Lesson: Humans are so driven to make sense of the world through stories that they’re often willing to believe lies.
We are living in a post-truth society, in which lies aren’t merely spread in social media posts, but they are also used to justify government actions. For example, when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, the Russian government repeatedly denied responsibility for the invasion. The government rationalized that its lie served a higher purpose, which was to reunify Ukraine with Russia.
How did we get to this era of post-truth? The phenomenon has a long history. In fact, the great accomplishments of human progress are owed in part to humans’ ability to create and get others to believe fictional stories in order to work together toward a collective goal. In other words, humans’ penchant for stories allows strangers to cooperate for common causes. Storytelling is used in this way by different kinds of institutions, including:
In order for these stories to be effective, they can’t be too far-fetched—otherwise, people will dismiss them. On the other hand, they can’t be too close to the truth, because the truth typically lacks the power to inspire and motivate people. Additionally, effective stories don’t have to entirely pull the wool over people’s eyes: People are often willing to believe something enough to act on it, even though, at their core, they know the story is fiction. For example, money is a human invention, and it has no inherent value beyond the paper and metal it’s made from. Most people understand this if they stop and think about it, but that doesn’t make them any less upset when they lose a $100 bill.
Humans’ willingness to swallow fiction doesn’t erase the truth, and people should still seek the truth—especially when believing and perpetuating the fiction causes harm. Everyone has a responsibility to question and investigate the information she consumes, and to keep an eye out for biases she unknowingly has. You can’t know everything, but you can take two important steps:
(Shortform note: Read Chapter 2 of our summary of Sapiens for more about the role in society of collective fictions, such as money and religion.)
Since stories are a powerful force in informing and influencing masses of people, science fiction plays a major role in shaping people’s understanding of technological, economic, and social developments—regardless of how factual it is. As such, science fiction has a huge responsibility to accurately represent modern technologies and the challenges they present.
One common modern science fiction theme is that of humans becoming manipulated by technology to the point that they are disconnected from reality and their true selves. This plays out similarly in movies like The Matrix and The Truman Show, in which the main characters discover that they’re trapped in artificial worlds, in which their entire realities are programmed. When they finally escape, the “real” worlds they find resemble the artificial worlds they left.
These science fiction stories reflect people’s fear of being trapped in a box—some form of non-reality—and divorced from their real selves, authentic emotions, and genuine relationships. However, the truth is that you already are trapped in such a box: your mind. Your mind shapes how you interpret and experience everything. Furthermore, your mind is trapped in the box of society, which influences the way you interpret your experiences. For example, TV, movies, songs, and art all mold the way you understand, express, and receive love.
People imagine authenticity as freedom from these boxes, but that doesn’t exist. There’s no way out of the boxes, because, at the innermost level, even your identity is an illusion formed by your brain’s wiring. Instead, authenticity exists inside the matrix. If you experience pain, it doesn’t matter if you cut off your finger or if you’re hooked up to wires simulating the feeling of chopping off a finger—pain is pain, and it feels real to you.
Some science fiction acknowledges this reality. One example is the 2015 Pixar Studios animated movie Inside Out, which explores the inner workings of the brain of an 11-year-old girl named Riley. Riley’s mind is managed by a cast of characters that each represent a different emotion, including Joy, Sadness, and Anger. The movie illustrates that no single emotion defines a person—rather, her personality and identity are composed of a variety of emotions and selves.
Another, darker example is the 1931 book Brave New World, which imagines a reality in which a World Government uses social engineering and biotechnology to keep everyone perpetually content. There are no rebellions, no wars, no suffering, and no fear. When a lone detractor named John the Savage calls for the public to escape this controlling system, they have no motivation to do so. The World Government has created a sort of utopia—but John insists that there is something dystopian about its uniformity and sterility.
John the Savage is arrested for trying to incite rebellion, and he has a conversation with the World Controller, Mustapha Mond. John tells Mustapha that the World Government’s excessive control has eliminated truth, beauty, nobility, and heroism in order to make everyone happy; Mustapha replies that nobility and heroism are not needed if there is no war and tragedy. Finally, Mustapha tells John that if he wants the freedom to experience life’s highs and lows, he must claim the right to be unhappy, ill, old, anxious, and miserable. John claims all of these, and he goes off to live in isolation, beyond the control of the World Government. However, John is never able to fully escape the influence of the World Government, because people under their control hear about John and come to see him as an oddity. Eventually, John becomes tired of being a spectacle and hangs himself.
The only way John was able to escape the World Government—the matrix, the box—was to escape his “self,” albeit by suicide. Although this is grim, the concept of shedding a narrow definition of self could be the key to making it through the 21st century.