How much do you think people are influenced by works of fiction?

Question

Do you think that people's judgements are influenced by fiction, for example, judging people to be 'good' or 'bad' when life is patently more complicated than this, simplifying others down to two or three main characteristics, etc?

Answer 1

Fiction has been used as a medium for subtle propaganda for a long time. Nowadays, it's fairly common for TV scriptwriters, movie producers, and storybook authors to have their characters engage in odd social situations with every appearance of ease and comfort, as though the social situation involved were of a natural sort, when, in fact, it's no such thing... at least not for competitive, sexually reproducing primates like ourselves.

Authors have complete control over their fictional characters thoughts, motives, choices and reactions. And trained actors can do a really good job of making the truth seem ugly or a lie seem sweet, or tell lies with contagious conviction, or give you the idea that you're being lied to when you aren't.

False ideas passed into most human minds through fiction evade judgment. A very few people can think quickly enough to smell a rat within a tenth of a second, identify the reason for their sudden suspicion in another tenth of a second, recognize the propaganda effort for what it is in the third tenth of a second, defuse it in the fourth, and then go back to the fun... all in about half a second. But most people never even smell the rat.

The propaganda embedded in the fiction sometimes implants on the unwary mind a redirected default for belief. Having seen the actors masterfully representing how humans behave in utopia, they figure that humans have it in them to behave just that handsomely in real life. But, no, humans are competitive, tribal, sexually reproducing primates in a world where not everyone can have as much as he wants. He is led by his redirected default judgment to criticize humans for normal competitive or tribal behavior, when, in fact, no criticism is called for.

I often suspect that liberals suffer most especially from the dysfunction of redirected default judgments, but maybe that's my political bias showing.

Answer 2

I think gullible people ( the unread, inexperienced, naive) people are greatly influenced by fiction.
However, people who have read a lot of historical works, philosophy, ethics, religion may tend to be far less influenced, recognizing that the fictional work simply came from someones vivid imagination, and may have no basis in fact. There could be some influence, however, on how we might feel about and regard others, by causing us to think introspectively, and more logically.

Answer 3

I think a certain kind of person is influenced by fiction. The kind of person that reads fiction and thinks about it a lot, and wishes that real life was more like fiction is going to be greatly influenced by fiction. While someone that realizes reality is reality, and reads fiction because it's interesting, wouldn't be influenced by fiction.

Answer 4

well it can influence people dramatically. Look at celebrity worship...everyone thinks they are inferior because they arent in that top 1 percentile of beauty or riches. If you are into adult movies, well you think every woman has DD chests and guys are hung like Seattle Slew...

However some fictional ideas can help...they offer an escape, mabye give them ideas for themselves, as long as they dont take it too serious.

Answer 5

Only weak minded people are unable to separate fact from fiction. It IS used as an excuse for crimes now days. As a boy, I seen thousands of cowboys and Indians killed, in the movies and thought once about going out and actually KILLING someone altho we did play cowboys and Indian games.
Good luck. Pops

Answer 6

People are effected by what ever they associate with. You become whom and what you associate with. I don't read fiction books. I only read reality and try to only associate with spiritually minded truth seekers. Otherwise I only be association not take association. It's a science in itself. GO to http://www.stephen-knapp.com for universal truths no fiction books there

Answer 7

Some people are greatly influenced. Some writers write for this reason specifically.

Answer 8

Yes. My nephew (6 years old) is trying to use the force.

But people also classify or label people based on past experience.