Fiction’s Honor Role
Excerpt from the unpublished book Untrammeled Thoughts. There Is No Box.
Roles are to humans what gravity is to the universe.
Gravity is the shape of spacetime, rather than a force. It is a warping that leads to an inclination to go this way instead of that. More precisely, “Gravity is the curvature of the universe, caused by massive bodies, which determines the path that objects travel. That curvature is dynamical, moving as those objects move.”
In human society, the roles that people assume make them more likely to do this, rather than that, more likely to follow expected patterns of behavior. Roles may in part depend on nature, but the details of what is expected depend on society, culture, family tradition, “role models” — father, son, mother, daughter, sibling, grandparent, uncle, aunt. Other roles are a matter of choice — husband, wife, mentor, caregiver, friend, lover.
Stories and traditions can help to define roles, making it easier for the next generation to recognize choices and consequences, making it more likely that they will walk in the well-worn paths where others have gone before.
In other words, fiction helps define roles, and roles are the gravity that holds human society together.
