At some point in evolutionary history, homo sapiens found that fiction was a useful tool. Homo sapiens told stories, it told lies, it made jokes, it did impressions, exaggerating or embellishing the characteristics of others to include the invention of mythological creatures and heroic acts which it pretended to have witnessed or even experienced first-hand.
Attending to fiction releases the physical body from the process of seeking (performing). It allows animals to learn without physical experience, by instead comparing a performance with previously acquired knowledge. If something is relevant, resonant, feasible, believable, relatable or entertaining, we are able to forget about reality.
The process is known as the suspension of disbelief.
From ritual performance, which is also a context (which is also a place or a venue or a situation), human beings have learned to a) observe without attempting to alter the outcome of events, and b) do it judgementally, analytically, or critically.
In life, the body sends information to the brain regarding a specific area of interest, whilst also delivering information related to the broader environment. The former is the subject of interest, the latter is its background or context.
The subject is considered consciously, whereas the background is merely felt – the human being knows where it is, how it is feeling, and what it is doing – without really thinking about it. The brain sends motor signals to the body regarding its analysis of this. In a complex world we may be concentrating on a task that we regularly do, plus feeling like we ought to perhaps put a coat on, while thinking more generally about another problem which should be dealt with. This might lead to an increase in the speed of the task, or a decrease in attention to the task, or stopping for a moment to put on a coat, or stopping altogether to address the nagging problem. It depends on the hierarchy of “seeking”.
In a fictional performance situation – where physical reality remains unaffected by events (and events remain unaffected by physical reality) – the body sends information to the brain, as usual, but the brain does not send motor signals to the body; it withholds the information and the body behaves instinctively, without direction. In a theatre, in a cinema, watching TV or reading a book – if the fiction is captivating enough, the brain seeks inwardly – it stops the feedback loop of physical and psychic interaction – the body-brain-body activity of engagement and performance – and becomes a body-brain engagement alone, where phenomena or the information provided by the senses have been understood by the brain as not requiring action or interference in the search for pleasure – and this situation is entertaining.
Entertainment need not be frivolous – it might be deeply moving (note how the notion of being emotionally moved – by real life or fictional events – replaces actual movement or motor function activity between brain and body). This kind of engagement, audienting, attending, etc, is applicable not just to great entertainment or fiction, but to any riveting or important information we might receive. Performance is the presentation of (self-) important information, and is not limited to entertainment – theatre is found everywhere – and its experience causes the suspension of disbelief.
When we are captivated our ability to perceive the rest of the environment is reduced. The background becomes unimportant in relation to the activity, event or information. We believe without question. Authenticity has a role to play in this, which is akin to believability and engagement.
The problem with this evolutionary development is that it is open to abuse. Film-makers, authors and theatre practitioners know the cultural codes to stimulate emotional engagement, to cause the suspension of outside interference and to focus the attention. Composers know it. Poets and playwrights know it. The process can be learned and used as a magic spell upon willing and unwilling audiences.
It is a method of deception.
I once did some sound work for a series of property auctions that were run by an American company. It was more like a show than a serious auction; there were bursts of loud music, a charismatic and funny auctioneer, and numerous actors in the audience who flirted with the bidders, encouraging them to be competitive: “you don’t wanna be beaten by that guy! You deserve to own this!”
Aside from my own, there was no disbelief to be found anywhere in the room. The audience had fun spending money beyond their budget. The auction company didn’t want anyone worrying about their bank account – it wanted them to focus on their desire to own the property.
In short: when information provides its own inner context we give it our exclusive attention. The information becomes a venue in itself, regardless of everything going on in the physical (outer) environment. Really good news or really bad news causes a suspension of disbelief just as great music, theatre or film does, because we cannot intervene or affect the course of events, though they are engaging. We therefore find resonance in fiction by comparing the performance-information with our previous experience. We forget that we are cold and wet as we celebrate hearing incredible news. The physical world evaporates as the world of information – the internal, intellectual, emotional world – is stimulated into thought-action.
If we are provided with news that does not captivate or resonate, which is inauthentic or against our beliefs, our previous experience; or if we are embarrassed or afraid, we become intensely aware of our physical environment, the reality of the situation, and we want to escape from the performance because disbelief is no longer suspended and we are returned to the world. The brain goes back to sending motor signals, the distracted body starts looking for an exit – wishing that a hole would swallow it up – like a detached bystander at one of those auctions.
Actors once were vilified, like witches, for their ability to deceive. If you can bring someone under your spell, make them believe in your performance – then you have a special power.
Politicians know how to use it. Teachers know how to use it.
Entertainment is ubiquitous, and not without reason. Most of it is advertising to us, manipulating us, having already made us vulnerable, detaching us from reality. It is not a special event anymore, to be entertained. It can happen at the push of a button (or the casual click of a link). We can suspend disbelief at will, switching off the outside world. And by preventing reality from interfering with our pleasure, at will, we gradually come to rely on illusion, information, language and designed performance for an experience of pleasure.
And pleasure is all any organism instinctively seeks.
We should avoid the slide into perpetual audienting – ever the audience and never the actor.
When information is entirely presented as entertainment, the experience of disbelief, of being open to new sensations in the real world, is no longer suspended; it has been annihilated.