Man cannot live on fandom alone
Fiction cannot take the place of longstanding sources of meaning
First of all, I should apologize for my extended absence from this newsletter - I have been in an especially bad place for a while, and events have conspired to keep me from posting. With any luck, that ends now.
The religion of fandom
About a month and a half ago,
published an article in Discourse Magazine that explicitly advocated for a trend that had already been taking shape as people became disconnected from their communities and traditional belief systems.That trend? Fans turning to modern entertainment as a source of meaning and fulfillment in a world where they are increasingly lacking. These fans join online communities, host watch parties, go to conventions, and find community in their shared enjoyment.
Tracinski is the first I have seen to explicitly take the leap further, though I think the sentiment has been under the surface for a while: he argues that well-loved entertainment could serve as the secular alternative to religion. And while I also consider myself secular, my immediate response was one of dismissive snark.
My exact words at the time were:
Reddit has a reputation for being at the nexus of atheism, fandom, and consoomerist culture, and so “Reddited” was an easy-fitting label to attach to the article. But I think it was also unfair to dismiss the idea out of hand. Tracinski’s argument points to a real phenomena that has been growing over the past decades, and deserves to be engaged with in seriousness. Even if it has taken me much to respond, I think the topic is important.
Tracinski argues that our favorite franchises offer both a venue for shared values and “sense of life,” or a subconscious internal narrative about how the world works.
He gives two works of fiction as an example:
Taking what is probably the most universally known example, consider the values you might draw out of the Star Wars films and stories. There is a longing for adventure, the importance of loyalty to friends, a certain amount of irreverence toward authority and of course resistance against tyranny; but also an injunction to trust your feelings and intuitions (if we don’t take all that stuff about the Force too literally) and a warning against letting fear, anger and hatred control your life.
Or consider my own favored denomination: Star Trek. Its advantage over other franchises is its projection of an ideal future in which we have risen above war, tyranny and poverty, and achieved a utopia of peace, prosperity and technological advancement. Anyone who has watched some of the shows has a sense of the “Federation values” that make this utopia possible and what is expected of a Starfleet officer: rationality, professionalism, respect for the individual, tolerance and intellectual curiosity.
The best part, Tracinski argues, is that everyone knows that these stories are fiction. Because we know that none of these stories or additional incarnations are true, we are freer to debate them, and if a certain installment in a franchise doesn’t mesh with our worldview, we can pick and choose what we like and what we don’t.
They may give us a guide we can refer to in ordinary life, so we can ask ourselves what Jim Kirk would do or what Jean-Luc Picard might say in a certain situation. But we know it’s just a guide. It’s not something we have to believe but something we choose to refer to because we agree with it. And if we don’t, we can seek out a franchise that better aligns with our view of the world.
But as much as I can see the value in fiction (see this blog), this degree of separation from reality, the fact of knowing that none of the meaning-building narratives are true, is the weakness of the proposition. That is why it cannot serve as a sufficient substitute for actual belief.
Belief without teeth
It should be noted that we already have a secular alternative to religion: ideology. Ideologies have been filling the vacuum left by religion since at least the French Revolution. Some revolutionaries were explicit about this, promoting the Cult of Reason as a replacement for the Catholic Church, converting existing churches into temples dedicated to the cult, holding their own holy days, and even building literal altars to Liberty.
Throughout history, wherever religion was in retreat, it has been replaced by ideology, whether it be liberalism, nationalism, communism, fascism, or pure cults of personality. Tracinski does not state so explicitly, but I suspect the reason he seeks something other than ideology to replace religion is because ideology has proven to be one of the more deadly phenomena in recent history, inspiring hatred, war, oppression, and in its extremes, genocide.
Basing our sense of meaning on entertainment could be seen as a way to tame the dangerous beast of belief that most of humanity seems to need. Few are going to commit violence on behalf of their favorite film franchises. But therein lies the problem: if you take away what makes a belief system potentially dangerous, you will also take away what makes it powerful. Finding true meaning means finding something you are willing to die for, and yes, kill for.
The most natural example of this is one’s dedication towards your immediate family, especially your children. Part of the power of religion or ideology is the ability to inspire large numbers of people to dedicate themselves to a cause with the same fervor one might dedicate to their own family. Even individualist ideologies such as Objectivism can counterintuitively inspire such dedications for those who believe in the truth of its tenets.
Any substitute that lacks this power will also fail as a suitable replacement for religion. Most who look to entertainment as their source of meaning and community will find themselves barely less empty, listless, or atomized as before. In the alternative, they will turn the focus of their fandom into something deadly serious, resulting in tragic absurdities similar to the Football War or the Nika Riots.
Hijacked by activists
Despite the shortcomings described above, people do appear to be increasingly turning to their favorite franchises to give context to their lives. They compare their political and moral champions to Luke Skywalker and their opponents to Voldemort. Their side will usher in the world of Star Trek, and the other side will bring about the Handmaid’s Tale.
Those with pre-existing agendas see it, too, and they want in on the action. Would-be preachers who have little interest in beloved IPs nevertheless see the same value in them as Tracinski does. As entertainment companies endlessly churn out new iterations of old IP, activists glom on to them in hope of reaching new audiences with their message. But the same critique that applies to Christian Rock applies here. As King of the Hill’s Hank Hill opined:
Can’t you see you’re not making Christianity better? You’re just making rock and roll worse!
Rather than elevate their message, attempts to shoehorn outside causes into existing franchises only serve to diminish the original art. Imagine what happens when these IPs enter the public domain.
While real-world religions have their own niche off-shoots, the belief in the undying truth of it all: the hierarchies, the dogma, the unchanging holy scriptures, safeguard against waves of opportunists using it as a vehicle for their own purposes before taking it for a joyride and crashing it into a ditch. Star Wars didn’t last half a century.
The decline of religion in the West has brought with it a crisis of meaning, and it is understandable that people would turn to the stories that brought them so much joy to make up for it. But entertainment will not be able to take the place of religion in that department, and attempting to fit our favorite franchises into the God-shaped hole many feel won’t just fall short of expectations, it will end up diminish the franchises you want to elevate.