小说与文学2021overcomingbias.com
我们为何为虚构作品争论不休
Why We Fight over Fiction
导读
这篇短文讨论我们为什么会为虚构作品争得面红耳赤：作者认为，故事发生在读者熟悉的道德世界里才更容易被接受，而我们对现实世界的道德评价尚未定型，所以只能退回到奇幻与历史背景中去讲故事。对写作者来说，它提供了一种视角：读者对虚构的投入，本质上是对道德判断的投入，这直接关系到你如何设定世界与冲突。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
读者争论虚构作品，往往是在借故事协商道德判断；写故事时可以有意识地把道德难题放进情节，而不只是当背景。
- 02
把故事放在读者熟悉的道德框架里更容易被接受；若要让读者挑战既有框架，就需要更强的铺垫与说服力，否则容易被读成说教或冒犯。
- 03
当下现实缺少冷战式“简单反派”，冲突更含混多义；写作者可以借此制造张力，但不要把复杂性当借口，回避给出判断。
- 04
共享文化母题（亚瑟王、罗宾汉一类）历来被反复改写，这提醒我们：重写与改写是叙事传统的一部分，但今天要留意版权对“谁能讲这个故事”的限制。
HN 评论精选
质疑“今人更沉迷虚构”的前提，并指出虚构本身就是形成道德共识的工具，而非其下游产物。
作者说我们比祖先投入远更多时间精力在虚构上，这真的成立吗？我认为多数时代和地区的人都重视讲故事，我不觉得我们投入得更多。不过文章有些想法挺有意思。另外，我认为最好的故事本身就在帮我们厘清道德判断、建立共享的评价——虚构不是先有道德共识再影响阅读，它正是我们用来形成共识的工具之一；讲故事是人类理解世界（包括道德）的基本方式。作为推想小说爱好者，我也反感把这类作品说成道德混乱下“只能将就”的选择。
jrochkind1查看英文原文
> This helps to explain why we invest so much time and energy into fiction, far more than did any of our ancestors. Is this true? I think story-telling has been generally prioritized by humans at most place and times. It is not obvious to me we invest far more than our ancestors, I doubt it. But the OP is some interesting ideas, I'm still trying to figure out the implications. > Our moral evaluations of the main big actions that influence our world today, and that built our world from past worlds, are still up for grabs. And the more we build such shared evaluations, the more we’ll be able to tell satisfying stories set in the world in which we live, rather than set in the fantasy and historical worlds with which we must now make do. Hmm. I think some of the best stories help us work out our moral evaluations and build shared ones. This isn't just something that happens outside of fiction and then affects our consumption of fiction -- fiction, for the reasons the OP outlines in fact, is one of our tools for working it out. We build shared evaluations by telling stories. Story-telling is fundamental to how humans make sense of the world, moral and otherwise, but moral too. I think OP would agree? That is in fact why we fight over it, because we know how powerful it is in this area? Not sure. As a devotee of speculative fiction, I'm a bit offended at the framing that it is something we must "make do" with out of our moral confusion. Like any other genre, there is good and bad, but I think at it's best SF can be a notably valauble tool in helping us self-reflect and develop our moral sensibilities, it is in fact a power that SF has particularly. Sure, there's plenty of lazy SF that avoids reflection or difficult questions, but at it's best it has a particular power to challenge in a way that builds new understandings, precisely by inviting the reader to look at things with fresh eyes instead of the comfort of the familiar and legible.
版权垄断了共享故事的解释权，压缩了民间重写与再创作的空间。
我想部分原因可能是版权。过去你若觉得《贝奥武夫》、亚瑟王或罗宾汉该有别的结局，尽可以出版自己的版本；今天我们共享的文化故事归公司所有，由它们决定谁能讲。
harimau777查看英文原文
I wonder if part of the reason could be copyright. In the past if you thought that Beowulf, King Arthur, or Robin Hood should have ended different you were free to publish a version with your preferred ending. Today, our shared cultural stories are owned by corporations who get to decide who gets to tell them.
现实道德图景缺少“简单反派”，叙事因此退回熟悉的幻想设定，这解释了当代流行文化的保守倾向。
作为对当下热门故事持批判态度的人，这段话很戳中我。过去十年我常想，为什么我们与未来的关系和《星际迷航》初年相比变了这么多。简单答案是列举地球将毁的各种方式，但冷战时期的日子在很多方面更迫在眉睫，而《星际迷航》基本与古巴导弹危机同期。用这篇文章的框架看：我们的道德未来远不确定。冷战有旧叙事和现成的反派；今天的世界难以回避细微差别。这也能解释为什么许多3A游戏退回到托尔金式的衍生设定。我觉得这话有道理。
madrox查看英文原文
This speaks to me as someone who's critical of many of the hit stories in our popular culture. In the last decade, I've often wondered why our relationship to the future has changed so much since the first days of Star Trek. The easy answer would be to cite all the impending ways the planet is doomed. However, living through the cold war felt, in many ways, more pressingly dire, and Star Trek happened at basically the same time as the cuban missile crisis. In the context of this essay, our moral future is far less certain. The cold war had an old narrative to it, with easy villains. The world of today makes it more difficult to avoid the nuance. It can even explain why so many AAA game titles fall back to derivative, Tolkien-esque settings. This has the ring of truth to me.
真正有价值的作品常挑战而非迎合读者的道德框架，反例可举博尔赫斯、莱姆、纳博科夫、勒古恩。
我不太认同“我们 primarily 喜欢发生在熟悉道德世界里的故事”这一说法。很多通俗作品确实如此，但我们认为有价值的作品往往会挑战读者：博尔赫斯的许多短篇、莱姆的《索拉里斯星》，道德议题上还有纳博科夫的《洛丽塔》《爱达或爱欲》、《大师与玛格丽特》、勒古恩《黑暗的左手》（对性别的处理远超其时代）等等。我喜爱的书单里这类作品很多。
Barrin92查看英文原文
I'm not sure I agree with the idea what we primarily like stories that take place in familiar (moral) universes. For a lot of pop-fiction that's surely true but generally works we think of as being of merit challenge the reader. A lot of Borges stories come to mind. Stanislaw Lem's work like Solaris, on moral issues surely Nabokov's Lolita or Ada or Ardor. The Master and Margarita in the Soviet Union, Le Guin's the Left Hand of Darkness with takes on sexuality way ahead of their time and so on. If I go through my list of favourite books there's a lot of those.
同类还值得读
乔治·奥威尔1940年对《我的奋斗》的书评
George Orwell’s 1940 Review of Mein Kampf
这是奥威尔 1940 年对《我的奋斗》的书评，他没有简单谴责，而是认真分析希特勒的宣传手法为何奏效、又暴露了哪些思维特征。
小说与文学2022 · 499 分 · 545 评4 条写作要点编辑精选我们都是极客：尼尔·斯蒂芬森的文学作品
We are all nerds: The literary works of Neal Stephenson
这是一篇讨论 Neal Stephenson 科幻小说的文章，评论区读者围绕《Anathem》《钻石年代》《Snow Crash》等作品，聊世界构建、结尾处理和写作风格的变化。
小说与文学2022 · 307 分 · 220 评4 条写作要点编辑精选又一部我不会再去写的小说
Yet another novel I will no longer write
科幻作家 Charles Stross 讲述自己为何放弃一部已经构思好的小说：COVID-19 疫情让他的病毒灾难设定显得多余，现实给所有人上了一堂生动的疫情应对课。
小说与文学2020 · 304 分 · 169 评4 条写作要点编辑精选用图画写作：理查德·斯卡里与儿童文学的艺术
Writing in Pictures: Richard Scarry and the art of children's literature
这是《耶鲁评论》上漫画家 Chris Ware 写的文章，分析童书作家 Richard Scarry 如何用图画而不是文字来讲故事。
小说与文学2024 · 297 分 · 131 评4 条写作要点编辑精选如何写一部小说
How to Write a Novel
这篇来自 The Millions 的文章讨论写小说的两种路径——“计划派”（planners）与“即兴派”（pantsers，即“跟着感觉走、边写边编”）。
小说与文学2016 · 238 分 · 112 评4 条写作要点编辑精选