Yuval Noah Harari

The truth is often painful.

Fiction can be made as flattering as you would like it to be.

Again, we have never done anything bad to anybody.

We are perfect.

We are wonderful.

So this is why fiction tends to be far more powerful as a story.

And also when you try to motivate people for action, you don't want them to have doubts.

You need them to be fired up, 100% committed.

And fiction is easier to work with in this respect.

Yes, you know, a kind of absolute commitment to the pursuit of truth is a spiritual practice, but it's a very, very difficult political program.

Again, there is a difference between lying and fiction.

You lie when you know something is not true and you nevertheless say it or support it.

In many cases, I think the ideal is to recognize that we are using fictions to maintain our society.

This is the difference, I would say, for instance, between the United States and many other powerful countries in history, that if you look at the U.S.

Constitution, it starts with we the people.

We the people have come together and agreed on these texts, on these principles.

It is coming from our mind.

It is our creation.

Now, it doesn't use the word fiction, of course.

But when I say fiction, I mean something which is not objective.