greywash:

So there are these two posts rolling around Tumblr, one about the importance of learning to fail which I already reblogged and so gave notes to; and the other about how antis fail to distinguish what people enjoy in fiction from what they enjoy or will enjoy IRL (nametagging @bai-xue​ so they know I’m replying to their post even though I’m not giving them notes directly), and I’ve been wanting to sort of—hybridize my reply to them. Because my personal theory re: antis (AMONG OTHER THINGS) is that there’s something more complicated
going on than just an inability to understand that fiction is distinct
from real life.

Broadly speaking, I think what the antis are responding to has to do with how we as a society
conceptualize error, failure, and regret. As in—I think antis’ stance on fiction is part and parcel
of the same all-or-nothing mindset that thinks (e.g.) that children
must never fail at something in school, and that the role of their
parents and teachers is to prevent that failure at all costs; and equally that (e.g.) our faves must not be problematic. In other words, I think we are deciding, as a culture, that there is the Right and there is the Wrong, and in our desire—often admirable—to see the Wrong removed from real life—i.e., we want to protect children from pedophiles, and dismantle systems of oppression, and so forth—we are trying to construct a world in which people are never Wrong.

But often, people are Wrong. And—speaking simply pedagogically—being Wrong is often part of how a person learns how to be Right. So trying to eradicate Wrongness actually can, in a way that I recognize can be counterintuitive, make it harder for people to learn how to be Right.

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