RE: What if Judas didn't do it?
April 2, 2023 at 9:18 pm
(This post was last modified: April 2, 2023 at 9:21 pm by John 6IX Breezy.)
Here's one of my favorite quotes from a book by Janet Borroway:
It argues the perspective that narrative, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, functions like a sandbox where we can play and explore feelings and behaviors safe from their consequences and repercussion. When we read the story of Judas, for example, we can experience what it is like to betray and feel no remorse without performing that behavior. We can learn from that experience and choose a different set of behaviors in the real world:
"Literature offers us feelings for which we do not have to pay. It allows us to love, condemn, condone, hope, dread, and hate without any of the risks those feelings ordinarily involve; for even good feelings—intimacy, power, speed, drunkenness, passion—have consequences, and powerful feelings may risk powerful consequences."
It argues the perspective that narrative, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, functions like a sandbox where we can play and explore feelings and behaviors safe from their consequences and repercussion. When we read the story of Judas, for example, we can experience what it is like to betray and feel no remorse without performing that behavior. We can learn from that experience and choose a different set of behaviors in the real world:
"Literature offers us feelings for which we do not have to pay. It allows us to love, condemn, condone, hope, dread, and hate without any of the risks those feelings ordinarily involve; for even good feelings—intimacy, power, speed, drunkenness, passion—have consequences, and powerful feelings may risk powerful consequences."
