写作与思考2019nytimes.com
为什么虚构故事比事实更有力量
Why Fiction Beats Truth
导读
这篇《纽约时报》观点文章讨论虚构与叙事为何常在政治和公共生活中压过事实，借历史与政治例子说明故事如何凝聚群体、塑造认同。对写作者来说，它值得读，因为它既揭示叙事的强大动员力，也提醒我们追问叙事背后的代价与伦理。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
不要只罗列事实，要用故事、隐喻和人物把事实组织成能被理解和传播的意义。
- 02
避免把“真相 vs 虚构”写成简单二元对立，好的写作应呈现事实如何被解释、误用和动员。
- 03
设计叙事时追问：这个“有用”的故事让谁受益、让谁成为代价，避免把被牺牲者当成抽象背景。
- 04
写历史或政治题材时，区分小事实的真假与宏大叙事的“真实性”，谨慎使用概括性的民族或群体故事。
HN 评论精选
人们偏爱社交上有用的叙事，但在延迟和规模化后果面前，这种偏好会变得危险。
第四，生活中几乎所有事情，知道真相在实践中并不重要；人们相信能成为良好社交对象的东西，也就是讨论的催化剂。若错误会直接且很快带来后果，人们通常会迅速学到真相。问题在于今天许多事物有延迟效应，或只在规模上才显现；比如把胡扯新闻当真只影响酒吧闲聊还行，但它们也会塑造公众对治理的压力，尤其在民主国家，人们最终会据此投票。关于文章第二点的政治例子：我真希望人们能学得更好。不加批判地相信任何领袖，通常都会危及自身生存。
TeMPOraL查看英文原文
Fourth: for almost anything in life, knowing the truth doesn't matter in practice - instead, people believe things that make for good social objects, i.e. catalysts of discussions with other people. In cases were being wrong leads to direct and near-immediate consequences, people tend to learn the truth quickly. The problem with that is that today, a lot more things have delayed effects, or effects that only materialize at scale. For instance, taking whatever bullshit news sources publish at face value works as long as it only matters in bar conversations; unfortunately, these things also shape public pressure on governance - in particular in democracies, where people end up voting on it. WRT. article's point 2, politics example: I really wish people would learn better. Believing a leader - any leader - uncritically is generally unsafe for your own survival.
事实与虚构的二元对立过于简单，大众选择叙事是在寻求更大图景，而非单纯愚蠢。
真相与虚构的二元对立是常见思维，但过于简单。认为一边是事实、另一边全是谎言，而大众总选“坏的一边”，这是简单、缺乏想象力、不现实的思考。即使一组最残酷“真实”的事实，也很容易被曲解、误用，导致可怕后果。声称拥有真相的人，可能只握有几条像事实的公理，却总在应用自己本能的解释。所以大众偏爱虚构，并非文中那些原因——那些原因都根植于“大众很蠢”的愚蠢想法。他们不蠢；他们看穿小而静态的“事实”的琐碎真相，在看更大的图景，而这需要隐喻和右脑感知。
wellpast查看英文原文
This truth v. fiction binary is common thinking but far too simplistic. The idea that there is just a set of facts on one side of the fence and on the other is all the lies -- and the dumb hoi polloi just tends to always go for the "bad side"... This is just simplistic, unimaginative, unrealistic thinking. Even a cluster of the most brutally "true" of facts can be so readily misconstrued and misapplied and result and motivate terrible consequences. Anyone who claims to have the truth might be holding on to a few axioms resembling facts -- but they will always be applying their own visceral interpretation of what should be done with those facts. So when the hoi polloi favors fiction over facts, it's less for any of the reasons mentioned here which incidentally are all rooted in the (frankly, dumb) idea that the hoi polloi is dumb. They're not. They look past the trivial truth of small, static 'facts' and are looking at the bigger picture which requires metaphor and right-hemispheric perception, etc.
社会有用虚构会伤害被针对者，写作者应追问叙事的代价由谁承担。
当一个人发现自己正被他人“社会有用虚构”的车轮碾成路杀时，该怎么办？我觉得文章作者甚至可能主张顺从许多社会有用虚构，或至少不要浪费精力去对抗。但当你是被针对的人或信条时，这几乎行不通。
nullc查看英文原文
So what should one do when one finds themselves being turned into roadkill under the wheels of someone else's socially useful fiction? I feel like the author of the piece might even advocate going along with-- or at least not wasting your energies fighting-- many cases of socially useful fiction. But that hardly works when you happen to be the person or of the creed one targets.
宏大叙事不能用简单真假二分来评判，历史与民族认同本身就是叙事建构。
我和很多人一样，是Harari《人类简史》的粉丝。但……这种叙事不可避免地进入棘手领域：它毕竟是一个解释叙事作用的叙事。纯粹的真相和虚假通常很小，比如E=mc²、F=ma、凯撒在公元前49年渡过卢比孔河，基本是事实。爱因斯坦预示原子时代，人类开始掌握物质与能量；牛顿力学成为科学探索的模型和即将到来的理性时代的象征；罗马共和国在那一天结束，帝国开始。这些既非真也非假，它们是叙事，或YNH有时所称的虚构。叙事的真实性比事实的真实性模糊得多。文中给出虚构在政治上成功的三个理由，这些理由本身就是叙事。例如“多少以色列人、意大利人或印度人能承受关于他们国家无瑕疵的真相”——我不认为国家存在“无瑕疵的真相”。历史终究是叙事制造的最大最毛茸茸的例子。没有叙事，就没有有意义的“意大利人民”，只有人、地方和东西；要让它有意义，你需要一个叙事，一个告诉你“意大利人民”是什么的故事。我认为更好理解政治叙事如何运作很重要也有趣，但我怀疑真/非真的分类是否有意义、有用。
dalbasal查看英文原文
I'm a big fan of Harari's Sapiens, like a lot of people. But... I think the.. narrative gets into inevitably sticky territory. It is, after all, a narrative explaining the role of narratives... Pure truths and falsehoods are generally small. e=mc^2 or F=ma. Cesar crossed the Rubicon in 49 BC. Facts, baiscally. Einstein heralded the atomic age, when man began to master matter & energy. Newton's mechanics became both a model for scientific exploration and a symbol for the coming rational age. The Roman Republic ended that day, and the Empire began. These no neither truths or falsehoods. They're narratives, or fictions as YNH sometimes calls them. The truth of a narrative is much squishier than the truth of a fact. A case in point is right here: he gives 3 reasons for why fictions succeed politically. These reasons are narratives themselves. For example: "How many Israelis Italians or Indians can stomach the unblemished truth about their nations" I don't think there is an "unblemished truth" about a nation. History is ultimately the biggest harriest example of narrative making. Without narratives, there is no meaningful "Italian people," just people and places and stuff. To make it meaningful, you need a narrative. A story that tels you what "The Italian People" are. I think a better understanding of how political narratives work is important (and interesting). I'm just skeptical that a true-v-not_true classification is meaningful or useful. Political pychology should be a field in itsewlf. It's very hard to project much meaning from facts. Facts don't tell you what Cesar means for our Republic.
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