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Dear Norm, Thanks for the references. I'll get them and read them. In the case you cite here, though, I'd suggest this is not fiction but bad, incorrect, or inadequate representation. In an earlier response in this thread, I argued that the words or thoughts or ideas we attribute to others must belong to them. This is one aspect of my argument that there are forms of responsible representation that are not and cannot be fiction. No matter whose views you represent, it is possible to record or transcribe their words and it is possible to check a transcript. This may be more difficult with translations, and it sometimes distinguishes the interpretation drawn from others's words -- but the words belong to them. What you describe here is not fiction, but bad representation. Depending on tne circumstances, we might used other words than "bad," but fiction -- intensional art or imaginative construction -- is not the issue. Ursula LeGuin writes fiction. She sets imagined yet surprisingly lifelike men and women in imaginary cultures and circumstances to work out the consequences of human nature as she sees it in these imagined worlds. This is art. To quote Picasso, LeGuin's art is "a lie that tells the truth." This is fiction. The epistemic violence practiced by some of the paid experts you describe is not a lie that tells the truth. It is a lie that remains a lie. Others are simply mistaken in their reports. In neither circumstance, however, are the practitioners of epistemic violence fiction writers. They represent what they seem to believe to be truth. There may, of course, be some paid experts who knowingly present falsehoods, willfully lying for various purposes. This is not fiction, either: the speaker or writer of such lies knows the truth and does not speak or write it. Some of the characters who promulgated the invasion of Iraq fit that category. I can understand what you describe as the "fictive" quality of some writing, but I'd still distinguish this from genuine fiction. Words and voices belong to those who shape, write, or speak them. No matter how "fictive" any text may be, no matter what our epistemology, anyone with a reasonably functional mind can quote or transcribe correctly. As every novice journalist learns -- everyone can check quotes and fact (or the perception of facts) with sources. As journalists also learn, the person who signs the article may differ from the source -- interpreting differently, describing differently. What is quoted or attributed to a source belongs to the source. The choice of sources and the use of added or contrary sources belongs to the writer, along with interpretations and conclusions. When we try to represent sources -- or the voices of other real human beings -- we move beyond fiction. As we should. Yours, Ken On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 22:04:57 +1000, Norm Sheehan <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >A critical dimension of the all writing is fiction episode for some may be the area of epistemic violence - for example ... anthropologists study 'natives' then write and inform readers concerning the truth of these others becoming well paid experts on this truth while the persons who live this truth have no voice - and cannot correct the mistakes of the informant. >Merriam-Webster's defines "fiction" as: > >"1 a : something invented by the imagination or feigned; specifically >: an invented story b : fictitious literature (as novels or short >stories) c : a work of fiction; especially : NOVEL; 2 a : an >assumption of a possibility as a fact irrespective of the question of >its truth <a legal fiction> b : a useful illusion or pretense; 3 : >the action of feigning or of creating with the imagination."