June 11, 2014
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Fantastical tales also serve another purpose: they go beyond the moral imagination and can expand perceptions to things not readily seen. Igniting the imagination exercises the mind. It opens the door to the possibility of answering life’s greatest questions. As The American Conservative‘s Gracy Olmstead writes, “the more we dabble in “creating worlds,” the more likely we are to consider whether our own world had a Creator.”
I suspect this truth isn”t lost on Dawkins, and that it’s the point of his total aversion to fantasy. Science can”t directly prove the existence of God. Neither can empirical evidence. We can only infer the existence of our Father by using a rich combination of facts, logic, and beauty. As beings that lack perfect understanding, we can just conceive of His reality and our role in it with the intercession of our own imagination.
Dawkins” criticism of fantasy is rooted in his overall disbelief in the divine. Logically, this leads to a disregard for universal truth, and thus an unfulfilling life. Things just become boring. If there is no undeniable, empirical proof, then there are no fairies flying about an Athenian forest, casting deception on helpless lovers. There are no singing Sirens, luring prurient men to their doom. There are no pure-hearted shortlings traveling great distances to destroy a ring encrusted with malevolence. There is no incorruptible wizard boy who refuses to give in to evil and defeats a dark lord.
In short, there is no longing for something greater than ourselves, imperfectly outlined in pages bursting with imaginary worlds and enduring truths.
Dawkins” claim about fantastical stories isn”t totally wrong. There is sometimes a danger when young men and women replace their real life with fantasies. But more often a make-believe world can serve as a safe haven from a harmful and degrading existence. With the advent of video games and computers, the digital realm has sucked in many lonely teenagers. These isolated individuals have a hard time differentiating success in our real world from that of earning points and status among polygons on a screen. It’s important to not allow this trend to get out of hand”and to not dismiss the teaching power of fairy tales because of a few sad geeks.
J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote that “fairy-stories deal largely, or (the better ones) mainly, with simple or fundamental things, untouched by Fantasy, but these simplicities are made all the more luminous by their setting.” Dawkins” scientism-based worldview won”t allow for that insight to ring true. For him, if it’s not provable by a lab experiment performed over and over again, then it’s of no value. Fantasy is, as Tolkien said, a “natural human activity.” Dawkins” goal is to crush human nature using science. He and his acolytes will eventually fail, if only through their own brazen ignorance.
