We are constantly - in order to cope with painful realities - shuffling through third-rate, half-remembered fantasies taken from movies, from TV, from people we admire. We do this individually, we do it collectively - we tell stories to escape our most painful truths.
Interpretation
We seek refuge in fantasies to avoid facing painful truths.
This quote by Joshua Oppenheimer highlights the human tendency to escape from reality by immersing ourselves in tales and fantasies drawn from various sources like movies, television, and admired personalities. It suggests that both individually and collectively, we create narratives that help us cope with the harshness of our realities, illustrating a profound aspect of how we process pain and suffering through storytelling.
In practice
In a discussion about mental health, one might say, 'As Joshua Oppenheimer once noted, we often turn to stories to escape our painful truths.'
If we don't accept the uncomfortable proposition that every perpetrator of virtually every act of evil in our history has been a human being like us, then we actually foreclose the possibility of understanding how we do this to one another and therefore make it impossible to figure out how we might prevent these things.
In documentary filmmaking, there's a tradition of telling stories about victims. We often do that from a very patronizing place, but mostly we do it from a very selfish place, to reassure ourselves that our lives are in sympathy and solidarity with the victims.
My father's family was mostly obliterated in the Holocaust, and I grew up very much with the sense that the central moral and political question is how do we prevent these things from happening again.
I went looking for embodiments of pure evil, but found ordinary people.
People may assume 'The Act of Killing' is a historical documentary about what happened in 1965. But our purpose was to expose a present-day regime of fear for what it is.
I think 'The Act of Killing' forced people to look at the problem, but the problem is actually a state run by thugs, or a shadow state, a part of the state that's run by thugs, and a military that enjoys complete legal - not just impunity, but immunity.
...in the decline of life shame and grief are of short duration; whether it be that we bear easily what we have borne long; or that, finding ourselves in age less regarded, we less regard others; or, that we look with slight regard upon afflictions to which we know that the hand of death is about to put an end.
I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.
In the morning a man walks with his whole body; in the evening, only with his legs.
Authors from whom others steal should not complain, but rejoice. Where there is no game there are no poachers.
Fixity is always momentary. But how can it always be so? If it were, it would not be momentary - or would not be fixity.
It is as absurd to argue men, as to torture them, into believing.
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