There has recently been some discussion about whether or not a book written by Someone Who Was There is a full and accurate portrayal of events. The author says it is; others who were also there said a review of the book seemed to be commenting on a work of fiction.
Is the book fact or fiction? Is it true or not? The answer, of course, is yes.
There is no single, complete and fully accurate description of anything. As countless philosophers and scholars have noted over the centuries, people exist apart from whatever reality may be out there. We experience events through our own lenses, we interpret events based on our previous interpretations. Where you stand, as they say, depends largely on where you sit.
For the author of the book in question, the events happened as explained. That truth is based on recollections, researching the book (which invariably got filtered through an evolving memory), and the need to put a series of events into a coherent narrative both for the sake of the reader and the writer). For the author, any recollections that significantly vary from his description are fictions rooted in personal agendas or politics. Others who read the book will encounter it just as the author encountered the elements in it – in retrospect, based on selected recollections, and with an eye to constructing a coherent narrative. Both tellings are equally fictitious – and equally true.
Which brings us to policy.
All policy arguments are constructions of reality. They are stories with victims, victors and vanquished. They make sense from a point of view that both reinforces and reflects a reality. Issues, like history, are multidimensional.
For example copyright protection can be about law enforcement and centralizing an already too-powerful oligopolistic elite (giving prosecutors the tools they need to enforce national and international law); rewarding artistic insights and continuing the commodization of our shared culture (people should get paid for cool stuff they think up); hanging onto fast-fading and failing economic models at the expense of new ways of working and creating new economic models(enforcing current copyright law); and so forth. All of these “stories” about copyright are accurate fictions.
The task of the policy entrepreneur is the same as the task of the would-be author. Authors who sell lots of books tend to know what their readers want, and deliver it to them. Successful advocates do the same – they learn who their readers are (decision makers), how those folks view the world, and then write their policies in ways that reinforce the decision makers point of view. Democrats who read kiss-and-tell books about the Bush administration, and Republicans who read books praising the President, do so for the satisfaction of saying “I knew it!” Legislators tend to support issues that allow them to say the same thing.
