Reality--What a Concept

Your cover story was interesting; the title was appropriately melodramatic. Occasionally, the argument seemed to be on the verge of indulging in the age-old discussion about the nature of truth, which was exciting.

I always thought that fact is something that exists or happens, a condition in the real world, and that a description of it can be either true or false. I always believed that a description is real only as a sentence or phrase or story is real (i.e., it is a collection of symbols, often on paper, but sometimes on celluloid or film). I had the opinion that a description is like a painting. It represents a fact or set of facts, but is not the reality it represents.

I always had the impression that all depictions are hypothetical, each capable of being true or false, valid or invalid. I did not even imagine that news accounts are somehow more real than are fictional representations.

Clearly, I am mistaken, for if I were not, then your story, “The Death of Reality,” actually deals with the critical appreciation of some given audience, and little more than that. Surely it does not deal with argument forms, fictional characterization or claims of accuracy attributed to dubious expository distortion. The story does not concern itself with truth or falsehood or even with the conundrums of reality versus fantasy.

I do not know whether it contains a cunning advocacy to limit the vehicles for commentary on the real world that historically have been available to people who regard themselves as its observers. Does it mean that Steinbeck, if he wanted to reflect on reality, should never have written “The Grapes of Wrath”? Should Swift and Cervantes both have confined themselves to what critics regard as nonfiction?

Clearly, if fiction sometimes is a commentary on reality, it may be appropriate for real people (even vice presidents, if they are real) to comment on the critique.

Is it possible that the priests of the Temple of Murphy Brown have acquired the skills of Candice Bergen’s father, and that the voices we hear are theirs?

Of course not. I know that. Almost nobody’s lips are moving.

RICHARD D. STAFFORD

Hemet