In an earlier article entitled "Siding With a Murderer: Confessions of An Immoralist, which can be found here: http://cliffsmovietalk.blogspot.com/2016/01/siding-with-murderer-confessions-of.html, I asked a question concerning my tendency to cheer or root for Jason, Freddy, or Michael of Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween, respectively. The question was: am I immoral, bad, wrong, evil etc. because I cheer for Jason to murder his victims even though Jason and his victims are fictional? Built into this question, and the article as a whole, is an assumption, namely - that real people are in fact able to have real emotional reactions to fictional characters and fictional happenings. So, the purpose of this follow-up article is to address that assumption and elaborate on it because it's an important piece of our experience when we watch movies, listen to songs, and/or read novels etc. that goes unnoticed and ignored.
If you have ever read a novel, poem, watched a movie, or heard a song and were moved emotionally
If you have ever experienced this paradox, then you should be bothered by it because it should disturb your rationality a little bit. Essentially what the paradox is implying is that every time you have an emotional reaction to a fictional movie character in a fictional space, your feelings are irrational. However, I doubt that you would would accept that your real emotional reaction is irrational (I know I don't accept this). My emotional reactions are real when I watch any SAW movie and the tortures that the characters endure gets under my skin. I do not want to deny that those reactions are real. I want to say that they are real and rational, but the paradox slaps me in the face and screams:
"No, your emotions are irrational, nobody is REALLY being tortured. Those characters are NOT REAL." Yet, I still want to argue that my emotional reaction is REAL despite my knowing that the characters are fictional and in a fictional space. But how and why????
The 'how and why' pieces of puzzle are so crucial because without the 'how and why,' we basically have a huge gap in our understanding of the human condition; our condition. I don't know about you but I am hostile to the notion that I am unable to explain a part of my own self. In other words, since I have access to my own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and moods, then I should be able to explain why and how it is that I can have an emotional response to a scary movie, romantic comedy, poem, or novel. However, this task seems to be endlessly complicated, yet we go on watching movies, reading poems and novels, listening to music without giving the paradox any considerations. I find this part of the human condition dissatisfying, in that, we can be aware of something that needs explanation but because its hard we just ignore it.
So, the bottom-line is that the paradox lingers in and around us all the time and we ignore it. However, I challenge anybody to attempt to enter the ring and spar with the paradox and explain how and why we are able to have real emotional responses to fictional characters in a fictional space. I am eager to hear thoughts and opinions on solving this paradoxical puzzle.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief
ReplyDeleteI think the suspension of disbelief doesn't get at the heart of the matter. There is a bit of a solution to this apparent paradox elsewhere, and I would contend there is no paradox.
ReplyDeleteNot to say there is no suspension of disbelief, but I don't think it is the answer.
The answer is the disconnection in your philosophical observation, Cliff, regarding the real from the fantastical. Yes, we have *real* emotions for *fake* characters; but what the hell is the real?
Real is just a series of inputs into our brains. For the time we're involved in the story, Anna Karenina is real. There is no paradox. Anna is real in all the ways that matter on an emotional level.
It is only until we step back and let reason come back in does she get destroyed. But at that point, we've already made an emotional, irrational connection to Anna and she can feel as real in our memory as any *real* person.
Thank you for your contribution! I'm always glad to see people, like you, take the time to write thoughtful responses to a difficult subject matter.
DeleteSuspension of belief is an avenue to explore when dealing with this issue; however, since you did not address it, neither will I.
The claim that 'the real' is a "series of inputs into our brains" is one perspective to take, namely -- an empiricist position, which is totally legitimate. However, there is another side to the 'what is real' story and that story is told by the Rationalists. I would encourage you, if your interested in the subject matter, to explore those arguments and see if your position on 'what is real' changes or is developed and made more sophisticated in the empiricist camp.
The faculty of Reason mentioned in the 5th paragraph raises some interesting talking points. I'll bring up just one for arguments sake: assuming there is such a thing as Reason and that it is a faculty of our mind, is it something that can be set aside and if so, how?
Finally, allow me to push you a little bit on your position. When I watch Friday the 13th, I know Jason is not real, his victims are not real, and the space in which the killings happen is not real. I, nonetheless, experience a real emotional reaction to Jason killing his victims, namely -- fear. However, my behavior is not consistent with a typical fearful response, in that, I do not call the police to warm them that a killer is loose, I do not run out of the house screaming that somebody is about to die etc.
Suppose I am in a movie theater and someone walks into it with a gun and starts shooting seriously wounding my fellow patrons. I know that the theater, my fellow patrons, and the shooter are real and I have a real emotional response, namely -- fear. My behavior in this scenario is consistent with a typical fearful reaction, in that, I would duck for cover or run toward to exist etc.
I am having real fearful emotional responses to both scenarios; however, the differences are my behavior to my emotional responses and my knowing that one is fictional and one is not. I am wondering how to deal with the apparent discrepancies in my knowledge and in my behavior. Do you care to elaborate on them??
In any event, thank you for participating!
imagine having two dreams at the same time... both dreams are very similar, both have the same basic story line, however one is better then the other, in your opinion and you would like that one to be the only one, yet you cannot get this other one out of your mind... the elements that conflict cause your emotions. This is the world you have actually and always lived in. your mind is always experiencing more than one world at the very same time... from near birth it put together elements from religion culture and tradition and created an ideal world. A world that is always present and always being used, mostly unconsciously by you to judge the other world, the messy unpredictable and often painful world. The conflict between these worlds accounts for just about every negative emotion you can imagine. and when you see a movie, read a book, etc, you just create another world to compare your ideal world to... emotions arise same as the other world you have been taught to call "reality" but actually that world is not real either. The ancients figured this out and in the east they called it samsara in the west, plato's wall. how they figured it out I have yet to discover, but they understood, the so called real world is yet another mental creation... perhaps accurate to the REAL real world, perhaps not and there is actually no REAL way to tell as you will never exit your mental creations, your dreams about reality to see reality as it actually is.
ReplyDeleteempathy. we can tie ourself to the character in question. those emotions reflect our emotions in the real world. you root for Jason to kill his victims, somewhere in your psyche this reflects a part of you some type of wish fulfillment. it can be for any number of reasons the base point is we tie the things we hear or see or read to a real life connection allowing us to feel real life emotions. the paradox is a theory in my eyes, created by someone who over-analyzes the simple things.
ReplyDelete