unspeakablehorror (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unspeakablehorror) wrote2025-05-20 05:13 pm
unspeakablehorror) wrote2025-05-20 05:13 pm
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Interpretation in Reality and Fiction
I think a key difference between reality and fiction is the role interpretation plays in our understanding of them. Because while both reality and fiction must be interpreted in an ethical sense, in fiction the question of what is and what has happened also becomes an element of interpretation, and takes on an ethical dimension that isn't inherently present in reality itself.
With both, our interpretation of ethical implications plays a key role in our understanding them. And while I am not a ethical relativist in the sense of viewing all ethical stances as equally valid, I am one in the sense of acknowledging that ethics is meaningless outside of the context of the minds of thinking and feeling beings and only gains meaning by existing inside the minds of those beings. It is something that exists purely because we believe in it, purely because we want it to exist, and what is viewed as ethical is relative to the mind doing the viewing.
In contrast, the events that transpire in the real world exist regardless of our wishes and thus the mere fact of their occurrence does not endow them with any particular ethical dimension, good or bad--it is instead our ethical evaluations that endow them with that ethical status. The real world exists outside of our wants, desires, and goals, and its nature is thus not relative to those internal motivations.
This is why everything that happens to a character in a fictional work can be analyzed within an ethical framework, including tragic accidents and unexpected fortune. This is why I don't think watsonian analysis is inadequate for analyzing the ethical implications of a work. This doesn't mean I don't think it has its place--it is part of the act of interpretation that occurs when immersing ourselves in a fictional world. As a fanfic writer, I find watsonian analysis essential to constructing a narrative within an existing story. But I think it inherently falls short once it tries to grapple with the ethical implications of that fictional world to those of us in the real world. Because watsonian analysis treats the fictional world as if it were real, as if it can have events that exist outside of intent. But no events in fiction can exist outside of the intent of either the author or the reader. Furthermore, we cannot treat the desires and wishes of the characters in the story as existing separately from the intent of the author and reader.
I think this is an important distinction that must be grappled with when analyzing fiction as opposed to reality.
With both, our interpretation of ethical implications plays a key role in our understanding them. And while I am not a ethical relativist in the sense of viewing all ethical stances as equally valid, I am one in the sense of acknowledging that ethics is meaningless outside of the context of the minds of thinking and feeling beings and only gains meaning by existing inside the minds of those beings. It is something that exists purely because we believe in it, purely because we want it to exist, and what is viewed as ethical is relative to the mind doing the viewing.
In contrast, the events that transpire in the real world exist regardless of our wishes and thus the mere fact of their occurrence does not endow them with any particular ethical dimension, good or bad--it is instead our ethical evaluations that endow them with that ethical status. The real world exists outside of our wants, desires, and goals, and its nature is thus not relative to those internal motivations.
This is why everything that happens to a character in a fictional work can be analyzed within an ethical framework, including tragic accidents and unexpected fortune. This is why I don't think watsonian analysis is inadequate for analyzing the ethical implications of a work. This doesn't mean I don't think it has its place--it is part of the act of interpretation that occurs when immersing ourselves in a fictional world. As a fanfic writer, I find watsonian analysis essential to constructing a narrative within an existing story. But I think it inherently falls short once it tries to grapple with the ethical implications of that fictional world to those of us in the real world. Because watsonian analysis treats the fictional world as if it were real, as if it can have events that exist outside of intent. But no events in fiction can exist outside of the intent of either the author or the reader. Furthermore, we cannot treat the desires and wishes of the characters in the story as existing separately from the intent of the author and reader.
I think this is an important distinction that must be grappled with when analyzing fiction as opposed to reality.