Fiction uses stories that aren’t factually or historically true to teach us deep, eternal, lasting truths about the world and human nature.

This is why fiction is so powerful, so meaningful, and so necessary to human life.

History and historical fact are also, of course, critical, and must be recognized for what they are. History, if viewed from the lens of reality, certainly can teach us what evil is and does.

Fiction also shows us the different faces of evil. It shows us cowardice, and it teaches us what it means to be brave. Good fiction will display in full force, even and especially to us as children, that our actions have consequences, that no one escapes suffering, that certain risks are worth taking, and that people who are different from us are just as human.

Good, relatable fiction explores what the human condition is: what brings us some measure of happiness, what ultimately does not fulfill us, what the good life looks like.

Most especially, fiction teaches empathy. I don’t think it’s insignificant that, along with the collapse of religious affiliation and Church attendance, we are seeing a decline in reading and in reading skills as our culture collapses more and more into violent anarchic chaos.

People don’t care about reading anymore, on a cultural scale. And our empathetic capacities are weakened as a result. This isn’t the full explanation of what is happening all around us, but I think it’s part of it.