1-The Subtle Desire for Superiority
Humans are social creatures, and unfortunately, with social interaction often comes a desire for superiority. That sense of superiority can manifest in spending habits, in career choices, and sometimes—more subtly—in the tone of people’s opinions.
You might have heard someone say that books nowadays are “futile,” or that fiction is immature. Which is curious, because from someone who claims to engage with “intellectual” content, you would expect a nuanced critique of a specific work—not a sweeping generalization rooted in insecurity.
In this day and age, we want things to move quickly. We want knowledge to be delivered efficiently, directly, without detours. In that framework, non-fiction appears as the superior option, while fiction is dismissed as indulgent or unnecessary. After all, why spend hours on a 400-page novel when you can read a 10-point summary and feel productive?
2- Beyond Dragons and Love Triangles
But art was never meant to hand us answers.
Art does not explain—it evokes. It gives us fragments, emotions, perspectives, and asks us to do the intellectual work ourselves. I could tell you about war: about casualties, environmental destruction, political consequences. You might understand it abstractly. But it would remain distant, numbers, headlines, something external to your lived experience.
Or you could read a story about a character slowly losing hope because of war. You follow them, grow attached to them and those around them, only to watch everything unravel. Through that experience, you feel rage, grief, helplessness. And those emotions—often dismissed as “immature”—are precisely what deepen your understanding. They stretch your moral imagination, allowing you to engage with realities you may never encounter firsthand. In other words, feelings are not the enemy of intellect, they are often what make it meaningful.
And that, I would argue, is worth more than statistics alone.
Across generations, art has always been a vehicle for meaning. It invites us to look beyond appearances, beyond what is beautiful or disturbing, and to question, interpret, and reflect. Fiction is no exception. Yes, it may include romance, tragedy, fantastical worlds, or extraordinary powers. But beneath those elements lie reflections on political systems, social hierarchies, injustice, identity. For those willing to look, fiction offers not only escape, but insight. But of course, one has to look beyond the dragons and love triangles first…
3- The Veil of Ignorance and Perspective-Taking
Now, you might read all this and think: this is just an opinion. And you would be right—it is. But it is not an isolated one. Many influential thinkers have, in different ways, supported the idea that perspective-taking is essential to moral reasoning.
Let me illustrate.
After World War II, liberal societies were forced to reconsider their understanding of justice and morality. In the aftermath of war, genocide, and systemic violence, there was a collective recognition that something had gone fundamentally wrong. The dominant ethical framework before the war—utilitarianism—prioritized the greatest good for the greatest number. While making sense, it also allowed for the justification of harm to minorities, as long as the overall outcome was seen as beneficial. I would not go so far as to label the Nazi regime as utilitarian, but it is undeniable that similar forms of reasoning were used to rationalize its atrocities.
In response, philosophers sought new frameworks that would better protect individual rights and dignity. Among them was John Rawls.
In A Theory of Justice, Rawls argues that individuals are inherently biased: we tend to define fairness in ways that benefit us, often overlooking those who are most vulnerable. To counter this, he proposes the idea of the “veil of ignorance.” Imagine designing a society without knowing your future position in it: your race, gender, social status, or abilities. Under those conditions, you would be far more likely to create systems that are just and protective of everyone, including the least advantaged.
It is a compelling idea. And yet, critics argue that it is unrealistic, that we cannot fully detach from our identities and experiences in order to think in such a neutral way.
And they are not entirely wrong.
We find ourselves at an impasse: we recognize the need to transcend our personal biases, yet we also acknowledge that doing so completely may be impossible.
But what if there is a way to approximate this ideal?
What if we have been practicing it all along?
Drumroll… through fiction.
4- Fiction Might Be Superior After All
When you read, you temporarily step outside yourself. You are no longer defined by your own identity, your own circumstances, your own perspective. You are no longer Rachel, the Caucasian accountant who enjoys reading in her free time. You become the rebel fae who grew up poor, marginalized, and hunted by a genocidal regime. You inhabit someone else’s world—someone whose experiences, struggles, and values may be entirely different from your own. In doing so, you engage in a form of moral imagination that closely resembles Rawls’ thought experiment. And suddenly, the “unrealistic” exercise does not feel so impossible after all.
And perhaps that is where fiction’s true intellectual value lies.
So yes, I will admit, this piece is, in part, a response to a certain kind of intellectual arrogance. The kind that dismisses fiction as trivial while elevating more “practical” reading as inherently superior. The kind that reads one book on finance and suddenly becomes the spokesperson for intellectual hierarchy.
But the next time someone tries to convince you that fiction is merely a frivolous escape, you might remind them—gently, or not—that understanding the human condition requires more than information. It requires perspective. And if needed, you can casually bring up Rawls to keep things interesting.
And fiction, in its own way, offers exactly that.
I rest my pen.