From my perspective, Omelas does a fine job of doing what I’m claiming fiction is useful for in these sorts of discussions… it makes it easy to refer to a scenario that illustrates a point that would otherwise be far more complicated to even define.
For example, I can, in a conversation about total-utilitarianism, say “Well, so what if anything is wrong with Omelas?” to you, and you can tell me whether you think there’s anything wrong with Omelas and if so what, and we’ve communicated a lot more efficiently than if we hadn’t both read the story.
Similarly, around LW I can refer to something as an Invisible Dragon in the Garage and that clarifies what might otherwise be a hopelessly muddled conversation.
Now, you’re certainly right that while having identified a position is a necessary first step to defending that position, those are two different thigns, and that soemtimes people use fiction to do the former and then act as though they’d done the latter when they haven’t.
This is a mistake.
(Also, since you bring it up, I consider Brave New World far too complicated a story to serve very well in this role… there’s too much going on. Which is a good thing for fiction, and I endorse it utterly, since the primary function of fiction for me is not to provide useful shortcuts in discussions. However, some fiction performs this function and I think that’s a fine thing too.)
Interesting.
From my perspective, Omelas does a fine job of doing what I’m claiming fiction is useful for in these sorts of discussions… it makes it easy to refer to a scenario that illustrates a point that would otherwise be far more complicated to even define.
For example, I can, in a conversation about total-utilitarianism, say “Well, so what if anything is wrong with Omelas?” to you, and you can tell me whether you think there’s anything wrong with Omelas and if so what, and we’ve communicated a lot more efficiently than if we hadn’t both read the story.
Similarly, around LW I can refer to something as an Invisible Dragon in the Garage and that clarifies what might otherwise be a hopelessly muddled conversation.
Now, you’re certainly right that while having identified a position is a necessary first step to defending that position, those are two different thigns, and that soemtimes people use fiction to do the former and then act as though they’d done the latter when they haven’t.
This is a mistake.
(Also, since you bring it up, I consider Brave New World far too complicated a story to serve very well in this role… there’s too much going on. Which is a good thing for fiction, and I endorse it utterly, since the primary function of fiction for me is not to provide useful shortcuts in discussions. However, some fiction performs this function and I think that’s a fine thing too.)