.  That fiction and scripture are also inevitably
epic, reflecting values and assumptions of the community out of which
they arose, is true but not terribly important, for their audience
_believes_ mythic stories to be universal and, over time, comes to
behave as if they _were_ universal.
	`But fiction is not all equally mythic.  Some fiction is quite
particular, tied to a time and place and even characters in the real
world.  Thus historical fiction or contemporary realistic fiction with
a strong sense of place can lead the reader to say, "Those people
certainly were/are strange," rather than the more mythic response,
"People certainly are strange," or the even more mythic response, "I
never knew people were like that," or the ultimate mythic response,
"Yes, that's how people are."

-- Orson Scott Card, _Maps in a Mirror_

Michael
-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mschiffer@aal.itd.umich.edu	    Virginia (1784)