The SOVAD Society Symposium is a short story I was inspired to write by current world events. This is a work of FICTION! I always reiterate that because a lot of people in today's society are offended by made up shit. I believe that fiction is one of the greatest tools of criticism that we have and there is a vast history of fictional literature that supports my belief.
Fiction does not live by "data" or "facts" like non-fiction supposedly does. Although, much of fictional literatures does employ historical narratives which are supposedly using "facts". Non-fiction is supposed to be grounded in Enlightenment values but inherent in those values is that the "data" and the "facts" can change. So if you presuppose that the "data" and "facts" that you gather are truthful now, they may not be in the future. In fact, they may be completely fallacious. Especially since science is now and always has been a simple label. The scientific method depends upon a hypothesis that must be proven true. How do we gauge the truthfulness of the hypothesis? You gauge it's truthfulness by experimentation. If the experiment fails it is not true science if it is successful, it is science!
I am not anti-scientific method as it has more utility than not I am just questioning whether you can deem the outcomes of the experiments conducted using the scientific method as truth. I believe it can be only accepted as truth at the time. Maybe, that was always the scientific methods applicability.
I always remind myself that science has been mostly wrong. Science is like the Washington Generals. I'm not anti-science and it does have obvious and certain function but to state that science has all the answers is wrong. Science is the quest for answers. Non-fiction is not necessarily scientific but I equate the two because science is supposed to be how the truth is determined since the Enlightenment which "coincidentally" coincided with European colonization. What truly happened was the colonization of the planet but more importantly. the mind. That is not to say that non-Europeans did not engage in "scientific" study. Most of the basis of European scientific study was invented by non-Europeans. Math for example and chemistry.
Fiction may not be true right now, but maybe it is right in the future as is the overly used but aptly applied comparison to our modern society to the many dystopian novels of the early to mid 20th Century.
Fiction opens our imagination to possibilities that science or non-fiction cannot gauge or imagine and cannot be forced into the box of the scientific method. This is a work of FICTION! that does not propose that it does not possess some truth. All evil will come to light.
Comments