CONCEPT
Fantasy (Murdoch)
Not daydreaming but the ego's <em>protective mechanism</em> — the construction of a comfortable picture of reality that shields the self from confrontation with what is actually there.
Fantasy, in Murdoch's specific and technical sense, is not creative imagination but the ego's mechanism for constructing a comfortable picture of reality that protects it from what is actually there. Fantasy substitutes the wished-for for the real: the person fantasizes that her relationship is harmonious when it is troubled, that her work is important when it is trivial, that her understanding of a problem is adequate when it is superficial. Fantasy is distinguished from imagination by its function — imagination reaches toward reality and can enlarge perception; fantasy insulates the self from reality and reinforces the ego's narrative. The AI age dramatically empowers fantasy by providing polished, articulate, professionally formatted versions of the ego's preferred pictures of reality, which the ego accepts as perceptions.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The distinction between fantasy and imagination is central to Murdoch's aesthetic and moral philosophy. She argues — following in part the Romantic tradition, in part her own reading of Simone Weil — that genuine art requires imagination (reaching toward
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