Ariel, over at BittersweetLife, is examining a topic of endless fascination to me. I believe that that the question of reality and facticity is of vital importance. The following thoughts were composed in response to Ariel’s intial thoughts, and while they stand alone they are perhaps not very clear at the beginning to what we are actually writing about. This was to be a mere comment on his blog, but it got rather long and I think that posting it here serves to broaden the discussion. However, it may be helpful to read his column first. Read what he has to say, what I have to say, and what I have said before. And then say something yourself.

I have found it quite helpful in my own wrestling with this subject to draw a very distinct line between Facticity and Reality. Facticity is probably what most people have in mind when they use the word reality; it means something like “as things are in the material world.” Reality, for me, is something much broader and encompasses any number of intangibles. In The Silver Chair Puddleglum recognizes the importance of the distinction and argues that Aslan, whether or not he is a materially proven fact, is indeed real.

Reality is far more important than Facticity, in fact in a metaphysical sense facticity hardly matters, its only importance is in guiding lower-level pragmatic decisions (such as deciding it may not be a good idea to jump off the roof with your homemade wings due to the fact of gravity). Call to mind the insufferable Thomas Gradgrind (”ready to weigh and measure any parcel of human nature, and tell you exactly what it comes to”) and his school-board gentleman (Dickens’ Hard Times); both are prime examples of the damning nature of a to-deep love of facts.

“You are to be in all things regulated and governed,” said the gentleman, “by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must discard the word Fancy altogether.” (both quotations from Hard Times Ch. 1 - “Murdering the Innocents”)

The charge of “Escapism” (often thrown at people who hold “reality” in greater importance than “facticity”) can be readily overcome with another important distinction. Reality encompasses everything that is true; this includes spiritual things, such as demons, angels, God, Jesus and Satan; it encompasses psychological things, such as the need to be creative and the vitally important imaginative quality in us; in fact it seems that Reality’s scope is so big it must be nearly impossible to escape. And yet, I think that escape happens when the wrong things are deified, when truth is turned in on itself. The chief example of this is self-absorbtion. A bright imagination can only grow duller if it is turned inward only, creativity dwindles when the would-be creator refuses to look anywhere but at himself. Escapism happens, but not to those who deeply love Reality, rather to those who deeply love themselves.