Imaginative does not mean Imaginary
The title is part of a quote from author G. K. Chesterton, who goes on to say, "Every true artist does feel, consciously or unconsciously, that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil. In other words, the natural mystic does know that there is something there; something behind the clouds or within the trees; but believes that the pursuit of beauty is the way to find it; that imagination is a sort of incantation that can call it up."
Just as Chesterton believed that the creation of art, and specifically the writing of fiction, offers a pathway to "transcendental truths," I believe that the reading of fiction also serves as an access point to those same truths. How often have you heard some version of "seeing is believing"? Reading fiction allows us to see far beyond ourselves - to enter the world of another person, to sympathize and empathize with them. When we read books that unsettle us and challenge our thinking, these skills are further developed, and with significantly less perceived risk than encountering the same sorts of challenges and 'otherness' in our real life.
If you have already read my previous post, The Light Where Stories Begin & End, this post offers insight into my 'why;' why I have decided to use novels and stories as the source for my musings, rather than scholarly articles and tomes. The phrase, “those who do not learn history are destined to repeat it” is believed to have originated as Santayana’s statement, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” There is no doubt that history and other non-fiction genres are important, but the usage of ‘remember’ and ‘learn’ within the two statements is, I believe, the beginning to the answer of why reading fiction assists in our development in a way non-fiction does not.
Our brains use both memory and imagination to make copies of our experiences, which are then offered to us as needed. Memory preserves the original form, order, and position in which the experience occurred and is tied to providing us with the information in that form, without variation. Imagination is at liberty to transpose, adjust, and change the ideas we experience. When we focus solely (or even significantly) on the retention and storage of knowledge, we risk failing to develop the critical conscious that is necessary to become active transformers of our world, tending instead to simply adapt to the world as it is. A good friend of mine recently quoted the brilliant Adam Savage, who said, "I reject your reality, and substitute my own." I would argue that imagination is required to truly embody that statement.
Stories have more impact than numbers because numbers are processed rationally but stories cause us to create pictures in our brains through the use of our imaginations, and this visual imagery activates circuits in the oldest sections in our brains, resulting in an evolved, emotion-and-rights-based moral understanding of a situation rather than one based in detached reason. Researchers have found that simply imagining people of a certain gender or race engaging in actions that run counter to an individual’s embedded biases and stereotypes reduced the individual’s belief in their original stereotype.
All of this to say that I believe in the power of fiction, and that the development of our imaginations can and will create changes in our beings that are far beyond imaginary. I hope you come along on this journey with me, in the next blog I will use a novel by Pip Williams to dive into the importance of words, including the power of speaking vs. writing, and the question of whose words deserve to be saved...and why?
I'll leave you today with a quote from Librarian, Jennifer Powell, "I have made it my mission to unteach children that 'fiction is fake.' Here are my new definitions as I started teaching today: Nonfiction is learning through information, Fiction is learning through imagination."
I do love a good both/and.
Davies, J. (2019). Imagination: The science of your mind’s greatest power. Pegasus Books.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th Ed.) (M.B. Ramos, Trans.). Bloomsbury.
Hume, D. (March 4, 2002). The project Gutenberg ebook of a treatise of human nature. (Retrieved November 29, 2023). Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4705/4705-h/4705-h.htm
Kidd, D. C. and Castano, E. (18 October 2013). Reading literary fiction improves theory of mind (Retrieved 29 November 2023). Science. 342: 377-380. https://www-jstor-org.gonzaga.idm.oclc.org/stable/42619922?sid=primo&seq=3
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