That's just close enough to the truth to be dangerous, and just far enough away to miss the point.

I do this quite often. My apologies. Thanks for clarifying, though. I'm actually sort of glad I made the mistake so that you could clarify so fully. :)

If something is real, it's a value to everyone: if you know a little you're exposed to the broad links it provides. If you know a lot, it likely gives you a different perspective, raises things you haven't considered before, may give you somewhere to look that you haven't peered into.

This is an amazing point about truth and it applies well to kidofspeed. However, I think that there are different types of truths which your statement also applies to. Note: none of the following is a response to kidofspeed and I don't think it applies to kidofspeed (much deeper than his/her bullshit) so please read as a broader comment.

There are truth and there are lies. A girl could say "my hair is blond" when it's really red. That is a simple lie. If she were to say "my hair is red" and her hair is indeed red, that would be the simple truth.

Then there is fiction and non-fiction, or real and not real, and the shallow kidofspeed version of non-fiction which is really fiction and all these complicated areas in between the two.

Then there are actualities and realities. Things that literally happened. They only happened in one way but they are told from different perspectives and some are very close to the actual reality and some are further from the actual reality. Together we can gain a broader knowledge about the actuality as we see it through these different lenses.

As you point out, real stories - true stories - non-fiction stories - keep on giving. There was a real event which the story tells but it too can be told in a lot of different ways. Even semi-fictionalized stories about these can add something of value to the conversation.

There are truths in life - big major realizations about stuff that aren't as concrete as events. These are larger truths about life that can be revealed in a myriad of ways. This type of truth can be revealed through fiction or non fiction, real or fake, actualities or realities or flat out lies or anything in the middle. A lot of times, this type of truth has to be arrived at by a variety of contradictions and lies, because the truth is fucking complicated. This truth exists regardless of the vehicle used.

Two of my favorite passages on the subject (but I'm not very well read so...yeah) comes from Tim O’Brien in “How to Tell a True War Story”:

For example, we've all heard this one. Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies. Is it true? The answer matters. You'd feel cheated if it never happened. Without the grounding reality, it's just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such stories are untrue. Yet even if it did happen - and maybe it did, anything's possible even then you know it can't be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth. Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, "The fuck you do that for?" and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man," and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead. That's a true story that never happened.

He touches on a bunch of different points here. First, the audience feels cheated if the story never happened - if it is a lie. Second, that this version of Truth is not always tied to factual or actual happenings. Truth is what comes from the story, whether it be fact or fiction, real or not real.

A true story does not shy away from the reality but sometimes it avoids reality. Sometimes it has to avoid reality in order to find the truth. What is most intriguing about an outstanding story is that it rarely actively tries to say anything or make the reader feel anything. It sort of turns into a journey of its own - a journey between the author and the words and something almost mystical.

So, back to your quote:

If something is real, it's a value to everyone: if you know a little you're exposed to the broad links it provides. If you know a lot, it likely gives you a different perspective, raises things you haven't considered before, may give you somewhere to look that you haven't peered into.

This applies perfectly to fraudulent non-fiction, like kidofspeed. Her/His story would have been better and been able to keep giving if it closer represented reality. I don't think his/her story was good enough or attempted to access a larger truth, so it's moot.

But I think your quote perfectly applies to this other type of truth. The hard to access, contradictory, obscene, beautiful truth. And for that reason, I don't think that something has to be factual to be true. Perhaps, as you put it, the reason that this type of fiction works is that "we value the perspective of the narrator and know that it is our only entry into their world."^1 But perhaps it's something a bit more than that. Because rarely, in the end, do we care about the author and their journey in creating and telling this story. We only care about what we take from it. What we feel, what we learn, what we experience, and what we realize during our journey. Once the words are on the page, or the film is shot, or the story is told over the campfire, the author only exists in the past. The story has become ours and affects us in the present.

^1: I also think that sometimes presenting fiction as non-fiction affects our perspective and alters what we take away from the story. This is an entirely different matter, but sometimes you have to believe something is true to be absorbed enough in it to get to the real truth. If you knew from the beginning that it wasn't true, you might feel cheated and that might take away from what you are able to take away from it - whether that be delving deeper into external wikipedia links, experiencing and thinking about something new, or simply being able to add this bit of truth to your briefcase of knowledge.

Woo. That got deep.

edit, 405 days later: relevant conversation on truth vs fiction here