1086 - The Truth About Fiction

The rise of reality TV before the rise of social media mimics the same historic path literature took from its origins in fiction into nonfiction. We invented truth after fiction, not before. This should bother us more. We should find this peculiar.

It took us thousands of years to decide we should separate facts from the lore we recollect. This idea of two separate categories remained undiscovered until 1867. There is no central inventor; libraries suddenly realized these things were different. Nonfiction was a conscious emergence, the same way depth perspective in paintings came late in the 14th century.