how can i defend this criticism using a fictional book? and with what points?

Question

"Because it does not tell the truth, imaginative literature must shut down readers' rational faculties, in order that it can appeal to their emotions; the effect of such literature, then, is to weaken the minds of its readers."

Answer 1

Here's a few thoughts:

Great Literature expands the experience beyond the realm of the merely factual by drawing on and stimulating the imagination. Tales of the Arabian Nights, Gulliver's Travels

Great Literature addresses man's preoccupation with spiritual issues and the supernatural e.g. Beowulf, The Bible, Myth and Legends of Greeks and Romans. These preoccupations are defining human curiosities and inspire art. They are not the sign of a weak mind.

The idea put forward reflects an esentially 18th century idea of knowledge and literature as reflective of fact - Art as a mirror. The counterargument against this would be the flowering of Romantic Art and literature in the late18th and early 19th century - Wordsworth, Coleridge that shows that Imagination and Fantasy can illuminate literature, Art and the human condition. This is Art as a lamp, rather than a mirror, to reality. As Coleridge said - the appreciation of Romantic literature relies on 'the willing suspension of disbelief'. The benefit of this is the expansion of the consciousness and intellect beyond the merely factual into the realm of the imagination.

Emotions are not generally to be dispised - literature enables us to experience emotions without living through the experience in our everyday lives. It therefore gives our rational faculties more to consider and gives access to a greatly expanded realm of vicarious experience.

So there!

Answer 2

The basic premise of this statement is wrong. Literature, whether fact or fiction must be grounded in rationality to be accepted.
You would only believe in elves and Hobbits and wizards if they existed in a world that made sense to you.
You could ask Peter Jackson if belief in Middle Earth weakened his mind - or did it stimulate it to create movies that have grossed over a billion dollars.
You could also ask the designers of countless video games that have taken this basic theme and "adapted" it if their minds were weakened by it.
On the contrary, I think that inspiring the imagination is the building block of creativity and is a sign of an active mind not a weak one.

Answer 3

The simplest point I would use to respond to the criticism is that a great deal of fictional literature deals with rationality. Offhand I would suggest any of Plato's dialogues. They were all fictional (though based on actual conversations) yet are an attempt to reveal the worthiness of rationality.
"Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn is another fictional book whose goal is to explain Quinn's ideas. Basically, it is philosophy disguised as a novel. (It has almost no plot and is mostly a serious of dialogues between the narrator and Ishmael.)

Answer 4

You can mention that without Fiction.......there wouldnt be a reality like it exists today. Supposition..Conjecture..and Hypothetical Discourse is the stuff of Invention..and without it..we wouldnt have the Electric Light..let alone a bulb that lasts for 5000 hours..

Without Jules Verne..there wouldnt exists the Submarine.

Without H.G Wells....there wouldnt exist the rational thinking of someone like Einstein or Hawking...

Without Mary Shelley..there might not exist those brave Pioneers of Medicine...

Why do you think they put the "SCIENCE" in Fiction in the first place?? Its still fiction..isnt it??

Answer 5

well try historical fiction or high science. like Asimov, he wrote fiction but his ideas shaped robotic tech since he wrote foundation. the three laws of Asimov