This is an excellent post on the importance of fantasy!
The great struggle of our age is to re-assert our humanity against those institutions that define and treat us as simple automatons. Freudian “Drive-Reduction Theory” attempted to minimize all life into simplistic, mechanical terms. B. F. Skinner went so far as to claim that ALL behavior results from external reinforcement: Reward “good” behavior and punish “bad” behavior, and humans can be conditioned for the better. Utopia, therefore, is just a few conditioning sessions away …
Problem is, living things are inherently complex. Life refuses to be contained within formulas. So when behavioral scientists observed subjects ignoring rewards and spontaneously exploring and experimenting, they had to admit this impulse was internal, rather than external, as Skinner had assumed. A new term arose to describe this activity, as this refreshing article from Medium reports:
Intrinsic motivation refers to the spontaneous tendency “to seek out novelty and challenges, to extend and exercise one’s…
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charles french words reading and writing 
So after years of trying Skinner’s Operant Conditioning it seems humans are too complex and require Intrinsic Motivation to keep them going. Maybe pure honesty rather than manipulation might be worth trying?
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Now that is a wonderful idea!
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Excellent post. It confirms the importance of my reading aloud to children and keeping fantasy alive.
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It certainly does, and your work is crucially important.
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Thank you!
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You are welcome!
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And Fantasy ain’t a bad thing when Reality is even scarier!
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True, reality is almost always more frightening.
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