Applied fiction is therefore based on the principle that we live in a world where the course of life is written, acted and watched by men. It also includes the behaviour of those who do not know what is going on. Hence the first principle of what I call Applied Fiction.
1ST PRINCIPLE OF APPLIED FICTION
All human societies are made up of four categories of people: those who write what their contemporaries are experiencing, those who play what has been written, those who watch and those who do not know what is going on.
2ND PRINCIPLE OF APPLIED FICTION
The second principle tells him that anyone in a lower category aspires to move up to the category above. Thus, he who does not know what is happening aspires to become a spectator who only aspires to become an actor who himself would like to be a screenwriter. Men are always attracted in the direction of greater knowledge. Thus, he who does not know what is happening will evolve towards the closest level of knowledge, that is, becoming a spectator. The spectator will evolve to be an actor and the actor to be a screenwriter.
THE VIEWDERS
History having taught us that invisible screenwriters are not always honest and do not always work for the good of humanity, Hitler is an example of this, so there is a category to be created among the spectators who do not aspire to be actors but possibly screenwriters themselves, except that their scripts would only be critical re-readings of the scripts of previous or contemporary screenwriters. They are « viewders ». A bit like James Joyce re-reading The Odyssey when he wrote Ulysses. We could even go further by introducing the « screenwriter’s sermon ». By writer, I mean any person who holds a power that can influence the « dynamic architecture » of human daily life.
A WORLD IN FOURTH DIMENSIONS
Everything comes down to saying that the world has four dimensions: the conceived world, which calls on religion and morals, the played world, which is more in the realm of politics, economics and social organisation, the viewed world, which calls on art and science, and finally the ignored world, which calls on education.
THE COMMENTARY CULTURE
Our knowledge of the world and daily events is made through the media, so that they become an extension of our daily environment. It is the theatre of actors and spectators where the intermediaries are journalists. Having neither the time nor the means to dissect the available information in depth, we are content with a comment made by a third party. For example, we will not go and see all the films advertised in a newspaper, we will read the reviews and most often it will be all we will have left of those films that we have not seen but for which we will have had a summary report. If there were ten films that were advertised and we saw one, there would be nine films left, of which we would only have kept one journalist’s review. This is why the applied fiction writer does not just write his invisible story. He also writes the summary report or even the critique of his story, because that may be all that some people will retain.
TRANSACTIONS AROUND FICTION
The phenomenon we are witnessing in the stock market today is completely related to the stories that are told to the people who buy and sell the shares. We buy and sell based on a story we’ve heard. The phenomenon is all the more important as companies are becoming more and more virtual. The most speculative shares are those of internet companies because they feed only on fiction. We have also seen the phenomena of mergers or downsizing that are nothing more than stories that investors believe. Believing that they are following a certain reality, they actually create it according to the « principle of reflexivity ». The principle of reflexivity is a principle that is based on the principle that behind every action there is a reaction. In the same way as we act on the world, the world acts on us and lives towards it.
Applied fiction leads individuals to act according to the story they hear, but at the same time, their behaviour acts on the story that becomes reality. In the beginning, the story is neither true nor false, it is a story. We are beings whose need for fiction shapes the world we live in.
FICTIONALIZED PROFESSIONS
Fiction in one’s profession and therefore the lives of others is the way to reach the highest level. Thus, the company that will produce the best story will see its stock explode. Even the tramp who approaches you on the street is aware that depending on the story he tells you, he will get the part he wants. More and more scams are organised around fiction. They make you believe in banking transactions that will multiply your money.
What is most surprising is the disbelief of the people who believe in it. Who among us hasn’t yet been fooled by a bum? We have an insatiable need for fiction, and when faced with a story, we remain children. That is why fiction is a formidable weapon or protection when it is used in everyday life. We are witnessing another phenomenon, that of the history within us, which leads us to ignore the inevitable scientifically proven.
LIVING IN CINEMA
The survival instinct that manifests itself through commercial activity in reality as well as in the media pushes the human being to a new type of communication with what it includes (impatience, limited listening, body language…). What will be left of the human? Only the future will tell us if humans were able to adapt to the pressure of the conditions created for legal entities such as companies. The question we have to ask ourselves is, what makes this way of life such a great story? In my opinion it is not. At least, the story is simplistic and Manichean. There are no shadows, no complexities. « Predictable. » How can you qualify a person’s desire to make money? That’s why it’s important that a discipline like applied fiction has a place in our daily lives, so that we can be, according to the circumstances, the Cid taking off his glove to give alms to a leper (Barby d’Aurevilly), Raskolnikov kneeling before Sonia the prostitute (Crime and Punishment). Thus applied fiction aims to help humans to understand, understanding is loving and loving that which resembles us the least reveals the most of ourselves. Also our life will question society about the presence of evil in it and consequently about the responsibility of institutions. It gives back a romantic ambition to our life. In this way, the story of human life will perhaps escape the bad station novel that is proposed to it; a novel forged by the commonplace of the moment by substituting it for a sublime original work, telling a story that is literature. Proust vs. Delly, Tournier vs. Guy
of the Cars, the fight is uneven. Living the poems with actions and feelings of the characters evolving in his universe, instead of just writing or reading them. And to learn in a crisis, that instead of going towards greater clarity, towards the dissipation of darkness as Holmes would do, why not try to start from a clear situation, restore uncertainty, provoke the thick fog where certainties will disappear and the initial situation will be swallowed up. Undo the enigma in order to better redo it. Isn’t this the « magic » that man needs? Carmen and her « if I love you, beware » are much more relevant to crimes of passion than a coroner’s report or the expectations of a magistrate who may never have known passion.
Applied fiction considers all human life to be an enigma, it does not seek to shed light on a man’s shadowy areas as psychoanalysis does. For they are his strength.
PEOPLE’S CINEMAS
Why did Moses, according to Freud, need to make God invisible? To make his story last for thousands of years. No image has lasted as long in the human imagination as the absence of an image. This emptiness gives free rein to the most important fiction, religious faith. Imagine the power of the « God is Great! » of Ayathollah Khomeini’s revolution. It may not be a story in the technical sense with a beginning, a middle and an end, but it is the very thing that is the origin of stories. Imagine how many people have recognised themselves in « the civilising mission of France! » The number of changed destinies, tragedies, happiness behind this projection into fiction. Wasn’t Lenin’s biggest mistake « socialist realism », the absence of fiction? A country writes its history by assigning itself a role, a mission, by celebrating its heroes. This is how new characters feel endowed with this mission and create the destiny of this country. It is great politicians who define this destiny, in short a story that their fellow citizens must live. Of that order. France eminently represents the analytical, revolutionary, secular, irreligious period of humanity, and it is because of its powerlessness even in religion that it is linked with this sceptical indifference to the formulas of the past.
FRANCE, A FICTION
It may be that one day France, having fulfilled its role, will become an obstacle to the progress of humanity and disappear, for the roles are profoundly distinct; he who has made the analysis does not make the synthesis. To each his own work, such is the law of history. France will have been the great revolutionary instrument; will it be powerful for religious rebuilding?
The future will know.
In any case, it will have sufficed, for its glory, to sketch a face of humanity.
Renan E. L’Avenir de la Science 1890 (Paris, Calmann-Levy, 1910.) P. 318
Or some other kind,
It’s only a step, but it is made by France; and, in a given time,
every step France takes, the world will take. This is so true that, when she makes haste, the world revolts against her, and takes her to task, finding it even easier to fight her than to follow her. Therefore France’s policy must be a guiding policy and always be summed up in two words: never walk slowly enough to stop Europe, never walk fast enough to prevent Europe from joining.
Hugo V. The Rhine. Lettres A Un Ami 1842 (Paris, Ollendorff, 1906.) P. 466
To close.
And when Brittany will be no more, France will be; and when France will be no more,
mankind will still be, and eternally it will be said: Once upon a time, there was a noble country,
sympathetic to all beautiful things, whose destiny was to suffer for mankind and fight for it. Renan, The Future of Science: p.221
WE’LL ALL BE ACTORS
Where does an actor’s character begin and end for a spectator?
How many times have we been in front of an actor who doesn’t know us and go towards him as if he were an old friend with a big smile? Or the fact that through a TV commercial, we are challenged and perform an act of consumption in the real world, makes it clear that we are obliged to consider the virtual world on the same level as the real world. This is the question that applied fiction tries to answer. The actor needs to occupy the space of applied fiction. This space is a mixture of the virtual and real worlds. It is populated by people who are alive, dead or who have existed only in the imagination of its creators. The first objective of a person wanting to exist would therefore be to be born. It does not matter how one is born. « Any publicity is good publicity ». To be a citizen of this space, one must mainly have been recorded, recreated or told by the media images, texts or sounds. The space itself is subject to the same rules as the actors. At a time when Hollywood is no longer satisfied with the cinematographic space to make its actors evolve, and when its practices rub off on other professions, it is important to question what will remain natural and spontaneous in our daily lives.
If the century that is coming to an end has seen the camera at one end and television at the other, with the satellites in between, develop as the main tool of applied fiction, thus making men from all over the world spectators, the century that is beginning will aim to make these spectators actors. A process that had already begun with the television remote control. This process will be further developed with the mobile phone on one side, our daily space on the other with its plethora of gadgets, all of which will be transmitted via the Internet.
The mobile phone would be a kind of remote control in everyday life that would allow people to help themselves by dialling a number displayed on a drinks dispenser, and payment would be associated with the telephone bill.
We can imagine other scenarios. A jacket made of sensors connected to a mobile phone would make it possible to send ultrasound (and therefore visual) information at a given frequency, for example to a centre recording data for each person. This centre would make it possible to monitor the health of all individuals. Which brings us to the main tool that has been at the very basis of human evolution: memory.
THE HOLES OF DEPENDENCY
We can also see the dependency that men have on the holes that are: eyes, mouth, nose, ears, sex, anus and skin. Let’s mention the products that the holes consume in bulk:
Eyes: television, movies, photos, computers..,
books, newspapers…
Ears: music, sound system, TV-cinema sounds, lyrics,
phones, walkman, computers…
Mouth: food, drink/alcohol, tobacco, drugs,
medicine, water…
The nose: air, smells, drugs…
Sex: condoms, trimmings…
Anus: toilet paper…
Skin: water, cream, clothes, razors, jewelry…
The producers of everything that the holes consume « write » every day what
we live. The greater the competition and the more you master the science, the more important the hole conditioning is. For example, getting the eyes to look at only one type of image, the ears to listen to only one type of sound, the mouth to eat only one type of food etc…
On top of that, holes can be infected by air, food, sex, drugs, tobacco, water, medicines, television, religion (sects), writing, pictures… Today there are several industries living from these infections. To top it all off, what is written in this way for mankind is tragic in the Aristotelian sense of the word. Doesn’t he say, « A good story should arouse fear and pity? »
It is in this sense that applied fiction is part of all consumer industries.
FICTION LIVES
The purpose of our life is not to create a story; it is to live because every life is already a story. Some are original, others are « remakes », déjà vu; others are a formula for life written by others. It’s not by chance that the first time you meet an original individual, you feel like asking « what’s his story? ».