Who Owes Us The Truth?
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Michael Crichton delivered
a speech in San Francisco in 2003 about how environmentalism
has become like a religion in that "facts" are passed around without
verification, building a structure of false belief that mankind is on a
path to certain suicide as a result of unrestrained scientific
progress. This structure of beliefs is used to influence
political decisions. In essence, fear is being created through a
fictionalised account of the effects of certain sciences on the
environment.
Considering that his fiction forthrightly uses liberal amounts of
factual science in it's plot devices, and uses fear of such science to
help generate thrills and fear as entertainment to sell his books, I
wondered if this was not somehow hypocritical.
People try to learn facts about the world from fiction, knowingly or
unknowingly. When a movie is "based on a true story," some people are
up-in-arms when part of the historical story is glossed over or changed
to make the story more exciting. They claim that people will believe
that this is what really happened. Sometimes they also claim that the
authors of these stories are trying to rewrite history. What
makes them think this? Are they assuming that people are taking their
history lessons from fictional movies? If there is no
other easy recourse for education - particularly history - then I
imagine so.
When a book is "based on science," some people become angry when the
science in a book contains errors. But why should this reaction occur
at all? A documentary film, non-fiction book, or news report is
expected to be unbiased and truthful, and anger is expected when this
does not prove to be the case - although all three are using the
public's trust in their faithfulness to the truth to manipulate the
beliefs of knowledge-seekers with editorialised and
opinionised content.
I don't believe there is, or ever was, an onus on fiction writers and
film-makers to be truthful. Fairy tales are entertainment and nothing
more. Although novels load themselves with "research," and use this
fact to sell
themselves as something more than a fairy tale (e.g. The Da Vinci Code)
the
authors are resting on the fact that it is a fiction they have produced
when accused of factual inaccuracies. So readers and movie-watchers are
taking it upon themselves to learn as much as they can about the world
through books and movies that are marked as fiction, or "edutainment"
at best.
This is why I don't think Crichton is hypocritical in his stance
against
environmentalists and their methods. He is a fiction writer, and they
are claiming to espouse the truth. Although he presents his novel as
informative,
he is not obliged or responsible for the reaction of his readers. If
they used concepts in his book as a launching point to research and
investigate the science and issues presented in his novels, I am sure
he would be gratified - or he may not care. But his outrage at the lies
peddled by environmentalists to attain global political change is
justified.
It reminds me of an episode
of Crossfire on CNN where the presenters invite Jon Stewart
(of The Daily
Show) on to the show. He proceeds to attack them on pretending
to be informative when really they are partisan hacks spouting talking
points and wasting time without asking real questions of the
politicians they have on the show. Tucker Carlson's response
was that Jon Stewart goes soft on the people he interviews. Jon's
response was that he presented a comedy show, and that CNN shouldn't be
taking their cues from the Comedy Channel.
If a piece of literature or media claims to contain facts, but is also
fictional in some way, we should be aware of it, and research further
if we are to act on the information that we presume to have learned
from the fiction. So who owes us the truth? Only those who claim to
present it.
"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled
to their own facts."
- U.S. Senator Pat Moynihan